City Club of Eugene host ‘all hands-on deck’ forum on homelessness

Faye Venes, pictured left, co-founder of Community Supported Shelters, asks the panel questions. From left to right: Kaarin Knudson, City Club Past President, Mike Coughlin, Amazon Corner owner, Karen Saxe, director of policy, advocacy, and strategic relationships at DevNW and Brittany Quick-Warner, President & CEO of Chamber of Commerce.

In 2019, Eugene ranked worst for homelessness per capita in the nation. This superseded Los Angeles, and New York City. The conference noted 432 individuals experience homelessness per 100,000 people, per capita.

City Club of Eugene hosted the public conference to address the homeless crisis, Aug. 22. The conference featured representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Dev Northwest and Business Leaders Task Force.

Key speaker echoed homelessness should be rare, brief, and nonrecurring. “This isn’t the case in Eugene,” said Kaarin Knudson, City Club Past President.

Over 100 local businesses united to address the cause after a report authored by the chamber was published.

Panelist rotated the podium to comb through issues facing the homeless arena. A Q&A session aired community concerns on homelessness.

80 percent of the homeless population in Eugene live in unsheltered conditions, one panelist said. The statistic suggests to the severity of the homeless issue and demand for expanding for emergency accommodation.

Brittany Quick-Warner, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, said, “the system can’t cope with the size and scope of the crisis today.”

Collectively, the speakers tasked officials and organizations with establishing common goals to create a viable roadmap.

The City of Eugene conducted a cost analysis of the homeless problem to determine what is viable for the system to support.

The report portrayed a need for better quality data and to augment service provider capacity. Service providers are community groups that assist unsheltered populations and business owners. This is intended to offset underfunding and increase resources.

In concert with combatting homelessness, is a limited housing supply. Vacancy rates hover between one and two percent in Eugene.

When the vacancy rate of a city is below five percent, this illustrates a housing problem, according to commercial property owner, Mike Coughlin.

A shortage of 140,000 homes exists across Oregon and a 400,000 home shortage is projected over the next four years, according to Karen Saxe. Saxe is DevNW’s Director of Policy, Advocacy, and Strategic Relationships.

Saxe connected this to wages not keeping up with housing costs and causing “stagnation” in the property market.

The capacity of non-profits’ efforts was said to be saturated by limited funding. Funding often runs out or is a one-time issuance. Coughlin said that affordable housing doesn’t translate to being more affordable to build, which layers additional issues to the supply shortage.

Compounded by a lack of affordable housing, other impacts trace back to the legacy of the pandemic.

Quick-Warner connected reduced housing and mental health inventories as inflammatory of the crisis. This was linked to one time funding reliefs issued during the pandemic, running dry and not being met with follow-up funding.

Saxe echoed sentiments that housing should not be a luxury and said, “everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home.”

While the speakers harmonized around localized issues, the narrative was challenged by Coughlin. “The Governors 200-million-dollar plan is not even a drop in the bucket to address the situation,” said Coughlin.

Coughlin’s skepticism of insufficient funding tasked officials to step up in unity and pay out.

Quick-Warner said, “our federal government has a massive responsibility, they have reduced their contribution and we have to figure out on a local level how to serve these individuals.”

Coughlin said a negative correlation exists with homelessness and poverty, accusing rental rates as further marginalizing those unsheltered.

Justifying why a long-term plan is needed, Coughlin said, “it’s going to take us years to build out affordable housing.”

A challenge for the future of coalition efforts is to generate a plan that compels local and federal funding sources to cooperate.

The 98th LOC Annual Conference is Oct. 12–14, at the Graduate, Eugene. The event will feature themes of homelessness.

Online registration is open and a preliminary agenda is available for those interested in participating.