Document Type

Report

Publication Date

8-2024

Subjects

Social justice, Homeless persons, Homelessness, Shelters for the homeless

Abstract

In 2020-2021 Oregon legislators approved $74.7 million to assist communities to purchase local motels and convert them into emergency shelters. The goal was to help keep people safe during COVID and to address the need for housing for victims of the wildfires in light of the deficit of appropriate shelter resources facing the state. A total of 19 projects received funding, and by 2023 all of the projects were providing services to people experiencing homelessness. Combined, this resulted in 865 new units of emergency shelter-- a 20% increase in the state’s supply. According to an analysis done by Oregon Community Foundation (2021), the average per unit cost for Turnkey round one was $87,700, less than half of the statewide average for affordable housing1.

Turnkey round one sites are located in 13 counties throughout the state. While many of the projects were initially developed to provide shelter to wildfire survivors and/or to those needing COVID related protections, by 2023 this described only a very small proportion of the residents2 at any of the shelters. As such, this report is not an assessment of Turnkey’s efforts in regards to wildfire or COVID related emergency shelter. At the time of this study, nearly all of the sites were providing a robust form of emergency shelter (private rooms, on-site wrap-around services and medium-length stays) to people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. Approximately half the sites use coordinated entry for referrals and others prioritize particularly vulnerable populations including older individuals, people living outside or with a history of homelessness. Seven of the projects include families with children under the age of 18 in their list of priority populations. In nine of the projects, at least some of the rooms were reserved for medically vulnerable individuals including people being discharged by hospitals or in need of respite related to behavioral health issues. A few of the projects were developed to address the housing needs of a specific population; these include one for people involved with community corrections, and two that provide services to survivors of domestic violence, stalking, trafficking or sexual assault along with their children. Two projects had an explicit focus on veterans and one described their programming as designed to serve people in recovery from substance use disorder.

The Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative (HRAC) at Portland State University was contracted by Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) to study Project Turnkey round one. The goals of the study are to provide an overview of the impact of Project Turnkey and generate information that will improve Oregon’s response to homelessness. Specifically, the findings included below:

  • document the shelter provided as well as the people served, and describe the services, rooms, and other amenities made available to guests;
  • describe the impact of Turnkey in regards to exits to different housing options along with changes in residents’ well-being after entering the shelters;
  • deepen our understanding of how Turnkey is helpful to people experiencing homelessness as well as some of the challenges of the model;
  • identify features of the roll out of Turnkey that were helpful to communities as well as their recommendations for future efforts; and
  • describe Turnkey efforts in regards to equity.

The study took place between October 2022 and August 2024. Work began with a series of conversations between HRAC research staff and representatives from each of the 19 Turnkey sites. Site staff were asked for input regarding the questions or topics they wanted the study to highlight. Their feedback as well as input from OHCS significantly shaped the design of this effort.

1 This study did not undertake an analysis of the costs of this approach. A recent report by Greene, J., Ferry, T., Leickly, E., & Spurbeck, F. H. (2023), “Alternative Shelter Evaluation Report” looks at costs across various shelter models.

2 ‘Resident’ and ‘guest’ are used interchangeably in this document.

Rights

© 2024 Portland State University

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42676

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