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What Salem is doing to combat homelessness

When Lynelle Wilcox started volunteering at Salem's warming shelters six years ago, she had the wrong idea. She thought that working hard and saving money would help you avoid homelessness.

In the years that followed, she learned differently and is now reminded of this every day as the director of the women's shelter Safe Sleep United.

Many of the homeless people she has met work and live paycheck to paycheck. Many of them suffer from abuse, mental illness, disabilities and trauma.

Among them are a child psychologist who suffered a stroke and had to relearn how to walk and talk, and teenagers who were released from foster care with nowhere to go or were kicked out of their families because they were LGBTQ+.

“(I) heard so many stories that I had to change my mind,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox addressed attendees of a town hall meeting on homelessness on Tuesday, Sept. 24, hosted by the Salem Human Rights Commission. The group aims to combat discrimination in the city. Earlier this year, its annual community belonging survey found that 91% of homeless respondents had experienced discrimination in the past year.

At City Hall, there were presentations from the city's Outreach and Livability Services Team, Marion County Law Enforcement Diversion Program, Salem Housing Authority, Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency and Church at the Park.

The presentations were followed by a brief Q&A session in which speakers answered questions from the audience and from an online form. Community members, including city leaders, formerly homeless people and service workers, filled about half of Loucks Auditorium.

One goal of the event was to dispel misconceptions about Salem's homeless population.

In her opening remarks, Wilcox told the audience that anyone can become homeless.

“This can happen to anyone who does everything right, saves money, and still ends up in more emergencies than their resources and network can handle,” she said. “Homeless people are not the problem. They are the result of a system that does not provide enough support.”

The resources

During most of the town hall meeting, community resource providers provided introductory information about their programs and the people they serve.

The first speaker, Sergeant Robert Dowd, is a Salem police officer who works on the city's Outreach and Livability Services Team. The team is made up of four public service employees and two police officers who meet with area service providers once a month.

This includes three garbage men who, according to the city, collected an average of 20,000 kilograms of garbage every month last year.

Down said the team's goal is to build relationships through repeated visits with people living on the streets of Salem and to provide them with information about resources available in the community.

“We are trying to help people find a place,” he said.

Josh Wolf of the Marion County Sheriff's Office then provided information about the LEAD diversion program, which allows people to avoid prosecution for minor offenses if they work with a navigator to address the underlying reasons for their law-breaking – often homelessness or addiction. The program's navigators are recovery mentors or alcohol and drug counselors who typically have personal experience with addiction recovery.

Next to speak was Nicole Utz, who heads the Salem Housing Authority, Oregon's third-largest housing authority. Last year, she distributed $28 million in federal funds to help people pay their rent, mostly through housing certificates known as Section 8.

Their work benefits over 9,000 people in the Salem-Keizer area, Utz said. The housing authority also has an outreach team that visits camps several times a week to provide information about housing programs, Utz said. They also distribute immediate basic needs such as water, tarps and winter clothing.

DJ Vincent, founding pastor of the Church at the Park, shared information about its programs, including micro-housing for families, adults and youth with accommodation for 250 people. The city set it up in 2021 primarily with Covid relief funds and recently secured $8.5 million in state funding to stay open at least until next June.

Eight of the residents of her micro-shelter for young adults on Turner Road also take classes at Chemeketa Community College, Vincent said.

Their first micro-shelter, Village of Hope, will soon add 40 beds for seniors in need, staff, offices, accessibility and more showers.

Church at the Park also operates a secure parking program that allows 30 people per night to stay in partner church parking lots. Vincent said over 100 people are on the program's waiting list.

Vincent encouraged those present to participate.

“Many people can pretend to care about our homeless fellow human beings, but they can’t pretend to be there,” he said.

Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, also spoke about the recent increase in available housing in Salem. His agency had zero shelter beds in 2017. Now they house hundreds of people per night.

Jones drew applause as he presented data from the city's Navigation Center, a 75-bed mixed-care home that provides case management to help people stabilize their housing, mental health and employment.

The agency's most recent report on first-year outcomes found that about half of the shelter center residents who left the center – 54 out of 103 people – moved into permanent housing between June 2023 and May 2024. On average, people left the navigation center within four months.

The agency is out in the camps five days a week, including during the July heat wave, where it reported nearly 2,000 calls, including distributing water and cooling towels. The ARCHES Day Center downtown provides showers, mail services, breakfast, lunch and water.

Other housing programs include Taylor's House, a 10-bed youth home, and the 36-bed Tanner Project for veterans.

ARCHES Inn is a renovated 72-room hotel that primarily serves wildlife, veterans and the elderly. Last year, 440 people were housed there, and 115 of them have moved into permanent housing, Jones said.

Jones said that with the increasing number of new shelters in Salem, there are likely as many people living in shelters as sleeping outside.

Jones told some stories of people he has met over the years.

Six-year-old Jade had been living in a tent with her mother and grandmother at Wallace Marine Park for a year when the relief team first met her, Jones said.

“The Salem Housing Authority gave her a place to live. Today she is in middle school, still has a place to live, and she is still doing very well,” he said.

Two other people Jones met – a man named Brian and a mother of three living in a tent in Cascade Gateway Park – did not survive homelessness. Both died of infections because they did not have access to treatment.

“There are literally hundreds and hundreds of stories like this, and the commonality of these three people was simply one thing: They were all victims of circumstance. None of them had really done anything wrong to end up in this particular situation,” Jones said. “They just had a lot of bad luck, more than anything else. But that bad luck can become a death sentence for some people.”

questions and answers

The speakers then returned to the stage to answer questions from the community.

One question came from a downtown security guard who was seeking tips on how to interact with homeless people with empathy and wondering what resources he could provide them. Utz suggested bringing them water and asking how their day is going and creating an opportunity for private security guards to get training with the city.

Another question came from full-time students living in their cars, wondering why millions of dollars go into homeless programs, but they still don't get help.

Jones said that despite the fact that the state budget allocates over a billion dollars to address the problem, that amount amounts to only about $1 for every $15 of the need.

“It's heartbreaking,” he said.

Someone asked what the plan is for people who choose to live as homeless by turning down offers of help. Panelists agreed that it is a common misconception that people consciously choose to be homeless. When people say no, it is often because they are not in the right place to get help or because they do not trust that the offer is sincere.

They agreed that it is about building relationships and continually offering help.

The city's website has a list of opportunities to volunteer and support local organizations serving people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.

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Abbey McDonald joined the Salem Reporter in 2022. Previously, she worked as a business reporter at the Astorian, where she covered labor issues, health care and social services. A graduate of the University of Oregon, she also reported for the Malheur Enterprise, The News-Review and Willamette Week.

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