Giving Compass' Take:
- Adam Mahoney discusses the plight of unhoused people in Portland during COVID and the heat wave, explaining why cities need to allocate more resources to help people who are housing insecure.
- How do criminalization and anti-homeless policing not address the root causes of homelessness? How can funding be reallocated to provide resources for people without access to stable housing?
- Learn more about the criminalization of homelessness.
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When temperatures in Oregon hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit late last month, Portland resident Scott Kerman found he couldn’t stand outside for longer than 10 minutes without feeling like he might collapse. But his thoughts didn’t dwell long on his own discomfort. He was more worried for the city’s homeless population, which is especially vulnerable to extreme weather like heat waves.
“Climate change is a significant part of the houseless crisis and it hasn’t always necessarily been at the forefront when we talk about houselessness,” said Kerman, the executive director of Blanchet House, a nonprofit group that provides free meals, housing, and other services to housing-insecure Portlanders. “If we’re going to have colder winters and hotter summers then we have to be prepared for people who are unhoused or poorly housed continuing to die.”
At least 71 people are confirmed or suspected to have died of heat-related causes in Multnomah County — where Portland is located — during the weeklong June heat wave that shattered temperature records in Washington, Oregon, and the Canadian province of British Columbia. The actual number of deaths associated with the heat wave was likely much higher than the current count, Multnomah officials say, and is expected to rise as the county releases more information in the coming weeks.
While it’s not yet clear how many of those deaths occurred among people experiencing homelessness, not being able to access air conditioning or take shelter indoors is a known risk factor for serious, heat-related illness. Those conditions don’t just apply to people living on the streets — multiple deaths were reported among low-income housing residents amid the heatwave.
Read the full article about the plight of unhoused people by Adam Mahoney at Grist.