My morning as mayor of Portland, Ore., began with the discovery of bones in the remnants of a burnt homeless encampment. The police told me they had not yet established how long her body had remained undiscovered. The investigation into whether her death was a tragedy or a crime will take time.
Her death was likely a lonely one, one of hundreds of unsheltered deaths that now plague Portland. Before running for mayor, I’d spent years on a self-funded quest across America to understand the homelessness crisis, learn from other cities and leaders who had turned the tide against the growing crisis, and bring those ideas and action to a Portland I no longer recognized. I came away with a powerful realization: unsheltered homelessness is a solvable crisis, but only if we work together.
Since my election, I spend much of my days convincing government, private, and nonprofit leaders of their crucial role. Too often, our homeless meet closed doors in their moments of greatest need. Hospitals struggle to treat those whose needs far exceed their ability to provide care. Business owners struggle to serve those who disrupt their livelihood. We have too few behavioral health and substance treatment beds. Neighborhoods don’t want to see tents, trash, or derelict RVs, police are reluctant to arrest those who will return within hours, and prosecutors hesitate to prosecute those for whom the justice system has become a revolving door with few good outcomes. Counties and cities argue about jurisdiction and funding, and state and federal authorities argue much the same. Most agree on just one thing: someone should do something, but it should be someone else.
Everyone needs to step up, and I’m leading from the front. Homelessness isn’t traditionally a Portland city government issue, but I’m making it our job. Our national soul demands better of us than conservatives who blame blue cities and wash their hands of human suffering. For that matter, it requires better than liberal purists who fail to treat a crisis like a crisis and mobilize an emergency response with the resources we have, and not the resources we might wish we had.
What can we agree on when we face an issue as complex and uniquely individual as homelessness? Locally and nationally, we have bickered. We have splintered. For cities across the West Coast, the crisis has grown beyond our most dire predictions.
I believe we can find a moral overlap to bridge our political divide. We must agree to provide a safe, warm bed for every person, every night. Forgoing this minimum safety net has put us in a position where we can no longer effectively provide treatment, move individuals into long-term housing, or enforce our laws.
If we believe in the morality of ending suffering and deaths on our streets and restoring dignity to our most vulnerable, we must build a system where every door is the right door. Every city, county, state, and federal budget must align behind responding to the unsheltered homelessness crisis like an emergency. Homelessness may ultimately be a housing issue, but we can only house the living.
I recently spent a night in Portland’s newest emergency overnight shelter. I arrived at 8:30 p.m. to the gentle strumming of a local musician. Our city shelters often host guitarists to play soft music to calm our guests as they find their beds for the night. When I found mine, many around me were already asleep. A safe bed meant they could set aside the survival mentality of the streets, engage with outreach workers, and in some cases, begin the journey home.
A homeless woman began to sing along to the guitar. The song was, “It’s a Wonderful World.” Her voice was beautiful, and I realized I recognized her from my time in a nearby shelter. My memory of her will be forever tied to the bones discovered in the tent the previous morning. One woman was alive and sharing her voice that night, the other was lost forever. Our debate on this issue can once again become that simple.
Keith Wilson is mayor of Portland, Ore.
