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Three members of the Portland City Council have directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would withdraw the city from its contract with the Joint Office of Homeless Services.
Commissioners Rene Gonzalez, Mingus Mapps and Dan Ryan said today they’re directing City Attorney Robert Taylor to prepare an ordinance for a City Council vote in the coming weeks that would sever the city’s intergovernmental agreement with Multnomah County to fund the Joint Office.
The three commissioners brought it up during a Wednesday meeting in which the city’s chief administrative officer, Mike Jordan, and the director of Portland Solutions, Skyler Brocker-Knapp, presented an update on the Joint Office’s progress on the contract between the city and the county. Gonzalez, presiding over the City Council meeting in the absence of Mayor Ted Wheeler, asked for a straw poll to “take the temperature” on the Joint Office’s performance under the new city and county agreement.
“The current IGA is not helping us move forward with our fundamental challenge,” Mapps said. “I would like to do a reboot.”
“It’s just time to move forward,” Ryan said from the dais. “I have zero desire to stay in the current agreement.”
Mapps described the Joint Office as a “dysfunctional family dinner.”
Jordan urged the City Council to stay in the current contract.
“It is a dysfunctional table. It’s more functional than it was two years ago. And it’s more functional than no table at all,” Jordan said. “The only thing I know for sure is that whether you’re in the IGA or out of the IGA, you can’t escape the county. We are in this thing together. We do different elements that are absolutely critical pieces to success, and I think we’re learning to deal with each other better.”
Rubio, the lone commissioner in support of the contract and appearing surprised by the proposal, which was pre-planned by the three commissioners’ offices, told her colleagues she wanted to hang tough. In a statement on Wednesday evening, Rubio said: “What Rene Gonzalez did today puts all of the work we are doing to house Portlanders at risk. The city can’t afford to go it alone—and Rene doesn’t have a backup plan.”
Sources tell WW that the three commissioners still want to explore what working together with the county on homelessness would look like, but are unhappy with the Joint Office’s performance in the current contract, which took effect July 1. The three commissioners provided no alternative plan. Should the council vote to dissolve the contract, it would have to give the county 90 days’ termination notice.
The two jurisdictions, after months of contentious negotiations, entered a three-year agreement that gives the city the ability to leave the contract without financial penalty if it determines the office is not performing well. The existing contract gives the city more oversight and decision-making power over the office’s decisions; the city had complained for years that, despite the name of the office, it had little say in how the office spent its money. (The bulk of the office’s budget is funded by Metro’s supportive housing services tax, a regional tax that generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties to combat homelessness.)
When the city and county signed the agreement in June, effective July 1, officials agreed that the city would reevaluate its participation in the contract after 90 days. Chief administrative officer Jordan briefed the City Council on the progress of the office last week. The commissioners provided mixed responses, but the three who now favor considering whether to dissolve the contract all expressed doubt the county had lived up to its promises.