Hillsboro City Council Work Session and Regular Meeting on Homelessness - September 16, 2025
Hillsboro City Council Work Session and Regular Meeting on Homelessness and Deflection - September 16, 2025
The meeting began with a work session at approximately 7:00 PM focused on homelessness, behavioral health, and deflection, featuring presentations from city and county staff. The regular council meeting followed, including a legislative update, public comments, consent agenda, and action items. The work session then resumed after the regular meeting for further discussion and Q&A.
Consent Calendar
- Approved unanimously without discussion. Items included routine approvals and actions.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Trish Raby spoke about the need for a more accurate count of homeless individuals, suggesting a fingerprint or similar system at service providers to track usage per person, and questioned the cost-effectiveness of current spending on homelessness versus education.
- Sia Lindstrom (board member of Project Homeless Connect) expressed support for the new year-round shelter (35 indoor congregate beds, 40 individual shelter pods) and the renovation of the day center, citing that in the last quarter PHC provided over 1,200 showers and 600 loads of laundry but could not meet an additional need of 550 showers and 500 loads of laundry due to facility limitations.
- Jack Graham (founder of Flip Museum) spoke about the museum's work with families in shelters and requested help finding a larger space to expand the museum, noting approximately $40,000 in economic impact in its first eight months.
- April Davis read a passage from a Times magazine article by Russell M. Nelson about dignity and respect, urging compassion and love for neighbors.
Discussion Items
- Work Session on Homelessness and Behavioral Health:
- Simone Brooks (Assistant City Manager) provided an overview of the city's role, noting the city receives $675,000 in federal CDBG funds but council has directed those to affordable homeownership and repair. She clarified the city does not receive funding for behavioral health treatment.
- Kiomi Arbuckle (Community Services Program Coordinator) presented national data: 23 out of 10,000 people in the U.S. experienced homelessness in 2024 (an 18% increase from 2023); in Oregon, 54 out of 10,000 residents experience homelessness, a 63% increase in unsheltered homelessness over six years. In Hillsboro, 45% of renters are cost-burdened. She also noted that 20-25% of unhoused people have a mental illness, and in Oregon 922,000 adults have a mental health condition. She emphasized a two-way relationship between behavioral health and homelessness.
- Nicole Sting (Washington County Housing Services) reported that over 7,000 people were helped along their housing journey last year, and over 10,000 people were housed (roughly half the size of Sherwood). She noted over 400 shelter beds across the county, and that SHS (Supportive Housing Services) met all goals for the first time. She also highlighted the launch of a lived experience advisory committee, new transitional housing (including a partnership with Transcending Hope), and work on health system integration via the Medicaid 1115 waiver.
- Danielle Farr (Deflection Coordinator) detailed the deflection program that launched September 1, 2024, citing 44 active participants, nearly 300 referrals to services with over 60% contact rate, and that Hillsboro PD accounts for nearly half of all deflection-eligible citations. She noted that 49% of participants completed the initial assessment, and 50% of those who were unsheltered at intake became sheltered. She also mentioned that eligibility has expanded twice to include co-occurring charges like trespass or theft.
- Sergeant Aaron McCarver (HPD) presented data on camping calls: a heat map showing concentration in west/downtown Hillsboro, and that the department issues the majority of possession citations (PCS) for deflection. He emphasized the importance of relationships and education over enforcement, and noted that most camping calls are from regular contacts.
- Legislative Update: Representative Susan McLean (HD 29) provided an update on the transportation special session bill (budget reconciliation, ~$4.5 billion over 10 years), amendments on transit payroll tax sunset and weight-mile reconciliation, and other bills including deepfake/stalking legislation and ethics reform. She also discussed federal funding challenges and efforts to protect grants.
- City Manager Report: Robbie Hammond reported on a multi-car collision at Shute Park Library (no library staff injured, two patrons with minor injuries) and a commendation of municipal court staff from a resident.
Key Outcomes
- Resolution 2900 (Interfund loan of up to $800,000 for Witch Hazel Village South Park land acquisition) was adopted unanimously.
- Ordinance 6507 (Supplemental budget for 2025-2027 biennium, declared an emergency) was adopted unanimously on a single reading.
- Resolution 2899 (Re-adoption of investment policy with maturity up to 5.25 years, repealing resolution 2878) was adopted unanimously.
- The work session concluded with a commitment to continue tracking data and exploring city-specific homeless counts, as well as ongoing partnership with the county on deflection and shelter services.
Meeting Transcript
Great. All right, welcome to the work session. We are looking the whole council, as far as I could tell, is looking forward to the briefing tonight. And we appreciate you all being here from both the city and the county. I'll let I'll let you all know that Councilor All Care is online. So the whole council is here present listening. And I'll also ask council to hold questions until Simone hits a break. And then so I'll ask you to write the questions down when we hit a break. Simone will say, All right, now's the time to ask questions, and then we'll go from there. Any other things you want to add, Robbie? Awesome. Mayor. Council's not on yet, but I'm sure she will read. Okay, thanks for the heads up. Appreciate it. All right. Simon, take it away. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Good to see you all this evening. For the record, my name is Simone Brooks, and I'm the assistant city manager. Tonight, I, along with several staff, both from the county and from the city, will be presenting. And we're going to share information about the city and county roles in addressing homelessness and deflection. So to try to keep things moving, because we have a lot to try to cover this evening. So I have to my right, Kiomi Arbuckle, Community Services Program Coordinator for the City. Nicole Sting, Strategic Initiatives and Relations Manager from Washington County. Danielle Farr, Deflection Coordinator, also from Washington County, and Sergeant Aaron McCarver from our Hillsborough Police Department. He is the community outreach sergeant and public information officer. So thank you, County staff, for being here today. This will be a well-rounded presentation, so we certainly hope by time we're done. Oh, you already went to agenda. Thank you. So before we move into the presentations, I just want to touch on the city's current role in addressing the issues of homelessness and behavioral health because I know for community members and sometimes for city council that can be confusing. So through grants funded out of our general fund, community partnerships and some other limited resources, the city supports, connects, and coordinates with service providers, local, regional, and state agencies, as well as through our government relations advocates for federal funding for projects such as the year-round shelter. The city receives approximately $675,000 in federal community development block grant funding, which can be used to provide social services to address housing and homelessness issues such as eviction prevention and emergency assistance. However, City Council most recently and in previous councils has directed this funding to affordable home ownership and critical home repair. And you heard about this program during one of the previous Hillsborough 101, so that's probably familiar to you, but I just wanted to kind of orient you to some of the different funding. Housing affordability, which can be a contributing factor to homelessness, is not part of tonight's presentation, although housing affordability was also discussed during a previous Hillsborough 101 and is uh typically addressed through our housing production strategy, which is led by our economic and community development department, as well as efforts by other departments to address affordability issues. Law enforcement is a role of the cities. Um that is a key responsibility for us, as particularly in application of the time place manner rules for camping. Um that was following the June 2024 Supreme Court ruling that gets cites the authority of local government to regulate public camping even when shelter is limited. So just some there'll be more context coming on this when we get down to Sergeant McCarver. So there's more to come details. Um regarding behavioral health issues, such as treatment for substance abuse or mental health. It's important to note that the city does not receive any source of funding to address those issues. So no local, regional, state, or federal agency funds us to activate in those areas. So unlike the city, Washington County, like Multnomah and Clackness Counties, receives Metro supportive housing services funding and state and federal funding related to its housing, health, and human services functions. However, tonight's county presentations is not, they're not going to cover all the things that the county does related to housing, health and human services. Um, but we will get some really important and helpful information this evening from their presentations. So for tonight's agenda, we'll provide you with data to provide some context as it relates to homelessness and behavioral health.
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