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The city's largest shelter for homeless families has been evacuated after concerns that the building was no longer safe.
The roof at the shelter, a repurposed vegan strip club, is leaking—and Multnomah County officials say that damage caused by the leak could mean the building is not safe.
The revelations come after Oregon Public Broadcasting began asking questions about the safety of the building, OPB reports.
The county invested $700,000 to open the shelter year-round to families two years ago. Until November, the shelter had a policy of turning no one away, but was overwhelmed by the number of people seeking help.
A press advisory from the county says that on Wednesday, the nonprofit Human Solutions alerted the county to collapsed sheetrock and began moving families across the street to a church that is sometimes used as a cold-weather shelter.
OPB reports that shelter residents saw sheetrock falling in December and that "records provided by the county show that Human Solutions reported similar leaks causing significant portions of the interior drywall and insulation to fall in October 2016 and December 2016 as well."
Families will now be moved to motels. It's not clear whether the building, which was supposed to be used for six years as a shelter, will be repaired.
County Chair Deborah Kafoury has ordered a safety review of all of the family shelters in the county, according to the announcement.