justbob (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Petition to #StopTheSweeps in #Portland #PDX Note: I absolutely hate short URLs but it keeps braking here. Not only hiding it but someone tracking it. I am sorry. --- Demand City of Portland and Multnomah County Focus Spending on Pathways to Housing and Support Welcome Home Coalition is an alliance of over 100 individuals and organizations advancing housing justice in the Portland Metro region. On October 23rd, 2025, Welcome Home Coalition and Sisters of the Road released a groundbreaking report, Finding Home: Lasting Housing Solutions Rooted in Community Expertise, which systematically captures the perspectives of over 650 people experiencing homelessness in Portland Metro on the housing solutions they want and need. Advised by researchers from Portland State University and Oregon Health & Science University, the two-year study followed high ethical and academic standards and grounded in lived experience. Finding Home clearly shows us what the people most impacted by housing instability and homelessness need — through their own voices. Their message is clear. When given the choice, people overwhelmingly want permanent housing they can afford, with the supports and freedoms that make it possible to stay housed. Finding Home survey respondents ranked shelter as equally undesirable as living outside. We can’t afford to keep investing in partial solutions. We are asking the Portland City Council to stop funding mass shelter expansion and the harmful sweeps of tents and RVs. Instead, the council should listen to the perspectives of people most impacted and put funding towards long-term housing solutions. Budgets reflect our shared values. Choose housing and support, not more harm. The signers of this petition urge the City of Portland and Multnomah County to enact the following proven solutions supported by Finding Home: Lasting Housing Solutions Rooted in Community Expertise: (1) Honor the self-identified needs of people with community expertise and shift funding used for encampment sweeps and RV removals to eviction prevention rent assistance to stop more people and families from falling into homelessness in our region. (2) Reallocate any funding currently left for congregate shelter expansion into rent assistance and peer support, and prioritize all future investments to ensure existing 24-hour shelters and day centers have funds for rent assistance, peer support, and case management staff to create pathways to housing for current shelter guests. (3) Increase the number of permanently affordable homes quickly by using public funds to purchase existing apartment buildings and hotels from the private sector and convert them to non-market housing. This strategy has already created hundreds of lower-cost rental homes, permanently protected from market speculation. https://shorturl.at/JWTuG !@[email protected]