Oregon Public Broadcasting

The City of Portland suffered a blow last week.  New figures came out showing the number of homeless people jumped 11% over the last two years.

The figures come as the city is in the middle of an ambitious effort to end homelessness by 2014.

Kristian Foden-Vencil talked to people living in doorways and emergency shelters and found that while more apartments are available, a faltering economy means more people need them.

Ed Blackburn is the executive director of Central City Concern -- it's a non-profit that helps homeless people get off the street and into jobs.

Over the last five years, his agency has spent millions of dollars renovating old buildings.

Ed Blackburn: "So at Central City Concern, we've added a couple of hundred units."

That's hundreds of new apartments where a homeless family can land; sort-out their lives; find work; and then move on.

But, Blackburn says, the last year has been tough -- the poor economy means more and more Oregonians lose work, lose their home, lose control of their lives and end up on the street.

He uses the analogy of a bathtub that's filling up as the faucet's still running.

Ed Blackburn: "I think what happened here a bit is that faucet has come on with more force. For a while there we had a bucket and we were taking it out. And the question is, can we still finance that bucket or are we going to be down to a spoon and are we going to see a rise in homelessness."

And the hand that cranked that faucet further open: the economy.

Layoffs, foreclosures, bankruptcies -- financial woes that can mean a person has no place to sleep or make a meal.

Kristian: "So I'm on Burnside Bridge over on the West side where the Portland Rescue Mission is. There's a row of maybe 30 or 40 people who are waiting to get into the mission and find somewhere to sleep tonight. Talking to people about why it is homelessness has going up about 11 percent in the last two years."

Sheri Spurrel: "I think it's because of people losing jobs and family members can't help them out."

Sheri Spurrel sits on the pavement with all her worldly possessions -- stuffed into a small cart. Her cat sits on top. Not so long ago she was living with her sister, but was asked to leave.

A little farther down the street is Christian Randall, whose yellow eyes and soot-streaked face tell of the hardships of life on the street.

Christian Randall: "The economy is going down. So I think that's one more thing. People losing their housing, people losing their jobs. And it's hard to find a job in Portland.  Even all the college students graduate, they end up working the fast food because of the fact the economy is going down."

The story's the same with everyone I talked to.

A tally on the night of January 28th showed that about 1600 Oregonians living in their cars, or under the bridges and doorways of Portland. Auditors found another 850 sleeping in Multnomah County's emergency shelters.

That's an 11 percent increase over the 2007 count. But there is hope.

More apartments are coming on-line and programs to help homeless people get clean, sober and ready for work are becoming more common.  That makes stories like that of Daniel Winters more common.

Winters has vivid memories of being homeless and addicted to drugs.

Daniel Winters: "Sharpening needles on matchbooks. Picking needles out of garbage cans to shoot up. Smoking crack on the street, running around not being able to take a shower for three days. And I was just running rampant."

But he got extra help from the City of Portland, Multnomah County and the feds.  Now he has a steady job with Central City Concern, he's paying taxes and about to get married.

Daniel Winters: "I was able to access Hooper Detox, the mentor program, the medical program theyíve got over here. And I was able to access EAC, the employment access center. And so all these components that this agency gave to me, got me to the point where I am now where I'm actually working for the very agency that helped save my life."

Success stories like those of Daniel Winters, as well as the rise in homelessness, will be foremost in the minds of Portland's commissioners over the next couple of weeks. They're working on the next city budget.  One of their decisions will be whether to authorize the $6.5 million needed to stay true to their plan to end homelessness.