Do Something Claire!

Frustrated citizens have been contacting me, recently, imploring me to do something about homelessness in our communities. I’m not sure if these folks are aware of my efforts or not but it got me thinking that I should make everyone aware of my efforts.

While, I could give you a long laundry list of my efforts, the point I want to get across is this:

I have made getting people into safe, stable affordable housing my prime focus for 15 years. Not only have I put in thousands of hours in official time, I’ve given hundreds more of my personal time as well as regular donations to organizations that are helping people in crisis.

Last year, I was introduced to a group in Portland as “the only local elected official outside of Portland who was working on housing and homelessness ten years ago.” That recognition was nice. You know what would have been nicer? To have had more people listen back then and to have more people housed right now.

We didn’t get into this crisis overnight. I’m sorry to say we won’t get out of it overnight. This is the result of decades of not building enough decent, safe and affordable housing. It’s also about a lack of access to medical care and behavioral health care. It’s about a lack of living wage jobs.

I am dedicated to finding a multipronged long term solution to these vexing problems and if you look at the construction of the 110 unit apartment complex we are building for those with modest incomes in our community, you can see we are starting to make a difference. Let’s not stop now. We’ve got great momentum finally!