Grant: Oregon Community Foundation (OCF)

Type: Project: Survey

Background: Sisters of the Road 501(c) has worked in collaboration with people experiencing housing and food insecurity for over 43 years. They have run numerous systemic change programs aimed at developing leadership and community organizing skills.

Problem: The population of folks living unsheltered has increased in Portland, there are not enough available resources, and what is accessible, often is unable to accommodate peoples’ specific needs. Those experiencing houselessness are left out of the equation when policy is made and programs are enacted.

Audience: The Oregon Community Fund seeks to support organizations that serve communities with the most immediate needs in Oregon.

Goal: To receive financial support to train and compensate people with lived experience of houselessness to partner in conducting a housing survey that identifies housing needs and barriers, in collaboration with partner organizations and supported by Portland State University.

Strategy: It was important for Sisters that I demonstrate how their projects are driven by the community they serve, and supported by important community players like Portland State University. I used numbered lists to streamline the goals and show the multiple benefits to survey participants.

Sample:

Funding support from the OCF community grant would cover costs in project phase III to support conducting the survey. The survey will be conducted largely by the unhoused community, therefore involving the target population and providing skill-building opportunities. Sisters of the Road will support the project and provide training on survey administration.

According to the Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran in the Oregonian, "There is no centralized governance structure or coordinated plan to end homelessness; we do not have accurate data on how many people are experiencing homelessness or what their needs are; and there is little accountability on where taxpayer dollars are being spent or what we are getting for our money."

This project is an opportunity to answer those questions. Our goals are (1) to discover the housing needs and preferences of the unhoused population, (2) asses to what degree existing affordable housing programs meet those needs and preferences, (3) provide skills to those recently unhoused, and (4) conduct a survey that can be referenced for further studies and have far reaching effects on policy.

Public housing and affordable housing programs are treated as a commodity, with little regard to the actual needs or preferences of people accessing those services. This can lead to dissatisfaction in the service, distrust in service providers, and reentry into homelessness. Therefore it is unclear whether or not these programs are effective or even focused correctly.

We need people with lived experience to guide the creation of our housing programs. This project will provide an opportunity to ask recently unsheltered people about their experiences, their needs and preferences. This project will serve the recently unhoused community directly by providing (1) an opportunity to participate in research and advocacy that will impact policy decisions that directly affect them, (2) offer training and skill building, (3) compensation via gift cards for participation in the survey and for conducting the survey. Preliminary research from the Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative (HRAC) at PSU shows that roughly a third of recently unhoused persons surveyed listed advocacy as something they enjoyed. Our programming fills a void for our unhoused community.

Consequently, this work can support local policy makers in making sustainable decisions that best meet the needs of our most vulnerable community members.

We have a larger research cohort including organizations that directly work with folks with lived experience. This research cohort will participate in and guide the project at every phase. The survey will be a form of community guided campaigns called “Participatory Action Research,” which engages participants in examining the issues that affect them directly. In this case, people experiencing housing insecurity can not only contribute to the survey by sharing their own experience, but can also help conduct the survey. We will provide participants with skill building training to conduct the survey and will compensate their time with $23 per hour with a $600 cap.

Participants will each have the opportunity to do a 2 week rotation. Our community partners will be part of data analysis as well. PSU will provide training to participants on how to code and analyze the data they collected.