Multnomah County staff brief commissioners on shelter referral policies, pilot mapping of entrants

Multnomah County staff on Wednesday responded to a budget‑note briefing request and presented a pilot study of shelter entrants, maps of unsheltered populations, and an overview of how referrals currently work across family, youth, domestic‑violence and adult shelter systems.

Commissioner Julia Brim Edwards had requested the briefing in the county’s adopted fiscal‑year 2025 budget to better understand referral policies and whether people living near a shelter had access to that site. Homeless Services Department deputy director Anna Plum and research analyst Doc Ramblings told the board that referral practices differ by system and shelter type and that the county lacks a systematic, service‑wide record of where people were sleeping immediately before entering shelter.

Why it matters: The differences between ‘‘open’’ referral shelters (self‑referral or community referral) and ‘‘closed’’ referral shelters (entry limited to specific partners, navigation teams or internal provider referrals) shape who can access beds when encampment removals or outreach occur. County staff said shifting to a systemwide open‑referral approach would require coordination with city partners and shelter providers and community discussion.

Key findings and pilot data: - The department’s January by‑name list counted 5,394 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness; staff said they are working to deduplicate and publish an updated monthly dashboard soon. The department reported delays in deduplication work and expected the corrected dashboard to be released in the coming weeks. - Doc Ramblings described a two‑month pilot (October–November) that collected entry data at eight shelters across three providers. During the pilot 465 people entered those shelters; roughly 70 percent were recorded as coming from unsheltered situations and about 335 entries contained location responses that could be mapped. - Among mappable responses, 72 percent were from unsheltered locations and 28 percent from previously sheltered situations (institutions, other shelters, or housing). The pilot showed people enter shelters from across the county; in several congregate sites staff identified entrants who had been sleeping nearby. - Staff also demonstrated maps combining the 2023 HUD Point‑in‑Time (PIT) street‑count survey and shelter locations and said the 2025 PIT data will be added when available.

Staff recommendations and next steps: Plum and Ramblings said the department will finalize the deduplicated population count and post dashboards, prepare a memo for the board when the counts are updated, and begin community‑wide conversations about standardizing referral policy for adult shelters. Commissioner Brim Edwards said she has sent a formal letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler (as chair of the city) asking staff to move toward an open referral process and to review the distribution and use of vouchers across the system.

Points of debate and constraints: Staff said the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) currently does not collect a standard field for where a person slept immediately before shelter entry, in part because collecting extra location data can be a barrier for people seeking immediate shelter and because HMIS is designed for federal reporting. The department has piloted an outreach tool (Survey123) to capture geolocated outreach data and included location capabilities in its HMIS procurement requirements.

Ending: Commissioners asked for more detailed dashboards and for a broader discussion with city partners about referral practices, campsite removals and the pending transfer of city‑operated temporary shelter sites. Staff said they would return with the deduplicated dashboard, a memo, and further community engagement on referral policy.