October 4, 2024
'You're doing something to help people move forward'
The Joint Office of Homeless Services uses Supportive Housing Services funding to expand services at day and drop-in spaces across the county.
Every weekday, people living with HIV are welcomed inside the HIV Day Center, a safe and confidential space run by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon in Northeast Portland. The center, which was the first freestanding HIV center in the country when it opened three decades ago, helps people meet their basic needs and find community and connection.
Day centers and drop-in spaces like the HIV Day Center provide more than just a place to get a hot meal. Many also provide laundry, showers and mailing services. Some, like the HIV Day Center, even offer connections to longer-term services, like healthcare and housing.
And thanks to additional funding from the Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS) and the Supportive Housing Services measure, the HIV Day Center was able to increase its impact last year, expanding its service hours to its pre-COVID levels. These days, clients can find community and services at the center Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This critical restoration of the center’s capacity was made possible by a Joint Office of Homeless Services funding package of unanticipated Supportive Housing Services revenue distributed to seven local organizations with existing day center and drop-in programs: Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, Operation Nightwatch, New Avenues for Youth, Transition Projects, Rose Haven, Ground Score Association/Trash for Peace, and Blanchet House. All have used the new resources to expand their day center or drop-in services.
That same package is also allowing two brand-new day spaces to open in FY 2025: the St. Johns Day Center, which will be operated by Do Good Multnomah, and the Trans & Queer Services Center, which will be operated by the Marie Equi Center.
This additional funding was approved by the Board of County Commissioners in fall 2023, and as a result, people made more than 90,000 visits to daytime and drop-in services in Multnomah County last fiscal year.
HIV Day Center expands hours, offering further support for guests with HIV
With the expanded hours at the HIV Day Center, guests have more opportunities to sit down for a meal, do their laundry, take a shower and get their mail. Many of the guests are experiencing homelessness and might not have access to those basic, daily opportunities otherwise.
“The funding from JOHS has been huge for us,” said Taylor Silvey, the organization’s public relations and public health coordinator. “It’s allowed us to extend our hours. It’s allowed us to provide more meals and provide more support in the community. So it’s really had a direct impact on our ability to meet the increased needs of our clients.”
For people living with HIV, the meal service is especially important
“One of the things about having a hot meal is that the medication that they’re taking does need to be taken with food,” Silvey said. “For people who don’t have that food source every single day, they are able to have that space that they can come to and take their medication.”
The center also provides a safe community for guests.
“Many of our clients deal with discrimination and stigmatization because of their [HIV] status,” Silvey said. “Sitting down and having coffee and being able to share your experience is really vital to your own mental health.”
Additionally, the day center is able to connect guests with longer-term services. Through a partnership with Cascade AIDS Project, the center is able to connect people with rent and utility assistance.
“We’re able to connect them with those resources and then advocate for them if they need additional help through case management and resources, too,” Silvey said.
With demand for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s services increasing, Silvey says the additional Joint Office funding came at an important time.
“Just with the cost of living, I think there are more and more people who are needing support with utility assistance, rent assistance and just kind of general support,” she said. “It’s just been very, very helpful to be able to have that additional support and be able to continue providing the resources that people need.”
New Avenues for Youth adds outreach team and increases opportunities from partner agencies at its Drop-In Center
The additional funding New Avenues for Youth received from the Joint Office was invested into their downtown Portland Drop-In Center, allowing them to reach more youth experiencing homelessness and connect them to services.
Youth ages 18 to 24 get “three square meals a day, access to a shower, laundry and a clothing closet,” said Sarah Nedeau, senior director of programming for New Avenues.
Critically, the center is also an entrypoint to longer-term services available through the Homeless Youth Continuum, a partnership across five agencies that provides a unified system of services for youth experiencing homelessness. Those services include street outreach, shelter, employment support, housing and more.
“It’s a major artery to a lot of our services,” Nedeau said. “Our role is to provide those basic needs and then wrap the rest of the services around them toward stability and greater safety.”
The Drop-In Center has received funding from Multnomah County since 1998. But this year, the additional funding received from the Joint Office funding package allowed the center to expand its hours and launch a street outreach team that helps connect people with the services offered at the center.
Nedeau said that with the increased hours and new outreach team, they’ve been able to increase referrals into the center by 20% — a total of 242 people this year.
Being open for more hours has also allowed New Avenues for Youth to bring in more community partners that offer opportunities to the youth. Before, the center’s more limited hours made it harder to schedule opportunities with partners. But now, representatives from CareOregon can show up to help sign people up for the Oregon Health Plan on site; YWCA comes to provide confidential domestic violence support; and Metropolitan Public Defenders can offer a monthly clinic to help with legal needs like expungements and name changes.
“It’s exciting stuff that’s starting to be more possible because our hours are not so bifurcated,” Nedeau said.
Funding saves Operation Nightwatch from closing its doors; supports expanded mental health services
For Operation Nightwatch, the funding they received this year from the Joint Office of Homeless Services was the difference between staying open and closing their doors for good. The organization offers drop-in meals and services to about 150 people every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night out of a church in Southwest Portland. There, guests can get a meal, conversations and connections to services.
But before the additional funding came through, Operation Nightwatch was facing a significant financial shortfall.
“We were seriously understaffed,” said Judy Johnson, who co-chairs the organization’s board of directors. “ Our reserves were diminishing. There were just so many challenges.”
Successfully applying for funding from the Joint Office has not only allowed them to sustain their services, but expand and improve them. They were able to hire more employees, extend their hours, and pay for needed security and equipment upgrades to the facility.
The organization has been providing low-barrier mental health support to guests for years, but their recent financial challenges meant they had to cut down that team down to just one person, a licensed clinical social worker. With the new funding, they’ve been able to invest in expanding the program, hiring two mental health specialists and one peer support specialist.
“A lot of the folks who are our guests are not able to schedule appointments and take advantage of services in a traditional way,” Johnson said. “So the mental health piece has been really meaningful for a lot of folks and a way to reach folks that otherwise weren’t going to reach out themselves.”
The mental health staff provide free counseling and crisis intervention, all during their (now expanded) regular service hours.
“The whole idea is to develop some trust, which forms the basis for talking about what kinds of help might be meaningful,” Johnson continued. “You’re not just providing coffee and a meal, you’re actually building relationships that help people move forward with their lives.”