In some ways, people experiencing homelessness are very visible in Portland. But according to Yovana Benancio, families with children are often hidden. “No one knows the true number of the families and children that are in Multnomah County that are experiencing homelessness,” she said. “The children are invisible. Families work pretty hard to keep them protected, or having fear of asking for help, having fear of them being reported and being separated from their children.”

Benancio works for a nonprofit organization called Path Home. Her title is “family housing navigator.” It’s her job to connect with families and help them access the resources they need to get into stable housing. For the latest installment in OPB’s “At Work With” series, we rode along with Benancio to learn more about how she does her job.

“Every day is a little bit different, and I encounter different people,” she said. “I’m out in the community. I can be at any given point at a grocery store, at a hotel meeting with a family, at the DMV, at a food bank [or] library, and just being mobile and having that flexibility to meet families where they are at.”

How do you help people meet their basic needs?

Just before the New Year started, Benancio helped a father named Jimmy and his 12-year-old daughter get off the streets and into a motel room, using funds from Multnomah County’s Joint Office of Homeless Services. During the winter months, motel rooms are a stop-gap when other housing is not immediately available. On the day of our ride-along, her first stop was to meet him at a grocery store to help pay for his groceries.

“Family housing navigators have client assistance funds, so I’m able to use those funds to help families with groceries, IDs, birth certificates, and socials,” she explained.

After paying for the groceries, Benancio gave Jimmy a ride back to the motel where he’s staying. (We’re only using his first name to protect his privacy.)

“We just have a little mini fridge and a microwave in our room, so there’s really not much I could cook there, so I was just getting little things, more so snacks,” he said.

Jimmy shared that he and his daughter had to leave a housing situation that became unsafe.

“It’s been a struggle these last few months being homeless,” he said. “It’s been hard to see her face when I pick her up from school and she’s wondering where we’re going for the night. I’m just glad that finally something has fallen into place.”

What do kids think about living in a motel?

Jimmy says his daughter was not that into the idea.

“She’s like, ‘So this is how we’re going to be living, Dad, in a motel?’ So she’s a little snobbish about it, even though we came from my car or sleeping on a friend’s couch or this and that,” he said. “She don’t have the appreciation that I have for sure, because I’ve always had a home for her. We’ve always lived a pretty good life.”

He said he’s hoping to get into a permanent housing situation that feels more like home.

“A place that’s ours, where there’s no verbal and mental abuse because I dealt with that with my wife as well,” he said. “I don’t like fighting around my daughter.”

After Jimmy loaded his groceries onto a luggage cart and went inside, Benancio was on the phone with another parent who needed her help. She was able to deliver the good news that there was a motel room available for her and her kids and their pet cat.

We met Brittany in the motel parking lot just off of a busy street in SE Portland. She and her children got out of a pickup truck. The truck bed was packed full of boxes and bags. When they got to the front desk, it was clear that Benancio was familiar with the motel owner, Samir Patel. Patel and Benancio worked together to get Brittany checked in while the kids waited patiently.

Patel went over the rules: no smoking, except in the parking lot. Remember to renew your key every 15 days. No visitors after 8pm. The front desk is closed after 10pm.

How long can a family live in a motel? What’s next?

Benancio explained that the program that allows families like this one to use motel rooms runs through March 31st. The next step is to get them into a family shelter or connect them with other housing options.

“We definitely leave it to the participants whether they want shelter services or not,” she said. “There’s families that have experienced shelter and unfortunately it wasn’t the most pleasant, so there is some trauma with that as well.”

Brittany’s kids had no problem sharing a 200-square-foot room with their mom. As they walked around the space, their relief was palpable. Brittany said that before this, they had been living in their truck on Foster Road. All three of them said they were looking forward to taking hot showers and sleeping in the two beds that dominated the main space. Brittany was actually scheduled to have surgery the next day.

“And I almost couldn’t have it. I didn’t have anywhere for them or to recover. So the timing, it’s just crazy. Yeah,” she said, tearfully.

How many families do you work with?

“Typically we get assigned 60 families, but out of the 60 families, maybe half will respond back to our texts, emails or phone calls,” said Benancio.

How do you measure success?

According to Benancio, making initial contact with a family is sometimes the most challenging part of her job.

“Success for me is reaching out to people and completing their intake,” she said. “There are times where we have families assigned to us and maybe their phone has been stolen, misplaced, they’re not able to pay for it. And reaching out to those families is very critical.”

What skills are most important in your job?

“Good listening ears, compassion, and the drive to want to help others and need,” she said. “It’s definitely something that can take a toll on someone, and I’m thankful that I’m equipped with the right tools necessary to be able to do the job that I’m in.”

How do you take care of yourself so that you can continue to help others?

Benancio says her faith is a big part of what keeps her going and her own lived experience is a big reason why she finds this work so rewarding.

“My parents coming to Oregon, we didn’t know anyone, but we found relatives throughout the years, but the first time we arrived here in Milwaukee, Oregon, it was through the help of a stranger that let my parents rent shed in the backyard,” she said. “Hearing everything that they went through and the help that we were given through all sorts of organizations and just the community, I feel like that’s what drives me. And I’m always asking God to use me as a vessel to be of service to others.”

She said she also feels well supported by the rest of the staff at the organization where she works, Path Home.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/01/at-work-with-helping-portland-families-experiencing-homelessness-get-into-housing/