Starting a new program is prettn
and exciting, especially when it
promises to make a direct impac.
But keeping that program
running and making it a success?
Well, that is entirely a different ball game.
Our investigative reporter Kyla Boshi
is going back to look at governt
programs that start out with lof
celebration to see how it works.
It's a big deal.
Taxpayers in Multnomah County are going
to spend more than 1/4 billion dollars
on homeless services this year alone,
so accountability is pretty important.
And Kyle discovered there is lie
of that with a program that offd
to put homeless people into tiny
homes in people's backyards.
It was quite an offer so unusuat
made headlines around the count.
Wouldn't you let a homeless
person live in your backyard?
Portland, OR wants to know.
In 2017, Multnomah County offero
build tiny houses in people's backyards
for free if they agreed to let a homeless
family live there for the next five years.
Could your backyard be the solution to
getting a homeless family off the street?
The project, called A Place for,
aimed to build a Du's,
or accessory dwelling units in
backyards across the Portland a.
So whatever happened,
let's do the tour.
In April of 2018,
the county placed one of its fit
tiny homes in Martha Chambers,
North Portland backyard.
There's a house in your backyar.
It's very small. Yeah,
it's it's not even 300 square f.
The 288 square foot cottage
came fully furnished.
They put the bed in. Yeah, they
brought in the furniture. Theres
a tidy kitchen. It's cute living space.
We do. Dinner and a movie night,
small bedroom and private bathr.
They did a really great job.
Nearly 1000 homeowners applied r
the program. Four were selected
and I thought, wow, this is a great idea
and I get to keep the house at the end.
The four tiny homes cost the coy
between 80,000 and $133,000 eac,
depending on which company built them.
By the summer of 2018,
the units were complete.
And four families had a
place to call their own.
The woman that was living here and her
niece were living in her truck prior.
Initially, Martha says things went well,
but then relationships soured.
There were challenging circumstances causing
stress among neighbors, and COVID hit.
I mean, we all anticipated it wouldn't
be necessarily a smooth ride.
Within two years, the once
homeless family had moved out.
And the backyard unit sat vacan.
Would you call it a success or a failure? I'd
have to say a failure.
Martha felt abandoned after early enthusiasm.
There was little support or folw
through by program organizers.
I think it was all set up to be successful.
And then the ball got dropped.
Similar experiments to house the homeless
in backyards have been tried elsewhere,
such as Los Angeles and Seattle.
In Seattle, How's it going?
We're feeling pretty good
about what we've accomplished.
The Block Project in Seattle
has built 15 energy efficient,
tiny homes since 2017.
Unlike Portland,
homeowners in Seattle have no financial
incentive to put a unit in their backyard.
And importantly,
there's strong support structure for both
the homeowner and their backyard neighbor,
the nonprofit Facing Homelessne,
which runs the Seattle program, says.
It has a 95% success rate in
maintaining stable housing.
And so for us,
we really want to foster community by making
sure people know that we care about them,
we see them, we want to know what's working,
we want to know what's not.
The creator of the Multnomah County program,
Mary Lee,
told reporters in 2017 that if all went well,
she hoped we do 300 of these
units in the next 12 months.
Instead,
there were four when asked what happened.
Lee, director of Multnomah Idea,
a county policy center,
wrote in an e-mail.
Unfortunately,
I don't have any information
to share about the work,
explaining the program was transferred
from one county office to the n.
It's since been handed off to a nonprofit.
I think it could have been
much more successful if there
was better follow through.
Martha recently bought the tiny
house after coming to an agreed
upon price with a nonprofit join
which inherited the program.
She's disappointed it didn't
go better for everyone.
I really wish there'd been more
support for both sides. After
so much early attention, this five year
pilot program has quietly dwind,
seemingly due to a lack of follow through
and coordination by those who promised
big new ideas to help the homel.
Kyle joins me now, and you tolde
earlier this program cost abouta
half million dollars, and I'm jt
stunned by the lack of accountability.
No one's going to take accountability.
Yeah, we've been reaching out
to the county since April,
actually, through emails,
trying to get some more informan
about the program itself.
Was it successful? Why?
It wasn't. And maybe they could
explain a little bit more.
In fact, at one point we gave
them a full list of questions
hoping to get some answers,
and they haven't provided that information.
Wow. OK And what about those tiy
homes? What happens to them?
Good question. So initially,
as you heard in the story,
they were supposed to be free te
homeowners after five years, ri?
That was the initial pitch.
Well, at some point that
kind of changed in 2018,
roughly the county started sayi,
well, listen, after five years,
those homeowners have the option
to buy them at market price.
Well, we're at about five years now and
talking to some of these homeow.
There's a bit of confusion here
about what's next and also what
fair market price is for sure.
We tried to reach out once again
to the county and also join,
which is now inherited this prom
to find out what's going on and
they have not responded to us,
started
with a lot of pomp and
circumstance and a lot of flash
kind of fizzled after that.
Yeah, All right. Thanks, Kyle.
Great stuff as always.