The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to spend up to $1.2 million over the next year to rent 53 rooms at a Gresham motel to serve as a family shelter for adults with minor children.
“Motels are a trauma-informed shelter option, especially for families,” said Anna Plumb, interim director of the county’s Homeless Services Department. “In a motel shelter, kids can close the door and do their homework. A parent who’s had to work all day can get a good night’s sleep so they’re well-rested when they go back to work the next day. If a child is sick, they have a bed to sleep in and recover.”
The privacy and comfort of a motel room can provide the stability a family needs in a crisis, Plumb said. Larger families will get two rooms with a door between them. And many of the rooms have pull-out couches, according to county officials. The hotel rooms will be leased on a per night basis and the current owner of the building will be responsible for maintenance. If a room is unavailable due to maintenance issues, the county will not pay for the room that night, officials said Thursday.
The family shelter system has a high rate of success at placing people in permanent housing. More than 50% of families leave shelter for housing, more than twice the rate for single adults, Plumb said Thursday. The average length of time a family stays in shelter is four to six months.
Brandi Tuck, executive director of homeless family services agency Path Home, has worked in or run family shelters for 20 years. But she said she doesn’t think creating additional family shelters makes the most sense right now. She thinks the county should invest its limited funds in direct housing support for homeless families rather than in shelter.
“While shelter can be a very helpful piece of the continuum to help people move from homelessness back into housing, we need to make sure we are focused on moving people into housing,” Tuck said. “Before we invest in more shelter spots, we really need to invest in more housing placement so we don’t get to a point where we are warehousing families with children in shelter with no pathway out.”
County officials also announced significant cuts to its homeless services funding last week, due largely to a tighter than expected state budget. The county has millions less in rent assistance funds for this fiscal year than expected with more cuts expected to come down from the federal level soon. Both sets of cuts will hamstring the county’s ability to place homeless people, including families, into housing.
The placement of the new shelter at 24124 Southeast Stark Street in Gresham was by design, county officials said. Between April 2024 and March 2025, 42.9% of all calls from homeless families to the 211 information line came from people living in Gresham or one of the other cities in the eastern part of Multnomah County, according to city officials.
“Nearly half of the working households in east county are one unplanned expense away from homelessness,” Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon said. “This shelter will serve and support our community’s families in their time of need.”
County officials have not yet named the nonprofit shelter operator that will run the Gresham family shelter, which is likely to open in November.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
