New leader of Multnomah County Homeless Services Department on heading up the agency

The Civics Education Initiative, a statewide program sponsored by the Oregon State Capital Foundation. They help Oregonians learn how our government and democracy work and how you can get involved and make a difference. Grant applications to help nonprofit and educational organizations support civics education programs throughout Oregon are open now through September 30th at Oregoncapitalfoundation.org. This fall, let Curiosity lead you to Newport. The Newport Festival of Arts and Culture brings together music, arts, markets, culinary experiences, and community celebrations on the Oregon Coast. From September through November, take in world-class performances, explore the historic Bayfront, and discover the stories that make Newport unique. Unlock exclusive lodging offers for OPB listeners at Discovernewport.com slash OPB. The Newport Festival of Arts and Culture? where creativity is in the water. From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I'm Jeff Norcross. Multnomah County's homeless services department is dealing with a lot right now. Homelessness in Oregon's largest county appears to be going up while the budget for dealing with it is going down. It's also an election year, and homelessness will undoubtedly play into the governor's race in Oregon again. This is the environment that Nathaniel Vergau is stepping into. He is Multnomah County's new homeless services department director, and he joins us now. Nathaniel, welcome to think out loud. Good to have you. Thank you for having me. You've been on the job for three months now. Any surprises? No, no large surprises. I think, as I shared with you outside the studio this morning, it's been like drinking water from a high pressure garden hose, but I pretty much expected that. What's different from Los Angeles that you can see immediately? Much of what I see is actually very similar. The circumstances that we're faced here in Multnomah County are similar to communities across the country right now. budgets being slashed, we're all facing the end of the COVID-era funding and the bubble that that created with one-time funding that both required homeless services to pivot what they were doing in terms of emergency response and life-saving activities rather than just a rehousing system. But it also created a lot of opportunities for growth in what we were able to do. But that bubble has popped. And so we are on the downside of that. And, you know, nationally we're seeing challenges with economies across the country, especially local governments. And so what we're seeing here is not unique. Do you anticipate a time when we might see a federal infusion, federal support like we had during the pandemic? Unfortunately, I don't see that in my crystal ball when I look in, but I'm certainly hopeful for it. And I think it's important. One of the things I've been trying to say in every interview is how important it is for...

the listeners out there to be involved and to be advocating with their elected officials because funding for for homeless services as well as all of the upstream things that impact homelessness are essential and we're seeing budgets for for education for for health care all the things that impact homelessness in the end are being slashed and as a result homelessness will if we continue to cut especially the impact is that homelessness will rise Your appointment was not unanimous. It was three to two in your favor. Do you feel like you have some convincing of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners that you have to do? I think in a role like mine, there's always convincing to do. Even if I had been approved unanimously, I would need to convince them on an ongoing basis that what I'm doing is... adding value to the county and and most importantly i think right now it's ensuring that uh the voters understand what we're doing and the value of what we're doing we're approaching the potential renewal of the support of housing services tax uh which uh you know is your your viewers or your viewers sorry your listeners will know we have a youtube channel it's okay uh is a tax on high income earners in the county uh that goes directly to pay for services and housing And that will expire in 2030, and without the renewal of that, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. And so, you know, one of my key goals initially is focusing on accountability and being able to show the public what they're getting for those tax dollars and the essential nature of those funds. I'm glad you mentioned the supportive housing tax because you had something similar in Los Angeles. It was a half-cent sales tax in the county, and it funded things like... affordable housing construction and services to support those who are experiencing homelessness. And I'm wondering about your experience with working with that tax in LA and what lessons you can take with you on operating with something similar here. Well, I think there are two, one important difference that's important for listeners to understand is the, the tax in LA was a sales tax. And so it was paid for by every citizen who bought anything in the county. Here, the support of housing services tax, as I said, is a tax on high income earners. And so it's not impacting every resident of the county. We just don't do sales tax here. You may have noticed. Absolutely. And I appreciate that. However, it is, but it's not regressive in that fact. And so it's not actually impacting every resident of the county, just the high income earners. And so it's not going to be felt by everybody. I mean, in terms of the lessons learned, I think it's important to have that base revenue locally that allows for flexibility that's not... part of federal funding. There are a lot of restrictions on how federal funding can be used. And unfortunately right now, there's also a lot of uncertainty of federal funding as well as state funding. And so having a durable revenue source locally to provide a base from which to work is really important. It's very challenging to plan large systems like homelessness response with one-time dollars that you're not sure will be there the following year. And so setting budgets for programs become.

exceptionally challenging when you're doing that year to year with potential significant variance. And you're operating at a deficit right now. I think the last number I saw was a $67 million hole. Is that the latest number that I, do I have that right? So yeah, we're not operating at a deficit. We actually received a cut of roughly $67 million. And so we are having to reduce services. Okay. What services are you going to reduce? Through a lengthy community budget process, the county as a whole came to a conclusion that the greatest value had to be placed on keeping people housed, so folks that had been housed through the services here in the county. ensuring that they would be able to maintain that housing rather than being forced to return potentially to the streets or to shelters. And so in the end, the largest cuts are happening at the shelter system. And so that is informing a lot of the work that we need to do, which is focusing on ensuring that folks... flowing through our system can do so as quickly as possible because the less time that somebody has to spend in a shelter bed on their path to permanent housing, the more people can be served by each shelter bed. It's interesting because California and Oregon are both in the Ninth U.S. Circuit, which for a long time operated under a federal ruling that said you can't enforce anti-camping ordinances if you don't provide enough shelter beds. And the Supreme Court effectively overturned that ruling a couple of years ago. Even with the cuts to shelters that you just laid out for me, do you still operating with that as a guiding principle? You just have to have shelter space. Shelters is an essential part of the homelessness response system. I mean, I would be negligent to say otherwise. The impacts of unsheltered homelessness are vast on people's health, on their mental health. And I mean, just forget exactly what the statistic is, but the life expectancy of somebody who's experienced on sheltered homelessness is dramatically lower than those who've never experienced that. And so, yes, shelter is an integral part of the response system. However... We don't want to necessarily make all of our investments just in shelter. In New York City, for example, because New York has a right to shelter within the state constitution, the vast majority of their budget goes to shelter, leaving exceptionally challenging there to actually pay for folks to access permanent housing. So folks end up in shelter for much longer stays, which also is not particularly healthy. If you're just tuning in, we're talking to the new director of Multnomah County Homeless Services Department. Nathaniel Vergau has been on the job since early May, and before that, he worked with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

We asked people, Nathaniel, on Facebook, how they think Multnomah County should prioritize homeless services, and we got, as you might expect, a lot of comments. Finkbiter Donald said, psychological triage, then housing first. I am a fairly sane non-drug addict who is homeless, and if I had that option almost two years ago, I would still have a home now. We had a number of comments that fell along those lines, and they point to housing first, just as a... basic fundamental thing that you should provide as a priority. What is your feeling about that? I agree with that. Absolutely. Permanent housing. I mean, complete permanent housing that people can live in forever. Yes. There's a significant amount of stability that folks find as soon as they have a roof over their head and a door that they can lock and where they can feel safe and secure and know that it's not going to be taken away from them tomorrow. So yes, that is essential. But Housing is not the only piece of that. There has to be services that accompany folks in housing as they move from either directly from the streets or through the shelter system. And those services need to be tailored to the individual. And so we're doing a lot of work right now at the county of trying to integrate the services of mental health and substance use treatment better into our homelessness response. Part of the challenge with that is... is quite frankly the health system in Oregon and the availability of those resources. But we're working collaboratively with health share and other organizations, including our county departments, to better integrate services at all points of the shelter system, of the homelessness response system. Yeah. Mayor Keith Wilson campaigned on ending unsheltered homelessness in Portland. You've been working closely with these systems in L.A. County for almost a decade. And now here in Portland, here you are. view that goal as realistic? Absolutely. We saw in, through the investments in veteran homelessness, that if you make priority investments and as a community, as a society, you deem valuable. the people that you're going to be serving with those resources and therefore provide real pathways into permanent housing, you can have a dramatic impact. And so absolutely, if we as a community, if we as a state, if we as a country decided that we could no longer tolerate having our fellow citizens experience unsheltered homelessness, we could end it. We just, the federal government just found significant amounts of money to ensure that there's housing for National Guard in D.C. And, and they're, you know, putting billions on the table for the war in Iran. If we took those billions and invested them in an appropriate housing market that balanced affordable housing, we absolutely could end homelessness. It's an election year, and the homelessness problem will supercharge the state races. What is your sense of how committed Oregon's elected leaders are to helping you in your role?

I'm still learning that. I'll be honest with you. I've been on the job for three months and really been focused locally in ensuring that I get to meet the folks who are operating the programs here and ensuring that I understand how the system here in Multnomah County works. And so I've not spent enough yet time really learning our state electeds and their priorities. I think My experience is similar to my experience in California. It's always an exceptionally challenging balance to work through what the investments in, particularly in housing and homelessness are going to be versus other issues that also impact housing and homelessness. Another comment on Facebook on how Multnomah County should prioritize homeless services. Carrie Sissung said, they need to be willing to go into recovery programs with education programs that give them the tools to become self-reliant. You can throw endless amounts of money into housing, but if they are not clean, sober, and mentally fit to handle the responsibility, it is pointless. Nathaniel, you spoke very... very clearly about the need for housing, but how about the commitment of your office to those programs, those recovery programs that Kerry mentioned? Well, as I also just mentioned that with housing first, to do it appropriately, you have to include services. I don't, it's actually been shown through data over the years that setting barriers to housing of requiring sobriety or medication compliance just extends somebody's experience of homelessness. But I do think that it is essential to ensure that the access to treatment resources are available and integrated into the experience of service provision at housing programs. What are some realistic expectations that Portlanders and residents of Multnomah County can have for the work from your office for the next few years? Well, I've been telling everybody that my focus initially is on accountability. And that is on a multi-pronged approach. It is that... We as a department have to be accountable to our service providers, that we can get contracts out to them in a timely fashion, that we can work collaboratively with them to address any issues that they're having, both in terms of service provision, as well as how they are managing their contracts, that we're providing appropriate technical assistance and training. We need to ensure that we are holding our providers accountable to being appropriate stewards of public funding, that they are. providing the services most efficiently and effectively as possible. And that collectively, we as the system are accountable to our elected officials and the general public, as I said, as we move towards the SHS potential renewal, we need to be able to show the public that the work that is happening, that the work is happening, that's having an impact even though, and I acknowledge this myself, it's hard to.

It's hard to understand that on a day-to-day basis when you continue to see encampments at the end of your block or off the side of the max train as you're commuting to work. It's hard to understand that work is happening and that progress is being made when homelessness is still visible. But we've housed tens of thousands of folks and that work is continuing. Tens of thousands of folks since when? Let me make sure I'm not. getting the data wrong, but... So under the support of housing services, funding 10,468 households have been placed into housing regionwide through SHS funding. And more than 21,000 households have been prevented from experiencing homelessness. Okay. Thank you for those numbers. I have some more for you. The recent data that we have is Multnomah County reported 10,500 people experiencing homelessness in January of 2025. That's a 43% increase from the previous January. There are questions about how we count the homeless population, and we can get into that. But let's for the moment assume that that's accurate. Is the data surprising? No. That is not surprising. As I said, we're seeing rents over the last 10 years have skyrocketed. Incomes have not kept pace. We're seeing an economy where being able to afford basic basics like food are becoming harder and harder for everybody, where a gas is astronomical, and so commuting to work becomes challenging. So with constant pressures on... folks, especially at the lower end of the economic spectrum, no, I'm not surprised to see that folks are struggling and are eventually falling into homelessness. There's been a lot of turnover in the county department, and it's a department in transition because there used to be a joint office between the county and the city. What do you see as your barriers or your challenges, I should say, in leading a new department that's really in a state of flux right now? Yeah, I think that's... One of my primary goals is to actually be here and be here for an extended period to be able to provide that stability. It's hard for any organization, especially going through the growth that the organization has gone through financially with the SHS funding as well as the COVID funding. and have significant changes in leadership and even the placement of the work moving from the city to the joint office to it becoming a county department that much transition without executive leadership that is consistent makes the work exceptionally challenging so

A, I plan to be here for an extended period to provide that stability. B, I think, again, the focus on accountability is essential. With budgets shrinking, we are going to have to figure out how to do more with less. And so being able to account for how we're spending every dollar is going to be essential to ensure that we are maximizing the use of every penny that we have. I think we're going to have to get creative and scrappy in the way that we look at providing services so that we, again, we are doing everything in our power to meet folks where they are in their encampments on the street corners, in our shelters, and that we are moving them as quickly as possible into housing and ensuring that they have the services they need to be successful in that housing. Is there a community anywhere, either in the country or in the world, that you feel is doing it right? Is balancing the services that are necessary, the permanent housing that is needed? the very real concerns about budgets. Yeah, Finland is, has really, from a national standpoint, taken on Housing First as their approach and has seen homelessness drops. dramatically. And so I think there's a lot that could be learned there. We've seen some communities across the country get to functional zero around chronic homelessness and veteran homelessness. So yes, there are examples across the globe of countries that are addressing homelessness effectively. Are there some benchmarks for success that you would like to hit soon that you can point to? So we are currently working on key performance indicators for the homelessness system through the, I apologize. confusing my acronyms and I don't want to use acronyms but the the Regional Policy Oversight Committee for the Supportive Housing Services Tax measure at Metro is a body that is empowered to oversee how we're implementing the funds across the three counties and so there's currently discussion about what the key performance indicators should be for how we are measuring the progress of the use of those funds we are similarly we have the HRAP Homelessness Response Action Plan that is there's a steering and oversight committee for that that includes representatives from the city and the county and they are doing a similar exercise and we're trying to make sure that those metrics align so that regardless of funding source we're working towards the same goals and those really are focused on reducing the length of shelter stays improving the number of folks that we get into shelter who exit to permanent housing as opposed to exiting back to the streets or to unknown destinations because they leave in the middle of the night or leave in the morning and don't come back. Really wanting to make sure that we have strong engagements with participants so that we keep them engaged in the system and can make sure that they move into permanent housing. And also that once we get folks into housing, that we can help them retain that housing.

How did you get into this work, and why do you care about it? I blame my parents. I grew up in a house that pride is not the right word, but inculcated in us the notion that with every ounce of privilege that one has, one has a responsibility to give back. And while I did not grow up wealthy, my parents were very clear about the privileges that I had relative to other folks in our town and across the globe. And so I learned through the example of my parents that service is important. And so that really shaped. as I was going through college and thinking about what I was going to do, that had a tremendous impact. And my first real job out of college was working at an aid service organization in Boston. My goal had been to focus on reducing the impact of HIV and AIDS and reducing the spread. And this was the mid-90s. and ended up working in a program that provided rental assistance to people with HIV and saw in that how much of an impact housing had on the stability of one's life. It impacted the clients that we worked with. It impacted how they could access their medical care. At that time, there were a lot of medications that required refrigeration. And so if folks were going to lose their housing, they were going to lose their ability to continue their treatment regimens. And so housing became clear that that was the bedrock for recovery and stability. And as I moved on to work in substance use and mental health treatment, the same thing. Housing and homelessness were essential in the recovery process. And so for the last 25 years, housing and homelessness has been. my focus. Well, Nathaniel, thank you for coming on the show and best of luck to you, what is going to be in a challenging role. I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Nathaniel Bergau is the new director of Multnomah County's homeless services department. Members make Think Out Loud and all of OPB's independent journalism possible. Support the next fascinating story and join in as a sustainer at opb.org slash pod.