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Report #13 ACCOUNTABILITY: MEASURING ACTIVITIES OR RESULTS?

Accountability is a foundational principle in governance and organizational management. It can be defined as the obligation of individuals or institutions to explain, justify, and answer for their actions, decisions, and use of resources. It means being responsible for one’s conduct and facing consequences when expectations are not met.

Based on that definition, there is precious little accountability demanded from the homeless service providers funded by Multnomah County’s HSD (Homeless Services Department). Expectations are minimal and consequences for poor performance are rare. The results speak for themselves: homelessness in the county is constantly rising.

Source:   https://hsd.multco.us/data-dashboard/

However, there is a private funding organization that does demand and reward real results.

Hope for the Homeless Foundation (HHF) is a non-profit based in Portland. It collects money from donors, and distributes grants to homeless service providers that pass its vetting process. Its vetting process focuses on results: do these providers get the homeless off the streets and into productive lives? Which, after all, is the goal.

The First Thing: Desired Outcomes

HHF only funds service providers that focus on “holistic recovery”: on addressing the root causes of homelessness to help their clients move from the streets to self-sufficiency, able to live on their own with minimal or no subsidies. This can require anything and everything from drug withdrawal and stabilization to budgeting lessons, job training, psychological counseling, and much else. Depending on the individual’s situation the process can take anywhere from a few weeks to 2 years. The end goal is that the individual graduates with a job, savings, and stable housing. A key metric is the number of clients that are working and in stable housing a year after graduating from the program.

 

“Harm reduction” activities (giving out food, water, clothing, etc.) are accepted only insofar as they are designed to bring the homeless into the larger program.

 

Multnomah County’s HSD (Homeless Services Department), on the other hand, funds harm reduction, shelters, housing placement, and other activities. The overall goal is placement into permanent housing, but individual service providers are not held to any standard. As a result, only about 12% of shelter residents got permanent housing. Worse yet, there is a large cohort of that return to homelessness from permanent housing (56% in 2025), so their actual long-term “success” rate is closer to 6%.


No attempt is made by HSD to evaluate the effectiveness of the harm-reduction activities they fund in terms of helping people get off the street. The only thing they measure is the number of contacts and how much and what was given out.

 

Cost Effectiveness

A major factor in HHF’s funding decisions is the cost per person who finishes the program with a job and housing.

 

Sample results are in the table below:

HHF also consider the percentage that are still in permanent housing a year later. The average cost of a successful outcome per person was under $18,000.

 

HSD has collected similar data for 31 of the 48 shelters it funds (see Adult Shelter Review). The average cost per bed per year was $45,000. The average cost of a “successful” exit – an exit to permanent housing – was $114,000. The variation in results and costs between shelters and shelter types is wide: from $39,000 per “successful” exit to over $700,000.

 

They do not seem to use this information to compare or evaluate the various shelters, but for system-wide analyses. This has resulted in recommendations to adjust the mix of funding to fewer shelter beds and hire more placement service specialists. While this may or may not be a good idea, it does nothing to hold the individual shelters accountable for their own results and costs.

 

Nor does it seem to have had much influence on the current funding decisions regarding shelter closures. HSD evaluates shelter and other service providers on their adherence to their contract terms, which revolve around inputs and activities: number of staff, number of contacts, bed occupancy, and similar measures. Whether a program actually helps people get off of the street does not seem to be considered.

HOPE FOR THE HOMELESS FOUNDATION VETTING PROCESS

HHF’s vetting process is detailed at https://www.hhfpdx.org/our-vetting-process. In summary, it required the applying organization to answer 6 questions:

 

- Are they tackling the causes of homelessness (not just alleviating the symptoms)?

 

- How many people did they help last year?

 

- What was their success rate?

 

- What was their success rate after one year?

 

- Is their effort cost-effective?

 

- Do they focus on the chronically homeless (the hardest cases)?

 

They interview the providers, scrutinize their financials and budgets, and conduct site visits. The site visits are not just to check the numbers but also to get a “feel” for the organization. While not a traditional audit, the process is thorough: the vetting teams are active and retired business executives who are experienced in spotting red flags and inconsistencies in data.

 

Once all the data is collected and the site visits concluded, the HHF board meets to decide who to fund for that year. Organizations that received funding in previous years, and have maintained their standards, are eligible for further “evergreen” funding. Grants are announced at their annual fund raiser.

Conclusion

Multnomah County’s HSD needs to apply a similar process when deciding which providers to fund.

 

  • Measure performance against the goal of getting people off of the street and, as much as possible, into productive lives.

  • Calculate the cost for each successful “graduate” and the retention rates.

  • Direct funding to those with the best outcomes and lowest cost per good outcome.

  • Identify providers with poor outcomes and high cost per good outcome, put them on probation and, if they do not improve, cut off their funding.

NOTES: The large difference between the costs per successful outcome of the HHF vetted operations versus those funded by the HSD is due to several factors:

 

- The low success rate of the HSD shelters increases the cost per success

 

- HHF shelters often use volunteers for their support services, while the HSD funded shelters generally use paid staff

 

- Participants at most HHF shelters are required to contribute: clean their rooms, wash the dishes, do the laundry, clean the common areas, etc. At the HSD funded shelters most maintenance is done by paid staff.

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Portland Voice is an advocacy initiative by Oregon Harbor of Hope, amplifying the voices of people living in Multnomah County impacted by homelessness and system involvement. The program engages policymakers, institutions, and the public to shape narrative and policy grounded in lived experience and accountability.

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