Small Shelter Zoning

On November 9, 2020, 539 individuals made use of established shelters across the City of Portland - among the highest daily totals ever recorded since the City began tracking this information back in 1987. While this figure is high, during the five year period preceding the start of the COVID-19  pandemic, it was not uncommon to see demand exceeding Portland’s total available capacity. Much of this demand is met by two municipally managed shelters, the Oxford Street Homeless Shelter and the Chestnut Street Family Services Center, as well as several shelters operated by non-profit organizations.

Recognizing that the City’s existing facilities cannot sufficiently meet the community's need, in the last several years Portland has expanded the geographic area in which shelters may operate, strengthened the performance standards for new shelter proposals, and taken steps toward developing a new municipally-managed shelter. Understanding continued urgencies around addressing this need as equitably and robustly as possible, the City, at the direction of the Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee, is currently examining possibilities for further expanding the zoning districts where shelters can occur, specifically looking at a rubric for smaller shelters in residential and mixed-use zones. 

In the five years preceding the pandemic, system-wide shelter capacity was exceeded in 23 separate months. Concerns regarding capacity become even more acute when assessing the individual shelters that compose the shelter system. For example, data compiled from the Emergency Shelter Access Committee’s monthly reports shows that the Milestone Shelter has exceeded its capacity in all but two months during that five year period. The fact that many of the shelters provide social services for specific populations means that certain subsets of Portland’s population experiencing homelessness are disproportionately affected by this issue.   

Communities across the country host homeless shelters, and each approaches regulating shelters through zoning differently. A review of zoning in other U.S. cities shows that these municipalities generally allow homeless shelters across a range of zone types (often including residential zones), and use a variety of performance or conditional use standards, including separation requirements, size limits, management requirements, and design controls, to address concerns around neighborhood integration.

In mid-2020, under the direction of the Health and Human Services & Public Safety Committee, the City began to revisit small shelter zoning policy. (Background on shelter zoning and policy can be found in the Committee's meeting materials for their  July 14, 2020 ,  September 8, 2020 , and  January 12, 2021  meetings, and future meetings on the topic will appear in the City's  agenda center .) The current small shelter zoning initiative will be informed by previous discussions, including the  small shelter draft amendment  considered by the Committee in 2017, review of best practices from across the United States, and community input.

Thank you to those who took part in our interactive survey. We collected responses from 279 individuals who provided thoughtful and informative input on this topic. We appreciate your participation!

The two surveys closed on Friday, April 16th. Stay tuned for the results.