Phoenix leaders went to Portland to study homelessness. Here's what they learned
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For the last few years, officials from the city of Phoenix have gone to various cities around the country as part of “homelessness summit” field trips to find out how other cities are dealing with everything from encampments to affordable housing.
Last May, though, one of those trips caught the attention of some critics back home, when they went to Portland, Oregon.
Portland has become something of a bogeyman for the right after decriminalizing possession of many illicit drugs in 2020. Now, that law is facing pushback.
The trip reportedly faced criticism from some other city officials — as well as the libertarian Goldwater Institute, which questioned why city officials would want to visit Portland — where, they said, they have gotten it all wrong when it comes to homelessness.
Phoenix’s deputy city manager, Gina Montes, defended the trip and talked more about the project on The Show.
Full interview
GINA MONTES: Well, Portland is one of several cities that we’ve visited in the last, I want to say, about three years related to homelessness and housing. We visited Los Angeles-Orange County, Louisville, Denver, San Antonio and Austin. And we’ve also had cities come to Phoenix and visit us, and then also just discussions with other cities on a regular basis in terms of what they’re doing around affordable housing and homelessness and what we can replicate and learn, what we can share with others that they can also learn from.
LAUREN GILGER: So talk a little bit about why you chose to go to Portland. This trip was met with some criticism from folks from the Goldwater Institute, etc. What was your response to that? Why Portland?
MONTES: Well, I don’t have a response to necessarily that. Portland, remember that Arizona is in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals area. And so we were particularly interested in how other cities are navigating some of the restrictions surrounding how communities deal with homelessness and particularly encampments, property and those issues. And so Portland being in the Ninth Circuit was more comparable than other communities that are in the Ninth Circuit.
So, the other issue is that, you know, the West Coast is comparable to Phoenix in that they’re ahead of us and not in a good way in terms of housing affordability. But we have certainly, in the last few years, really had issues that we’re struggling with in terms of affordable housing. And so, the conditions we’re hoping not to get to the level of challenge that the West Coast has.
And so we were really interested in — and are still interested in — if those officials could go back in time and do things differently, what would they do differently? What lessons could be learned from their experience, and how could we maybe avoid some of the pitfalls that they’ve experienced out in Portland? And at the same time, what are some of the good strategies and effective strategies that they have used to address such a challenging national issue?
GILGER: That’s really interesting. So it’s almost like instead of going to Portland to try to learn what they’ve done right, you’re almost going there to learn from their mistakes.
MONTES: A little bit of both. I mean, I would include both. I do think that there are a lot of conditions there that are similar, and there are a lot that are very different. And so, to the extent we could learn from those various various challenges, that’s what we wanted to do.
And then also, what are they doing well? So, you know, I don’t think it’s it’s solely framed in terms of “let’s avoid their mistakes” or even saying they made mistakes. But what can we learn from their experience overall?
GILGER: So let’s talk a little bit about the similarities and the differences. You mentioned the region and the Ninth Circuit. Portland is an interesting case study because of the legalization of many drugs there. Like, they took away penalties for street drugs. And that’s sort of been met with — a year or two later — a lot of criticism in Portland because of the rampant spread of drugs on the street. What did you see when you went there in terms of how that particular issue has contributed to their problem of homelessness?
MONTES: Yes. That is probably one of the biggest differences that I saw between what we have in Arizona and kind of their legal framework for addressing issues in Portland. And it was something that came out. And we visited with people from the business community, from law enforcement. We had discussions with folks from county government, their (Greater Portland Council of Governments), similar to our Maricopa Association of Governments. We talked with business owners.
And so that was the one of the issues that consistently came out in those discussions, is the challenges surrounding the legalization of individual drug use. And that was something that I can’t say I was fully cognizant of before the visit, but it really came out as a difference in terms of what has created more challenges for them.
GILGER: So tell me, what are some big takeaways for you in terms of similarities that the two cities had? Did you take away some lessons that might come into practice here in Phoenix?
MONTES: Yes, I certainly was interested in some of their facilities that they had, implemented in Portland. We particularly liked their safe rest villages. There was a lot of discussion at the time there about structured campgrounds. And I think in terms of the size of some of their facilities, their use of modular structures for transitional housing, those were very, very interesting.
I also really enjoyed hearing from their business community. That was one of the first groups that we met with. And their initiative to tax themselves, honestly — and I would say to find a funding stream, I should put it that way — to fund permanent supportive housing.
So they have $2.5 billion as a source of funding from a tax that the business community supported, along with other sectors, over 10 years. And that funding will be used for permanent supportive housing, construction and operations.
So some of those coalitions that came about in around — I want to say 2018, 2019 I believe — and kind of what they were able to do. At the time, they were really looking at the pipeline and how do they get those funds out as effectively and efficiently as possible. And what their long term plans were for addressing their affordable housing issues and also dealing with the folks, or providing opportunities for housing for folks that need those supportive services. That was one of the issues that they were facing that we also face here.
GILGER: So those are some of the takeaways from, you think things that maybe you can adopt from what you’ve learned in Phoenix. What about the other end of it? Like, were there things that you saw there that made you say, “Let’s make sure to avoid that.”
MONTES: I think in terms of avoiding, I’m not sure that I have like a specific (thing) we absolutely would not do that. Other than some of the policy decisions in terms of the legalization of drugs. I’m not an expert on that, but on its face, that seemed to create a lot of challenges for the community, and I understand I think there’s some revisiting of that particular policy.
But I do think the other thing was just getting ahead of the encampments. And in Phoenix, we have a particular way of addressing them that is humane but at the same time addresses that, you know, the issues of encampments and their impacts on the community.
And so not knowing exactly what their strategy on a macro level, I kind of didn’t get a clear sense of that, but I did see a lot of them while I was visiting. And I did get feedback in talking with some of the business community members and even some of the nongovernmental organizations about some of the challenges surrounding that.
So I’m not sure that that’s different necessarily than what we have here. But I did get a sense of the importance of continuing to really address the encampments head-on.
