Kaiser Permanente Northwest announced Monday that it’s donating $2.27 million to seven nonprofit organizations to help homeless people with mental illness and addiction problems find a permanent place to live.
The announcement was made on Martin Luther King Jr. Day as bitter cold continues to grip the greater Portland area, and public officials and social service workers have scrambled to open emergency shelters in an effort to prevent more homeless deaths. Since Jan. 1, four homeless people have died of exposure to the elements in Portland.
Catholic Charities of Oregon, which is one of the seven nonprofits that will receive Kaiser’s grant money, plans to use the money to pay an outreach worker to build trust with people such as Louisa. She camps with three to four others in Portland and doesn’t trust shelters as a safe place even in wintry conditions, said Catholic Charities’ housing transitions program manager, Margi Dechenne.
Louisa could be 50 to 70 years old, but also could be much younger because years of living on the streets have taken their toll, Dechenne said. When outreach workers bring her coffee, she turns to her fellow campers and asks if the coffee is safe to drink or if it’s poisoned, Dechenne said.
Louisa walks with a limp because of a large sore on her leg, and is regularly robbed or manipulated out of her Social Security disability checks, Dechenne said.
Each of the seven charities named by Kaiser will receive $325,000 for each of the next three years. Geographically, the nonprofits reach from Cowlitz County in the north to Lane County in the south.
On top of Catholic Charities of Oregon, the charities are: Catholic Community Services of the Mid-Willamette Valley and Central Coast, Love Overwhelming, Outside In, ShelterCare, the Urban League of Portland; and Willamette Family Inc.
Kaiser decided to focus its money on housing for the homeless after hearing that the lack of a stable home made it virtually impossible for them to get meaningful treatment, said Andrew McCulloch, president of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan of the Northwest.
McCulloch announced the grants at the Transition Projects’ Clark Center, a Southeast Portland shelter that aims to find homeless men permanent housing. More than 100 Kaiser employees volunteered there Monday, to paint and fix up the building, which is on the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge.
About 1,000 Kaiser employees volunteered around the region Monday.
Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury attended Monday’s press conference, saying the donation was a good step toward the goal of eliminating homelessness.
Kafoury said the county, the city of Portland and the federal government have made major progress in the past year by: doubling the number of publicly funded, permanent shelter beds to 1,260; getting 4,000 people off the streets and into shelters or permanent housing; and helping 9,000 people avoid homelessness in the first place.
“Keeping people from becoming homeless first is the most humane way,” Kafoury said, noting that can be done through programs, such as a month of rent assistance to someone struggling to avoid eviction.
