Mercury 2025 Recap: Housing and Homelessness

In 2025, new elected leadership in Portland presented a change of course in the city’s approach to housing and homelessness. At times, the mayor’s vision clashed with that of city councilors, with the mayor focused on expanding shelters and the Council focused on reshaping housing policy. 

Portland’s City Council adopted new policies aimed at combating predatory rental pricing, while encouraging new housing development and exploring new affordable housing models.

Perhaps the biggest determinant of outcomes is federal, state, and local funding, much of which remains in flux going into 2026. Funding shortfalls at the county level and federal policy shifts in the White House have undoubtedly changed the region’s path toward addressing and preventing homelessness.

In the first-of-its-kind ranked-choice election in 2024, Portlanders elected Mayor Keith Wilson with 60 percent of the vote, largely on his campaign promise to end unsheltered homelessness in his first year in office. Wilson spoke compassionately about homeless Portlanders, saying the city would no longer let “people suffer and die on the street.” Wilson took office as homelessness in Multnomah County had trended worse year after year, and he outlined his plan of attack, sort of, in a city council meeting a few weeks after taking office. The plan was ambitious. 

Wilson’s goal of adding an additional 1,500 overnight shelter beds by December 1, plus another 1,500 through public/private partnerships and Multnomah County efforts, was a lofty goal. He also told city councilors he would add a network of day centers, with one in each council district, and crack down on unregistered vehicles and RVs. Setting arguments aside about whether city, state, and federal resources should be spent on temporary shelters or more permanent solutions, efforts to secure financing and add the beds was a heavy lift.

“On December 1,” Wilson told the local nonprofit newspaper Street Roots shortly after taking office in January 2025. “We’re going to end unsheltered homelessness.”

While the newly-elected mayor was busy trying to prop up new temporary shelters, one of the city’s primary funding sources for homeless services dropped a bombshell. In February, local news outlets reported Multnomah County’s Homeless Services Department faced a $104 million budget shortfall, despite receiving millions in Supportive Housing Services tax dollars each year since 2022.

The mayor’s December 1 goal to end unsheltered homelessness passed, with thousands of people still living on the streets. That didn’t stop the mayor from claiming victory, despite the first goal of opening 1,500 shelter beds also falling short. Just 890 of the 1,500 beds were opened, with Wilson claiming the city had identified locations for 610 additional beds. 

Encampment sweeps

After pausing enforcement of Portland’s rules on resting in public early in his term, Mayor Wilson announced the city would begin enforcing its “public camping” ban, starting November 1. City data shows roughly 3,000 sites were evaluated in the month of December and 610 encampments were removed. The data doesn’t indicate how many people were offered or transferred to a shelter. Like his predecessor, former Mayor Ted Wheeler, Mayor Wilson has been eager to clean up the city’s image and make downtown and the inner city more inviting. Data showed Wilson was more aggressive than his predecessor in sweeping homeless Portlanders. He’s also faced pressure to deliver on his remarkably ambitious declaration that unsheltered homelessness in Portland would end before 2026. 

But an investigative report published by Street Roots and ProPublica revealed that as sweeps had increased across Multnomah County, so too, had deaths of unhoused people. In fact, unhoused people die at a higher rate here than any major west coast county that tracks mortality data related to unhoused residents. Deaths of homeless residents quadrupled from 2021 to 2024, while the city cut permanent housing investments by 80 percent between 2019 and 2024, according to the investigation.

In December, Multnomah County released data showing 372 people died while living unhoused. The annual Domicile Unknown report indicates the majority of deaths were due to accidental injury like drug overdoses. The report underscores the often fatal risks associated with living on the streets.

Frustrated by a lack of investment in long-term housing solutions or eviction prevention, City Councilor Angelita Morillo proposed cutting $4.3 million from the city’s budget for encampment removals in November. Morillo wanted to divert the money toward housing and food assistance, as well as support for immigrants and refugees. Her plan didn’t get the traction needed, but it did cause a stir. The amendment led to an unprecedented discussion between city leaders on the impacts of sweeps, and how the city should invest its limited resources amid Trump’s federal guidance on homelessness. Ultimately, the City Council voted against Morillo’s budget amendment.

Housing solutions

After years of a tepid housing construction pace, Portland leaders, along with Governor Tina Kotek, rolled out a plan to waive system development charges (SDC) on new residential construction projects. The move was meant to incentivize and accelerate housing production.

Councilors weren’t just focused on new construction, but new approaches to construction and financing. After adopting a resolution in April to explore a new social housing model, a trio of city councilors traveled to Vienna, Austria in September to see first-hand how the model impacted that city’s landscape and way of life. The trip, which was funded from the councilors’ office budgets, drew public criticism and skepticism for its costs and lack of tangible outcomes. But councilors—specifically those who traveled to Austria—said Portland can’t afford to keep taking the same approach to affordable housing. They traveled as part of a project to explore social housing models as a response to the city’s homelessness crisis.

Around the same time Councilor Jamie Dunphy shared a vision for a social housing “tower” that could offer residents an affordable cost of living, with close proximity to groceries, transit, parks, and cultural attractions. 

By late October, the Portland Housing Bureau’s social housing expert–Helmi Hisserich—was out. The Mercury learned that Hisserich had been put on leave for unspecified reasons. She resigned under pressure a few weeks later. Hisserich shared with the Mercury a letter she sent to the City Council outlining a timeline and circumstances that led to her departure. In that letter, the former Housing Bureau director said after examining the finances of the city’s Rental Services Department, she found about $21 million in total funds that had not been accounted for or budgeted. She claims her supervisor, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira, advised her not to disclose the funding to the Council despite an upcoming budget adjustment session.

Hisserich maintains she was ousted from her position because she differed ideologically from the mayor and Oliveira in her approach to solving the city’s housing crisis. If a resolution introduced by three city councilors passes in early 2026, the city council could investigate why the funding was not disclosed by the mayor or the city administration until late November, despite them knowing about the funds as early as September.

Efforts to add new housing units to the city and county’s housing stock have been the focus of elected leaders for years, but in early December, The Oregonian reported that nearly 1,900 affordable units are currently sitting empty. The news put a spotlight on gaps and flaws in the affordable housing system, with some renters saying the price of an “affordable” unit often isn’t much lower than market rate rent. Affordable units also come with a bevy of administrative requirements for tenants, including applications and regular income certification, which can dissuade some renters. 

Renters rights and renters assistance

Among the most visible examples of policy pitfalls in the affordable housing market is the plight of tenants at the Everett Station Lofts in Old Town. The property offers a series of artist lofts that were meant to offer affordable housing to creatives in the city. But over time, the rents became less affordable. Tenants said they were being charged based on square footage, rather than number of bedrooms, because their units offer no bedrooms. Tenants clashed with the city’s Housing Bureau over whether their landlord was violating a contractual obligation to keep the units affordable. 

The issue caught the attention of newly-elected city councilors. After pitching a rental subsidy program for the property paid for with city funds, the council passed a budget amendment that included $125,000 for assistance to the Everett Station tenants.

Amid efforts to help tenants stay in their housing, councilors also wanted to level the playing field for renters. In November, the Portland City Council voted to adopt a ban on algorithmic rental software. The ordinance was the first piece of legislation rolled out by Councilor Angelita Morillo back in February. It was one of the most notable policy changes aimed at bringing down the cost of rent, by banning certain software programs that enable price fixing among landlords and property owners.

As city leaders looked for ways to curb skyrocketing rents, tenants requiring rental subsidies were met with disappointing news. In late October, as the city of Portland was directing significant resources to the mayor’s overnight shelter expansion plans, Multnomah County’s homeless services budget woes were playing out. The County’s Board of Commissioners voted to continue offering rental vouchers to about 1,050 people, but paused its rapid rehousing programs due to a budget shortfall. That left nearly 700 people without housing assistance.

The news was a blow to residents actively looking for affordable housing, as well as the service providers assisting them. The housing vouchers have been a potent tool in bringing people out of homelessness and into housing. According to the County, 82 percent of people enrolled in rapid rehousing programs remain housed after two years.

Federal cuts and priorities

While local and state government entities face budget shortfalls that threaten the progress of expanding housing and shelter in the region, a federal government agenda is also impeding progress. In July, the Trump administration announced an executive order with a sweeping agenda aimed at increasing civil commitments—the process by which a person can be transferred to an institution for mental health treatment without their consent. The move is framed as a way to get people off the streets by any means necessary. The same executive order threatened to withhold funding from states and jurisdictions that don’t enforce bans on resting in public.

In response to Trump’s plans to withhold funding for critical homelessness programs, Oregon, Washington and 19 other states jointly filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging the plans to overhaul a Continuum of Care program are rooted in unlawful discrimination.