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Nearly three years ago, city officials launched Portland Street Response, an initiative that sends a pair of mental health clinicians to attend to people in distress rather than deploying police officers.
For nearly that long, the program’s funding has been imperiled.
PSR is administered under the city’s fire bureau, and many firefighters found it an uneasy fit. Political support was further eroded in 2022 when City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, a staunch ally of the firefighters’ union, unseated incumbent Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who championed PSR’s creation.
PSR’s supporters have cast their cause as defending the program from Gonzalez’s attempts to defund it. Gonzalez says he simply wants to secure stable funding for the program that doesn’t compete with other fire bureau programs.
In August, Gonzalez floated an idea to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson: The Joint Office of Homeless Services should use money from Metro’s supportive housing services tax to bankroll Portland Street Response. (That tax, which the region’s voters passed in 2020, is on track to rake in more than $1 billion before it expires in 2031, Metro says.)
As WW previously reported, Vega Pederson rebuffed the idea.
Last week, Gonzalez visited WW’s offices to discuss his campaign for mayor. We asked him about his notion to shift PSR’s funding.
“I think they should be funding Portland Street Response just flat out,” he said. “The county has a lot of unspent dollars. So spend your money. The Joint Office can stabilize the funding for that program indefinitely.”
We then asked why Vega Pederson rebuffed the pitch. Watch his full response here: