Charlie Hales visits Hazelnut Grove

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and his chief of staff Josh Alpert visited the Hazelnut Groove homeless camp in North Portland on Friday, November 27, 2015. Hales and Alpert brought gifts of food, toured the camp and talked to residents for about an hour. Dave Killen / staff

Two and a half hours into a controversial hearing about the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales let slide a political bombshell that would blow up how government agencies deals with homelessness.

City and county leaders are now considering a deal to draw clear lines about who does what, Hales said. And if it goes forward, homelessness would fall to Multnomah County leaders while affordable housing would be the city's business.

"Commissioner (Dan) Saltzman is in the process of leading a process by which our homeless services staff are transferred to Multnomah County," Hales said.

"We will be in the housing project development business and Multnomah County will be in the homeless services business if the transition that Commissioner Saltzman is leading goes forward," Hales added.

That change would be a systemic shift to city and county governance and the often ambiguous division of urban services.

If approved, the change would create a Joint City-County Office of Homeless Services. But the office would report directly to Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury and employees would be "hosted" at the county, according to a letter outlining the proposal.

The proposal comes from discussions with a city-county coalition called A Home For Everyone. Hales doesn't necessarily support changes and needs more information, said Josh Alpert, the mayor's chief of staff.

"They're still trying to craft what it would actually mean" Alpert said.

-- Brad Schmidt

bschmidt@oregonian.com

503-294-7628

@cityhallwatch