Jobs programs offer a path out of homelessness. Multnomah County could cut them

For the first time in a long time, Karl Ely figured he had pretty much everything he needed.

Ely moved to Portland from Philadelphia several decades ago. The aspiring artist worked as a line cook and then in the Doc Martens warehouse near Swan Island. But he lost that job during the pandemic. And then, when state eviction prevention funding ran out, he lost his apartment too. Ely lived in a tent for two years until he landed a spot at the Menlo Park sleeping pod shelter in the Hazelwood neighborhood.

That shelter is run by Cultivate Initiatives, a homeless services and workforce training nonprofit founded in 2021 by a local man whose brothers long struggled with addiction and homelessness. That was Ely’s lucky break…

Read the full story on The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Photo by Sean Meagher.