Putting a Face on Homelessness in Washington County

• The faces of the homeless are families with children, single men and women, vets, and many who are impaired. It is estimated that in Washington County up to 86% of homelessness occurs to families.
• The average age of a person in a county shelter is a 12-year-old child.
• In Washington County more than 43,000 (34%) of our neighbors are one catastrophic illness or lost job away from becoming homeless.
• Since the 4 homeless shelters have only 110 beds, only 12 out of every 100 of the homeless who seek shelter every month in our county will be served.
• The County counted 1241 homeless people in 2006. The actual number is much higher.

The Invisible Poor

Homelessness is a serious problem in Washington County, Oregon. Results from the 2006 homeless count in January found more than 1241 homeless people in the county, including 346 children.  Housing insecurity is increasingly a family experience. If you are homeless in Washington County you have only a slightly better than 1 in 10 chance of getting into a shelter that provides transitional (six weeks), not permanent housing.  Homelessness is the most obvious example of crisis. It underscores the need for more affordable rental housing for those who earn 50% or less of medium family income just below $30,000 per year for a family of 4. Currently, there are over 5000 people on the Housing Authorities wait list.

These people face a 3 year wait to get into Section 8 or Low Rent Public Housing. With the rapidly increasing population of our county as these statistics will only get bleaker for the most vulnerable among us as victims of domestic abuse, the working poor, single parent families, the elderly, persons with physical and emotional disabilities and migrant farm workers.  So if you can’t get off the waiting list what happens? You end up spending more than 30% of your monthly income on private rental housing cutting back on health care, clothing or food. And you are a major illness or job loss away from being on the streets.   The larger issue in the most affluent County in Oregon is housing insecurity among the families of the invisible poor, 1 in 10 Oregonians. At the current rate of adding 300 units of low income rental housing per year, assuming no growth in population, it will take us over 30 years to meet the current need!