Homelessness has become a focal point of Portlanders' angst as the number of people who sleep on the street has grown. It has also captured the interest of Portland State University researchers in the linguistics department as much as those who study city planning.

So when the Portland State president announced shortly after he started the job that he would fund two initiatives that take professors from across the school and train them all on the same topic, many felt they finally had a way to do something about the more than 4,000 people who don't have a permanent home in the city.

Portland State President Rahmat Shoureshi announced Monday morning that he would dedicate $3 million to a new Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative and a Digital City Testbed Center, which will focus on how technology can be used to make urban regions more efficient, greener and healthier.

The centers will be given about three years to prove they can attract outside investment and make a difference in understanding homelessness and how technology and urban planning interact.

"These centers have the potential of changing the world, led by the world's top thinkers and innovators," Shoureshi said Monday. "They will meld new and creative thinking and drive a future of solutions. PSU is known for its innovation and these centers will be a shining example of such creativity."

Shoureshi hopes to eventually create seven of these centers at Portland State. Shoureshi became president in August 2017 and has focused on making Portland State known as a research and innovation hub as much as a place to earn a degree.

The two pilot programs will be switched out for another idea if they are unable to financially support themselves.

Marisa Zapata will help lead the Homelessness collaborative. Zapata, an associate professor of land-use planning, has been on a board for the county's homeless services, A Home For Everyone, for the past four years.

In that time, she's focused on racial equity, collecting data about homelessness and community engagement. She hopes this collaborative will be able to study how the Portland community talks about homelessness in order to craft messages and information to be more effective.

A colleague in the education department wants to develop a curriculum for elementary students to learn and understand homelessness. Others want to look at neighborhood Facebook groups and other places to analyze the language residents use around homelessness.

The collaborative will also look for solutions to homelessness, investigate how different demographics are affected and figure out ways to stop people from losing their housing in the first place.

"I describe homelessness as one of the worst examples of societal failure, and it's created by failure across all our systems," Zapata said. "So the only way to address it is to bring solutions from across disciplines."

Portland State already works with city and county officials to analyze the annual Point-in-Time Count, which collects information about homeless people on a single night in the winter. Students and faculty in the school of architecture helped design and build tiny houses for Portland's Kenton Women's Village, a pilot project that provides tiny houses for women who have experienced trauma and abuse until they can transition into permanent housing.

The Portland State center will join only one other in the country, a recently minted one at the University of Southern California.

"I think we'll see more of these type of centers, but for now we get to be one of the few in the country," Zapata said.

The Digital City Testbed Center will meld work around transportation, technology, urban planning and other areas to try to make Portland more environmentally friendly and accessible.

It will be led by Jon Fink, senior adviser to the president and professor of geology.

"In this world of digital cities, there are a ton of possibilities here that will potentially change what it's like to be a living and functioning person here," said university Vice President of Research Mark McLellan. "Portland, being a high tech hip urban area, is hungry for solutions like this."

McLellan said university officials hope local and regional governments work with the centers to apply their research and ideas.

"Addressing homelessness is an all hands-on deck effort. I'm energized PSU is making the important investment of a Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative to address challenges of homelessness on the local level and beyond," Mayor Ted Wheeler said. "Additionally, PSU's Digital City Testbed Center will help advance smart city innovation. Together, these investments will unite the city of Portland and the university in a collective effort to promote the success of our city and our citizens."

-- Molly Harbarger

mharbarger@oregonian.com

503-294-5923

@MollyHarbarger