One Year in Office, Press Conference Remarks
January 9, 2024
Good morning! Thank you for being here today.
Today marks one year since I was sworn in as governor.
In preparing for today, I took some to time to look back at what I shared with Oregonians a year ago – about my hopes for Oregon and my approach to this job.
Last year, I said that this job would mean waking up, every day, with a mission to deliver results for Oregonians. I spoke about strengthening connections with Oregonians from every part of our state, increasing accountability in state government, and asking everyone to come together to be part of solutions that will make a difference.
This job is about taking on our biggest challenges and making things better. I called out housing and homelessness, behavioral health, education, and community safety as top priorities based on what I'd heard from Oregonians on the campaign trail. These priorities were further reaffirmed all last year on my One Oregon Listening Tour, during which I visited all 36 counties and had the opportunity to meet with nearly 1,000 Oregonians where they live and work.
I believe – thanks to Oregonians working together, providing feedback, and innovating within their own communities – we have collectively made progress in each of these areas. There's always more to do, but progress is happening.
Today, we released preliminary data on the outcomes connected to my homelessness emergency order. We made meaningful progress to help more Oregonians who are at risk of losing their housing, or who are currently sleeping outside and are ready to move into shelter, starting on their way to stable housing. We have also been laser-focused on finding new ways to increase housing production across the state.
We paved the way to change how Oregon students are taught to read, as well as started a conversation about how we fund our schools. And I'm thrilled to announce today that all 197 school districts across the state have applied for grant funding from House Bill 3198 to improve how Oregon schools teach kids to read and write.
We have cut wait times for training law enforcement officers in half and launched a statewide strategic enforcement initiative on fentanyl.
In a week or so, I plan to join the City of Portland and Multnomah County in declaring a fentanyl emergency in the Portland Central City, where we know a concentration of the drug is being trafficked for statewide distribution.
We have asked the legislature to ban public use of controlled substances and reduce barriers to prosecuting individuals selling drugs, while working to expand treatment options. Just last week, I announced a joint effort with Multnomah County, the City of Portland, and Central City Concern to secure over 70 new treatment beds in Portland, as well as a $25 million partnership with Coordinated Care Organizations toward expanding behavioral health capacity for young Oregonians.
Progress is happening, on many fronts.
We had a productive year on a variety of issues. I encourage everyone to see a fuller progress report that's online.
So, I played a lot of sports growing up, and I think that experience of teamwork, focused on an end goal, and a willingness to push harder when you're tired, is appropriate for this moment. As I cross my one-year mark as Governor, I am reminded of that feeling that this is the time to dig deeper and keep going. And I know that success does not belong to one person or one administration. As Oregonians, we can and will continue to do hard things, together.
Speaking of hard things, I am incredibly grateful to so many Oregonians – local government leaders, housing providers, outreach staff, homeless service providers, shelter operators – who, over the last year, did the heavy lifting to meet the urgent goals set forth in my Homelessness State of Emergency.
We tied specific outcomes to the emergency declaration. When I declared the emergency, I told Oregonians that it would be the first step toward significantly impacting and reducing homelessness in our communities. As of yesterday, we received preliminary results that will be finalized by the end of February. Those preliminary results show that we prevented 8,886 households from becoming homeless statewide, exceeding our goal by 136 households, stood up 1,032 new shelter beds exceeding our goal of 432, and rehoused 1,293 households, exceeding our goal by 93.
These outcomes are a critical threshold of progress and a proof point that we can deliver results. All of us, working together. And we have to keep up the pace!
Now, we embark on the next step, armed with stronger infrastructure and lessons learned from our first year tackling this work head on with emergency powers.
The 2023 HUD Point in Time Count – though conducted prior to our Homelessness State of Emergency – estimates that there are 20,000 people in Oregon experiencing homelessness across the state. And this is likely an undercount. Homelessness is still, very much, an emergency.
Consequently, today, I am signing Executive Order 24-02, which continues the Homelessness State of Emergency. Specific outcomes tied to this new order will be outlined in the month ahead. In concert with this extension, I am signing Executive Order 24-03, which encompasses the second phase of our work that directed all state agencies to prioritize preventing and reducing homelessness. The new order re-establishes the Interagency Council on Homelessness and tasks them with operationalizing a roadmap for state agencies to expand an outcomes-driven approach to reducing and preventing homelessness statewide.
But, as we know, we cannot address our homelessness crisis without addressing Oregon's acute shortage of housing supply. These issues are linked – the resources we put into a system of homelessness services will not have maximum effectiveness unless we have housing units to move people into when they are ready to do so.
The impact of our housing shortage does not stop at homelessness. Economic prosperity and thriving communities are all at stake when we talk about housing production. My time on the road talking with Oregonians last year was sobering, particularly in smaller towns. Health care providers struggle to hire needed professionals. Basic services like fire departments, police, and schools face chronic workforce shortages. It's more of the same within the agricultural sector, ports, and new industries.
The common thread: housing. Employers are losing potential hires because people don't have a place to live. Others are forced to commute, sometimes hours, which leads to high workforce turnover. And some are leaving the state entirely. The situation is untenable, and the entire state is facing consequences as a result.
That is why my top priority for the upcoming legislative session is a $500 million dollar housing production package. My proposal is a focused approach, with a menu of needed tools, funded with one-time dollars, to jumpstart the housing production we need to see across the state. I look forward to working with legislators to get it done.
Once more, I want to thank Oregonians across the state for the contributions you are making in your communities and for your incredible partnership and support in my first year. Let's keep going!
Thank you!