News from the Continuum

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Jon Reeves, Executive Director of the Mid Willamette Valley Community Action Agency (MWVCAA), told the first meeting of the Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force that ARCHES had "worked with and assessed over 3,031 individuals, so that tells you that there's an immense amount of homelessness in our community...but just in the last year and a half, we've also housed about 849 individuals...so there's a lot of housing going on, but there's a lot of housing need, so think about that."

So, we did think about that.  And here's the problem we ran into: where does that number, "about 849", come from?  It's not been in any of their management reports.

At left are the figures from ARCHES' last three annual reports (performance year running from Jul 1 to Jun 30) (PH = permanent housing, PSH = permanent supported housing).

We asked Jon and Jimmy Jones, Director of the Community Resources Program for MWVCAA, about that number, but did not receive a reply.

Now, wouldn't you think, if a program housed nearly one third of the homeless individuals they worked with, that they would be bursting with pride and letting everyone know how they did it?  Evidently, not MWVCAA.

OHCS has basically one measure of performance, which is whether people remain in permanent housing after six months.  Know how many such individuals The ARCHES Project reported for PY 2016 (ending June 30, 2017)?  Eighteen.  So, let's also think about that.

The last bit of news from the continuum this week is that the Council of Governments has hired Ali Treichel as the Homeless Initiatives Coordinator.  All we're told about her is that she is "wrapping up her master's in social work and has worked with the homeless community."