Homelessness is not a single problem, so it cannot have a single solution. A person struggling with addiction requires a different response than a veteran experiencing homelessness, a person with severe mental illness, or a family working full-time but unable to afford housing.
My priorities are to advance and support policies that:
Expand treatment capacity for addiction and mental illness, including medically assisted treatment, recovery housing, and long-term support.
Require accountability for publicly funded homelessness, addiction, and mental health programs by measuring outcomes, not intentions. Taxpayers deserve to know which programs are helping people achieve recovery, housing, and independence.
Support deflection and diversion programs that connect people to treatment, while maintaining accountability and meaningful consequences, before they enter the criminal justice system.
Enforce laws against public camping, drug use, theft, and disorder while ensuring adequate shelter and treatment options are available.
Increase housing supply by reducing regulatory barriers, streamlining permitting, and encouraging affordable workforce housing. I also support responsible forest management and sustainable timber production on public lands, creating family-wage jobs while generating revenue for counties, public safety, roads, schools, treatment programs and treatment facilities.
Expand support for veterans experiencing homelessness and ensure they receive the benefits and services they earned.
Oregonians are compassionate people. But the way government (our elected representatives) has managed homelessness is neither compassionate nor sustainable. For too long, Oregon has measured success by dollars spent rather than outcomes achieved.
We should judge every homelessness policy by one question: Is it helping people recover from their actual problem, become self-sufficient, and return to stable housing and productive lives? Whenever the answer is no, we should stop funding that failure and invest in solutions that work instead.