December 11 2020
The motels operated by the City/County Joint Office of Homeless Services are intended to slow the spread of the virus.
As COVID-19 cases and deaths surge in Multnomah County, the City/County Joint Office of Homeless Services has completed moving around 300 vulnerable people from congregate shelters to motels where they can safely isolate.
During the first week of December, adults began moving into the Portland Value Inn-Barbur in Southwest Portland. It is the sixth 24-hour physical distancing motel shelter opened by the joint office since June. This pandemic has exposed how tenuous and dangerous life is for people without housing, especially for those whose health makes them even more vulnerable to the worst effects of this virus, said County Chair Deborah Kafoury, who led the push to use motels as high-risk shelters. The county is committed to doing all we can to protect shelter residents from COVID-19, and we ve had to take extraordinary measures to
Winter homeless shelter opens in former Greyhound bus station December 10 2020
The third additional winter shelter in Portland offers 90 socially distanced beds 24 hours a day until spring.
A third Portland winter homeless shelter opened in the formerly vacant Greyhound Lines bus station in Old Town on Thursday, Dec. 10.
The new Downtown Physical Distancing Winter Shelter offers 90 beds to residents of all genders experiencing homelessness, with an emphasis on those currently unsheltered in the Old Town area. Veterans, people 55 and older, and those with disabling conditions will have priority access.
Transition Projects, which operates housing services in addition to more than 800 adult shelter beds across Multnomah County, will manage the shelter through a contract with the city/county Joint Office of Homeless Services. It will run 24/7 through the fall and winter and is scheduled to close in the spring.