Thank you, Pastor DJ. Hello. I want to thank Church in the Park for inviting me to celebrate this grand opening with you today.
I am honored to be here today with the elected officials, advocates, and faith and community leaders who saw an opportunity to make a difference in their community and ran with it. The people here today saw the promise in a space and saw it through to a reality.
Often, when we’re trying to solve a complex problem, like our homelessness crisis, we get caught up in the numbers: How many beds can a project provide? How many dollars will it take to sustain it? These numbers are critical for staying focused and getting the job done. But let’s ground ourselves in what those numbers mean.
The Dallas Family Shelter will protect four families who will soon have safe, warm shelter. The families who will live here will get the chance to start on a journey towards stability, towards opportunity, towards security. Imagine the impact a shelter like this can have on a child’s future, nourishing that child and protecting them from the trauma of homelessness.
Having a safe, warm place to call home is the basic building block to a prosperous, healthy life. I want that for every Oregonian. The scale and complexity of that goal can feel insurmountable, but we are making progress. Since I issued the first Executive Order declaring a statewide homelessness emergency two years ago, communities across Oregon – like Dallas – have stood up new services and coordinated systems. Together, we have blunted the humanitarian crisis on our doorsteps.
By this July, our new efforts and funding to tackle homelessness are projected to rehouse 3,300 households and prevent another 24,000 households from experiencing homelessness in the first place. Our state shelter program now supports over 4,800 shelter beds to help people stay off the streets and have access to transitional stability.
It’s a strong start, but only a starting point. The urgency remains, and we need to see this strategy through. This legislative session, I’m advocating for my budget that includes continued investments in shelter, rehousing, and prevention, as well as funding to build additional affordable homes. We will cut red tape so housing projects can break ground faster and we will support first-time homebuyers. If we keep our eyes on the horizon and our foot on the accelerator, the equivalent of nearly 1 in 3 Oregonians experiencing homelessness on my first day in office will be rehoused by the end of my first term.
We make this kind of progress, one success at a time, one Dallas Family Shelter at a time. That’s why being here today with all of you energizes me and inspires me.
If we remain unrelenting in our goals, we can make a healthier, safer, more prosperous Oregon, where everyone has a place to call home.
Thank you.