City to Fund 50 Treatment Beds at Bybee Lakes Hope Center

The city is now the second government in recent weeks to throw a lifeline to Bybee Lakes, which has long said it couldn’t survive without government subsidies.

Bybee Lakes Hope Center. (Henry Cromett)
By Sophie Peel

Mayor Keith Wilson’s full-court press to reduce unsheltered homelessness has added to a cash infusion from multiple agencies for a long-standing nonprofit at the edge of town.

Wilson announced this week that the city would fund 50 treatment beds at Bybee Lakes Hope Center, the homeless shelter at the site of the former Wapato Jail, as part of a 17-month pilot project to combat homelessness.

The beds the city will fund, at a cost of roughly $1.5 million, already exist at Bybee Lakes; they just haven’t been filled because the nonprofit that runs the shelter, Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers, has said for years that it lacked the money to staff them.

The city is now the second government in recent weeks to throw a lifeline to Bybee Lakes, which has long said it couldn’t survive without government subsidies. Last week, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said the county was in talks to fund 100 of Bybee’s empty beds.

“Our partnerships with the city of Portland and Multnomah County ensure that each bed is funded in full so our team can provide hope and care to the people who are staying there,” says Helping Hands spokeswoman Bethany Verrett.

The city is applying the settlement from a years-old opioid lawsuit to fund the pilot program.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.