Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance
Serving Marion and Polk counties, Oregon
Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the United States are experiencing homelessness living in shelters or on the streets — in tents, encampments or sheds. One way the federal government measures homelessness is by counting people who are sleeping on the streets or in shelters on a given night, an event known as the Point-in-Time…
A person experiencing chronic homelessness is generally defined as an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition, who has been homeless for more than one year. It’s more common for people experiencing chronic homelessness to also deal with a certain disability, mental health condition, addiction or other debilitating conditions that restrict their ability to escape…
The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development released two Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) for which the Alliance and other Marion-Polk region nonprofit organizations, governments, faith-based organizations, and tribal organizations are eligible to apply: the annual NOFO for the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program funding and a special NOFO for unsheltered homelessness. The Request…
The Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance is a Continuum of Care (CoC). You may have heard our name used synonymously with the “Alliance” or “CoC,” because we use these terms interchangeably to describe our organization. Our official name is Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance. To shorten it we use “the Alliance,” but are categorized as a CoC…
The Point-In-Time (PIT) Count that occurred in January across Oregon’s Marion-Polk region involved volunteers, shelter staff, and outreach workers who connected with 879 unsheltered individuals and 926 temporarily sheltered individuals for a total of 1,805 people. This is approximately 15 percent more than the 1,554 people contacted during the 2021 PIT Count. The PIT Count…
Every year, millions of people around the world honor the month of May as Mental Health Awareness Month. During this time, people fight the stigma against mental illness, educate the public, and advocate for change regarding various mental health conditions. How does mental health impact our local community members experiencing homelessness? Researchers agree that between…
Marion and Polk counties are on a mission to prevent and end youth homelessness. The community is committed to making youth homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. Six months after learning that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a $3.7 million dollar Youth Homeless Demonstration Program (YHDP) grant to the Marion-Polk region,…
Monday night, by unanimous consent, the Salem City Council adopted Resolution 2019-17, supporting the formation of a regional CoC. From the staff summary: Analysis of the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care (ROCC) structure has concluded that a Regional Continuum of Care (CoC) structure consisting of Marion, Polk, and possibly Yamhill counties, offers the potential for…
Polk County Commissioners Ainsworth, Pope and Mordhorst have given “consensus agreement” to a plan to re-form the local Continuum of Care that ceased to exist when Marion and Polk counties joined the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care in 2011. The Commissioners made their decision following an hour-long presentation by Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments Executive…