PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — The Multnomah County Board had to make a difficult choice on Thursday, deciding how to compensate for the loss of roughly $28 million in state funding for Homeless Services.

Members of the board said that the loss of state funding is due to the loss of federal funding, i.e., the state lost federal funding, which in turn cut the amount of money that could be given to the county.

This funding constraint comes as the county struggles to keep up with the number of people facing homelessness.

“We know right now that we’re having about 1,400 new people a month being identified as experiencing homelessness. And right now our system is able to help 1,100 exit, which means every month 300 new individuals are experiencing homelessness,” said Commissioner Meghan Moyer.

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In a 3-2 vote, with Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards and Commissioner Meghan Moyer each voting against a plan that would back-fill about $20 million from the $28 million that the county is losing.

The plan involves stopping the expansion of the Cook Plaza Project — a homeless shelter in Gresham. The county estimates that by doing so, the county would save about $6.4 million.

It also involves borrowing $4.9 million in next year’s state funding; developing a new shelter model that makes use of motel rooms as opposed to costly building space; and using reserve funding made available for a Metro Ballot Measure, which funded supportive housing.

The two commissioners who voted against the plan explained their concerns about borrowing money from next year’s budget.

“The proposal that passed took $3 million from next year and put it into this year. And I understand it is to reduce the impact of reductions, but that really makes our hole even bigger,” said Moyer.

“The strategy that was put forth by the chair also borrows money from next year to fill this year’s hole, just creating a bigger cliff next year,” said Brim-Edwards.

The plan also means that the county will have to reduce the number of people it can provide subsidized housing for.

However, the plan prevents the county from having to reduce existing shelter beds, which Board Chair Jessica Vega Pederson says is important.

“One thing that our community can agree on is that it doesn’t make sense if somebody’s currently housed, to take away those resources that would end them up on the streets, said Pederson.

Brim-Edwards also raised concern about the timing of the modifications.

“I was very disappointed that we got brought these adjustments in October when actually the legislature passed their budget in July and the budget amounts were known, and so to wait till October is I’m not don’t think good fiscal management,” said Brim-Edwards.

Since the fiscal year starts in July and ends during the following June, Brim-Edwards wanted to give homeless service providers more time to adapt to changes in the budget.

In a statement, the Chair responded to Brim-Edwards’ concern.

“It takes some time for County departments to have finalized budget numbers from the state and to understand the full impacts of these figures, which is why Multnomah County does our state rebalance work each fall after a long legislative session. The Board began discussing the impacts to County departments from state and federal changes, including the Homeless Services Department, in September. Because of the magnitude of the budget impacts to our homelessness response system, it was important for us to have several public discussions about the difficult choices before the board,” Pedersen said.

Commissioner Shannon Singleton voted to pass the plan. She told us what she feels the county’s long-term direction should be on the issue of homelessness.

“While I know it’s hard for people to understand that that may mean we have to close some shelters, I also think people understand that we don’t want to just warehouse people in shelters. We have to have pathways out of that into housing. And right now our system is over-leveraged on one side of that equation,” said Singleton.

The county will still be facing an $8 million shortage, since they were only able to backfill $20 million out of the $28 million. KATU is working to confirm when the board will address the remaining gap.

This story will be updated.