Housing Rapid Response

The chronic homeless who are continually jailed for committing crimes and repeatedly in emergency rooms for care are a difficult group. They not only drain public resources, but threaten the peace and safety of downtown Portland and its neighborhoods.

So the Portland Police and the Office of Neighborhood Involvement partnered with Central City Concern and developed the Housing Rapid Response (HRR) program.

Peer mentors and CEP case managers quickly begin interacting with this population and building trust, slowly bring them inside the Central City Concern community where they receive safe housing, medical and mental health care, addiction treatment, and other supports to become self-sufficient.

HRR is seeing unexpected successes. People in this hard-core group have begun making positive changes – leaving a life of crime, getting clean and sober and eventually finding work.

HRR staff is showing these long-time homeless they do have choices. They can change their behavior. There is another way to live.

Impact

• Enrollment since program inception: 133
• Since inception, enrollment in alcohol & drug inpatient treatment:  28%
• Permanent housing placements since beginning of the program: 41
• Crime reduction:  70%. The Portland Police Bureau tracks 300 people in the downtown area who are chronic offenders responsible for a variety of drug and property crimes. Working with HRR on housing and drug treatment, as well as other agencies providing services, police have measured a 70% reduction in recidivism since the beginning of the program.