Councilor Zimmerman reports SOC updates; flags county budget and advisory‑committee composition

Councilor Zimmerman, Portland’s representative to the homelessness response Steering and Oversight Committee (SOC), provided the committee with a brief update at the start of the March 25 meeting.

Zimmerman said the SOC’s recent meeting focused largely on a data‑project update and the committee’s direction to improve data collection and reporting so the system can better capture differences across demographic groups. "We saw in that presentation some areas, some demographics in our community whose numbers are lagging comparatively to others," Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said he and the mayor raised questions about the membership mix on a SOC community advisory committee. He said roughly half of the nominees appeared to work for service providers that receive Joint Office funding, and he urged the SOC to ensure a balance so that advisory members are not predominantly organizations funded by the Joint Office.

Committee members asked about Multnomah County’s publicly reported budget hole for homelessness services; Zimmerman said the SOC did not deeply address the county budget topic but that county staff had signaled some shelters and workforce services could be at risk. Zimmerman also said the committee learned of the county homelessness department director’s pending retirement only recently and that the county is preparing budget recommendations that will be released separately.

The SOC update took approximately the time allocated on the committee agenda; the committee then moved to subsequent agenda items.