Christine Drazan on Welfare & Poverty

North of 27,000 homeless in Oregon is unacceptable

Drazen: When I think about our future, and in particular our economy, it's tied to our reputation, which means that it's tied to our quality of life now. People aren't looking at Oregon and they're not thinking about trail rides and hitting the coast. They're looking at Oregon and they're thinking about homelessness and addiction that we can't seem to get our arms around. And for us to be an attractive place for people to grow, we do need to fix our reputation, but it's not just the business reputation. North of 27,000 people are homeless or unsheltered homeless across Oregon right now. It's unacceptable.

Kotek: We have reduced unsheltered homelessness across the state, and we have made investments to have a statewide shelter system. We have improved housing. We are up 11% since the beginning of last year in terms of housing starts.

Work with non-profits, faith community on homelessness