Gearhart signs on to state homelessness partnership

“If we did receive money and we don’t have the services, city staff suggests that we use other services within the area and then we fund those based on their request through the City Council,” Sweet said.

Based on population calculations, the city would ask the state for almost $77,000 in allocated funds, he said.

With a $50,000 guarantee for all cities, and a $40 per resident multiplier in place based on Portland State University population estimates, the total amount requested would equal more than $123 million statewide.

Funds could be used for abatement, environmental mitigation, affordable housing, capital construction or improvement costs, homelessness or affordable housing measures.

The proposals provide cities the ability to elect to use the funds for their own homelessness response and prevention services, or to redirect their funds to community partners who are required to use the funds for the same purpose.

“We don’t have any shovel-ready capital projects for the city of Gearhart,” Sweet said. “We don’t have a parks plan that shows where restrooms may or may not be, we don’t have some of the land necessary to do some of these things. Nor do we have the budget to take care of a lot of these items. But what we do have is community partners in this area that we can share funds with based on their request to the City Council in the future.”

Gearhart has a homeless population including people living in cars or vans, Sweet said. In the past, the council allowed the city to put a budget aside for needs like a tank of gas, supplies or even a motel room. The funds have been distributed on an as-needed basis by Gearhart police.

“Chief (Jeff) Bowman and our police officers have done a lot of work with some of the homeless people around here and getting them what they need,” Sweet said. “Then they’re able to move on to some of the other services that are provided elsewhere.”

The city is not making a decision where to direct money to at this point, he said.

Councilor Dana Gould, who supported the League of Oregon Cities’ request, said the participation of Gearhart and other Oregon cities will put more pressure on the state to respond.

“We can all coordinate to get together and say, ‘Yes, we see this as a problem,’” she said. “While we may not have a huge problem here, we see it coming. And we’re hearing about it, we need to get out-front of it. That’s the best time to get out-front of this, because being homeless is not illegal.”

Mayor Kerry Smith and councilors Gould, Preston Devereaux, Austin Tomlinson and Reita Fackerell provided consensus to support the statewide requests.