‘How much does Eugene spend on homelessness, however defined?’

The city of Eugene recently sent out a survey to a random sample of residents, asking their opinions on a host of relevant issues. I talked with one young person who completed the survey and told me that in response to the question about Eugene’s biggest problems, she answered “homelessness.”

She went on to say – paraphrasing – that she was “sick and tired of hordes of drug addicts living and abusing people on our streets at taxpayers’ expense.”

While this is just one opinion and likely demonstrates a lack of understanding of a complex issue, her response raised two important questions: First, does Eugene differentiate between these so-called “drug addicts” and single moms living in cars, unhoused workers and so forth? How do they define the challenge?

And second, how much does Eugene actually spend on homelessness, however defined? In our era of tight budgets, it is surprising that this issue is not discussed more openly.

I asked around and discovered that no one I talked with had any idea how much Eugene spends. It is easy to learn how much the city spends in tax dollars on parks and recreation, police and fire, the library, Greenhill and so forth, but not homelessness. Why is this? So, I set to work to find some answers.

My search was disappointing. I first looked at the publicly available city budget, but soon discovered that it was composed by and for people a lot smarter than me. No clear answers here.

Next, I sent an email to the city asking how much Eugene spent on homeless services in 2024. I received no answer. Nothing. Still undeterred, I sent the same message to my city councilor. Again, I received no reply.

Just for fun, I sent this same message to Corvallis, which immediately replied with how much the city spent, along with a policy statement on how the funds were used. Nice work, Corvallis.

In view of the importance of this topic, and the debate swirling around it, the lack of clearly-available information is surprising. My conclusion is that either Eugene honestly does not know how much it spends on homeless services or it is reticent to share this information. Neither of these alternatives gives residents much confidence in city administration, especially in the middle of a budget crisis.

In the spirit of democracy and community, I would like to ask our city administrators to respond to my query with a guest column in Lookout – or a general press release –explaining what it considers to be homeless services, who qualifies and how much the city spends annually on such endeavors.

Nothing political, just facts. If information sharing and good communications are at the heart of good government, such a piece would be of immense value.