Governor Issues Order to Combat Homelessness

Executive Order creates Ending Homeless Advisory Council

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski

(PORTLAND) - Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski issued an executive order Tuesday, and injected new urgency into the fight against homelessness by creating an `Ending Homelessness Advisory Council."

`To make real progress in fighting homelessness, we need to build on what we have already accomplished," the Governor told a gathering of federal, state and local officials at a ceremony in Portland`s Hotel Alder. `We need to take serious and aggressive steps to address the vast range of problems that lead to homelessness in the first place."

The 24-member Ending Homelessness Advisory Council (EHAC) will serve as the designated state entity in the fight to end homelessness, the Governor said. In addition to serving as an advocate for the homeless within state government, EHAC will develop a 10-year plan and collaborate on implementing local plans to end homelessness. It will also recommend needed changes in the law to the Governor and the legislature, and will prepare an annual report that summarizes Oregon`s progress in the effort against homelessness.

`We have all seen the statistics," the Governor said. `On any given night, more than 10,500 Oregonians endure the darkness and the cold of homelessness. Even more troubling, 37 percent of these are children who are 17 or younger. More than 2,000 are children under 12."

Last year, a quarter of homeless people were turned away when they sought shelter, the Governor added. `Sometimes it was because of lack of space. Sometimes it was because of a shortage of dollars. Tragically, more than 1,000 children were turned back to the streets, or forced to sleep in cars, or some other place not appropriate for human beings."

To meet the all the needs of a household, and to stabilize it so that its members remain housed rather than cycle back into homelessness again and again, Oregon needs a system that delivers the right care at the right time—a system of `wrap-around" care, the Governor said.

`A piecemeal approach just doesn`t work. We need the cooperation of state and federal agencies, community partners, local businesses, state and local government officials, faith-based organizations and community members to incorporate and integrate services. We have set our eyes on the prize of affordable housing throughout Oregon, a place where no man, woman or child ever again suffers the cold night of homelessness."