Portland Ideation Summit: Housing for All
The Portland Ideation Summit: Housing for All was an event sponsored by WebVisions, Saturday, January 27, 2018 from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM (PST) in Portland, Oregon.
The event was organized by Brad Smith (WebVisions) and Sue Gemmell. Forty people attended, who had a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, including students, activists, houseless people, mental health experts, social services professionals, programmers, and people who were just interested.
After hearing seven perspectives on homelessness (see list in the schedule below), a system diagram was shown, that illustrated the cycle from housed, to unhoused, and back to housed (image to come). Participants were asked to think about what could prevent people from becoming unhoused, and what could help peple get housing. Also what are the misfortunes that cuase homelessness, and the barriers that keep people on the streets. Participants wrote their ideas on post-its and placed them on large copies of the cycle diagram.
The next step was ideation - to think of a product or service that doesn't exist but would address some part of the cycle and prevent homelessness. Each group came up with an idea and presented it, very briefly. Then we had a pizza lunch, people could keep chatting and change groups if they wanted to. After lunch, groups got to work drawing or writing up about their ideas, and in some instances building (the outreach tracker). At 4 pm the event culminated in final presentations, described below. All ideas were applauded.
Next steps
Organize events to continue developing these projects, and find resources to ensure they happen.
Projects
Oregon Tenant Resource Center
Tim McCormick, YIMBYwiki.
Renters Emergency Response
Marih Alyn-Claire, TenantsPricedOut.com
Realtime Roadmap
Oz Ramos, Dan Linn, Eboni Brown
Idea Guide
Outreach Mapping
Portland Homelessness Portal
By the People, For the People
Law Review Project
Details
Tickets page:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-portland-ideation-summit-housing-for-all-tickets-41345316956
Location:
Pacific Northwest College of Art
511 NW Broadway
Mediatheque - Ground Floor
Portland, Oregon 97209
Schedule
Hackathon for Social Good page, with schedule:
http://www.hackathonforsocialgood.org/schedule/
08:30am Doors open: Sign in / Coffee and Scones;
please bring your refillable water bottle.
09:00am Opening message; review the day’s process
09:15am Brief presentations about the homeless crisis
- Barbra Weber, Activist Street Roots, Hygiene Huddle
- Ibrahim Mubarak, Activist, Right 2 Survive
- Eliot Hinkle, Life Skills Coach – LGBTQ Specialist, New Avenues for Youth
- Savanah Walseth, Manager, Kenton Women’s Village
- Chris Aiosa, Executive Director, Do Good Multnomah
- Jason Renaud, Coordinator, Oregon Law & Mental Health Conference
- Mark Lakeman, Founder, Design Director, Communitecture and Advisory Council Member, Dignity Village
10:00am - Divide into groups; Ideation and strategy.
11:00am - Groups present their plans.
12:00pm - Lunch break – pizza and salad provided
12:45pm - Concept development.
03:45pm - Finalize and prepare for presentation.
04:00pm - Presentation of projects.
05:15pm - Feedback and next steps announced.
Attendee list
(attendee-edited)
See: Portland Ideation Summit attendees
Other online resources
Facebook private group for event participants
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PdxIdeationHousing/.
Twitter: @PdxHomesForAll.
Hashtag: #PdxHomesForAll (if you put this on your tweets, Facebook posts, Instagrams, blog posts, etc, we + others will be find and link conversations more easily).
Twitter search for #PdxHomesForAll.
Overview
Resources page: http://www.hackathonforsocialgood.org/resources-homelessness-in-the-portland-area/.
Gather with regional experts, advocates, activists and people who have experienced homelessness to imagine and pursue new ways to house the people who live on Portland’s streets.
The Ideation Summit will accommodate ~ 60 participants, who will form groups to deliver innovative ideas that can be pursued at future events. Portland is known for its hackathon culture -- so let's apply the Hackathon for Social Good approach to the homeless crisis.
-- Hackathon: a day of focused, determined, collaborative work
-- For social good: solving social issues by local communities, for local communities.
The Summit will be a collaborative forum to develop innovative ideas and plans that take on the varied facets of Portland's homelessness crisis. The event begins with short presentations by representatives of and advocates for the homeless community, then participants will break up into teams for three hours to collaborate, innovate and propose a solution to present at the end of the day.
In addition to ideas for future consideration, the day’s output will include a visual display for public view at PNCA through Feb 15.
Background Reading
The Guardian - "Outside in America Series: On the frontline of the homelessness crisis in the western US".
StreetRoots - news from the street
Portland's State of Emergency on Housing and Homelessness (Homelessness Toolkit)
A Home for Everyone - A good place to start is to have a look at city and county information. In 2013, the city, county, and Home Forward convened a special committee of diverse stakeholders and created "A Home for Everyone: A United Community Plan to End Homelessness in Multnomah County".
"Point in time report: 22 Feb 2017". The point-in-time count of homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County provides a bi-annual snapshot of the individuals and families experiencing homelessness on a given night in our community.
Housing First - National Alliance to End Homelessness - Housing First is a homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness and serving as a platform from which they can pursue personal goals and improve their quality of life.
Kenton Women's Village - a creative, collaborative year-long pilot project, offering a new potential approach for addressing houselessness at a small scale, which could be adapted and implemented in communities across the country.
Homelessness in the Portland Area - resources
see main article: Homelessness in the Portland Area