President Donald Trump’s senior policy advisor on homelessness, Robert Marbut, will be in Portland next week to meet with local officials.
The Oregonian/OregonLive obtained a copy Thursday of the notice sent on Feb. 26 about the invitation-only event at the downtown field office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Neither the press nor the public made the invite list.
The event is billed as a forum to discuss the federal government’s “evolving strategy to address homelessness.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson plans to attend the meeting and provide remarks, according to city spokesperson Cody Bowman. Metro Housing Director Liam Frost and Metro Councilor Christine Lewis also plan to attend, according to Metro spokesperson Emily Green. Representatives for Multnomah County did not immediately respond to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s request for information about who would be attending the event, which conflicts with a scheduled County Commission meeting.
Marbut, who served as the director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness during Trump’s first term, is known for his philosophy that people can pull themselves out of homelessness by renouncing addiction and working hard. He has advocated for programs that require sobriety and that reward “good behavior” with benefits like better sleeping accommodations at shelters. Research on what works to reduce homelessness does not support this conclusion.
While leading a nonprofit in San Antonio, Tex. in the early aughts, Marbut opened a large, partially open-air shelter, according to a 2019 profile by the Texas Tribune. While some have championed the shelter over the years, it has also faced criticism. Marbut is no longer involved in running that facility.
Under Trump and HUD Secretary Scott Turner, the federal government has renounced the research-based housing first policies that have been at the forefront of national homelessness policy since the elder George Bush was president. Those policies hold that people who are homeless should be connected directly with housing and then offered support for treatment, education or whatever else they may need. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the agencies that has demonstrated the most success with such policies, though many cities that have attempted to follow housing first principles – including Portland – have not seen as much success.
It is not clear from the invite exactly what is planned for the content of next Tuesday’s meeting. The invite says only that Marbut “will share federal priorities, funding strategies, and implementation opportunities, followed by an interactive Q&A and discussion.”
A spokesperson did not immediately respond to queries about what Marbut would discuss and who had been invited.
Late last year, HUD issued new rules for local governments to qualify for federal homelessness funding that, if enacted, could result in thousands of formerly homeless people in the Portland area losing their subsidized housing. The rules change was struck down in federal court for how it was rolled out, but local government officials expect similar rules to apply to the next round of federal funding applications.
Under the proposed rules, only about 30% of the usually reliable federal homelessness funding would have been guaranteed. The administration also wrote that it would deny funding to counties that “facilitate racial preferences,” that “use a definition of sex other than as binary in humans” or that distribute “drug paraphernalia … under the pretext of ‘harm reduction.’”
Several Portland area homeless services programs would be at odds with these guidelines.
The allowed spending priorities may also change. The previously proposed rules would cap spending on permanent housing at 30%. Currently, Multnomah County receives just under $38 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nearly all of it, 96%, is dedicated to programs that qualify as permanent housing.
Local officials are invited to arrive at the Portland HUD office at 1220 SW 3rd Avenue at 9:45 a.m. on March 17.
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