Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
Lane County officials are preparing to ask the state for about $7 million to help support services for homeless people. Three other counties are joining the county for a total request of $25 million.
Inside a cavernous building in Eugene, 86 tents are a refuge for people seeking shelter.
Each 10-by-10-foot tent at the 410 Garfield Safe Sleep Site has enough space for a bed, clothes and personal items. Run by the nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County, the shelter offers a life off the streets.
A common area offers cushioned brown chairs, microwaves and tables with board games for clients to socialize outside their private tents. Residents quietly walk about and visit with staff and their neighbors.
An adjacent building sits vacant. Two empty offices connect to a waiting room that once served the site’s clients.
A few weeks ago, two caseworkers there helped people navigate their way through complicated tasks such as applying for housing, food benefits and Social Security.
The offices now are vacant: empty desks, unplugged computers, no caseworkers — people who would have helped clients map out the next move on their journey to permanent housing.
Everyone who moves out of the shelter leaves an empty tent for the next person on the shelter’s waiting list.
Some 850 people are on that list.
The loss of the caseworkers at 410 Garfield Safe Sleep Site is a microcosm of the strain Lane County’s homeless services providers are facing, as state funding allocations are below what officials expected – and were cut from about $15 million in the last fiscal year to $7.6 million for the current fiscal year, which started July 1.
With the drop in funding, Lane County officials asked homeless services providers to regroup and make plans to reduce services. The county distributes the state funding to providers that include St. Vincent’s and others like the River Avenue Navigation Center.
Service providers looked for ways to keep as many beds available as possible. But the cuts forced reductions in the number of staffers who are key parts of the infrastructure that directly serves people who are homeless. Caseworkers like the ones who used to staff that office at the Garfield shelter help people overcome bureaucratic hurdles or, at times, relatively simple barriers like the lack of a cellphone that can make it impossible to process an application for an apartment rental.
Lane County homeless shelters will be reduced by 60 beds, with 32 fewer workers, under the county’s tentative plans submitted to the state for approval. The plans trimmed 32 staffers from homeless shelters — including caseworkers like those at St. Vincent’s who guide people to help.
That reduction of 60 year-round beds is spread throughout the county’s 924-bed system of shelters, which includes 574 available year-round and 350 others that are available during inclement weather. The cut will bring the 574 beds down to 514 beds, under the county’s tentative plans.
The cumulative impact comes at a time when services are strapped, including federal food benefits that are scheduled to end Nov. 1 amid a federal shutdown and planned reductions in 2026 for health insurance subsidies.
“Ultimately, it’s just a perfect storm of challenges that communities are continuing to see not only across the nation, but locally and from working with folks that are unhoused for a long time, I know that you need as many supports as you can,” said Kate Budd, a manager for Lane County’s Human Services Division.
County plans request to state
Yet county officials are hoping it’s not the end of the matter. Lane County commissioners Tuesday, Oct. 21 authorized staff to send a letter to the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services seeking more funding. The planned letter will ask the agency to submit a request to the Legislature’s Emergency Board, which would have the final say.
The letter will outline a request of about $7 million for Lane County and asks for a total of about $25 million for Lane and three other counties: Multnomah, Benton and Deschutes.
Steve Adams, Lane County’s policy director, told commissioners the county’s needs are about $3.3 million to continue operating beds, $3.2 million for activities that help people obtain housing and $1.2 million for street outreach and related work. He said it’s possible the state might only grant the $3.3 million for the beds and leave the other needs unfunded.
Commissioners said the needs are high for shelter beds and the services that guide people to permanent housing. Commissioner Heather Buch said the request is “absolutely necessary.”
“We need the funding desperately and unfortunately I feel like we’re in the position that we have no other option but to request this funding from the state Legislature,” Buch said.
Providers making reductions
At St. Vincent and other providers, the reductions already are in place, regardless of what happens on the state level.
Administrators hope the state will fund the request for the beds, but also are looking for ways to bridge the gaps where possible. For example, the nonprofit is planning to seek out retired case managers who can volunteer help.
Still, immediate concerns remain that with fewer services to guide people out of shelters and into permanent housing, the flow of people moving from shelters to more permanent housing will slow.
“In the near term, we’re going to see the strain on our shelter system, more people entering, but not enough resources to help them exit,” said Bethany Cartledge, St. Vincent’s executive director. “In the long term, it means we will not only stall, but reverse the progress we’ve already made in reducing chronic homelessness.”
St. Vincent avoided cutting shelter beds but had to trim caseworker positions and other assistance to help people exit shelters. For example, the nonprofit trimmed a fund that helps people pay for the deposit and the first month’s rent for an apartment. Without that assistance, it can take longer to save up the money necessary to move out of a shelter.
The path to independence is a key part of the nonprofit’s work. At St. Vincent, the nonprofit has helped 407 people transition out of homelessness since July 2024 across all its facilities, Cartledge said.
Fifty-four of those had lived at 410 Safe Sleep Site, including 49 people who went into permanent stable housing and five others who went into other settings like recovery centers.
The work happened largely through the efforts of eight case managers throughout its shelters, including two at 410 Safe Sleep Site. The two empty desks at the site are where much of that work took place.
The end of that work is a concern for Travis Nance, a former caseworker at a different St. Vincent’s site. Now a shift leader at the 410 Safe Sleep Site, Nance said part of his job entailed helping people apply for apartments when they had no phones. Caseworkers can act as middlemen with property management companies when people lack phones, he said.
The caseworkers helped people like Matthew Robinson, a 52-year-old resident at 410 Safe Sleep Site. At the location since 2022, Robinson said he misses his caseworker, who was helping him apply for Social Security disability benefits and housing. He worries now that without the caseworkers, it may be more difficult to move out of the site into more permanent housing.
His tent is a home for now, but it’s not where he wants to spend the rest of his life.
“I’m not going to stay here forever,” he said.
Have something to say?
Send us a Letter to the Editor. Read our guidelines for Letters to the Editor here.
