Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s central campaign promise was to end unsheltered homelessness in the city by 2026.

Creating hundreds of new shelter beds is at the heart of that strategy, but another effort involves reuniting unhoused people with family members or other loved ones outside of Portland.

Individuals can opt into the program or be referred by a friend, service provider or other third party. Outreach workers then connect with the person’s family or friends and arrange transportation to their new community.

The mayor has said his goal is to resettle 14 people per week starting Dec. 1, with a total of 700 reunifications in 2026.

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Skyler Brocker-Knapp oversees this effort as the director of Portland Solutions, the city office that manages homeless services. She recently joined OPB’s “Think Out Loud” to talk about how the program is working.

The following excerpts of the conversation with host Dave Miller have been edited for length and clarity.

Where did the idea of reunification come from?

This is a best practice around the country and actually something that’s been done for decades.

Multnomah County had a program called “Ticket Home” with Transition Projects for years. It’s no longer funded, and Mayor Wilson really wanted to supercharge this effort when he took office.

We’re trying to be faster. We’re trying to cut the red tape and the time it takes to get somebody connected to a ticket — whether it’s a bus, train or plane ticket — and to their family. So a number of hours is what we’re aiming for, rather than days.

[Our outreach workers] ask questions like, “OK, why do you want to go home? Why are you in Portland? How did you arrive here? What’s it like at home? Is that a supportive environment?” And make sure they really want to go home.

It has to be voluntary. And not everybody’s right for this program, so it really has to fit those different criteria. People have to not have a warrant for a felony or anything like that, so there really have to be some checks to make sure that the person can actually go home safely and securely.

Does the city follow up with formerly unhoused people after they’ve relocated?

We do it in an informal way. We’re not case managers; we have very few outreach workers. But we do exchange contact information with both the person who’s going home and the person who’s receiving them.

Our outreach team has their numbers. They have our numbers. So we do make sure that they’ve had the warm handoff, that they got there safely and then can have continued conversations. We don’t mandate it with our team just because of the workload of that.

How do you gauge the effectiveness of this effort?

We’ve reunited, so far, 127 people through this program.

We had a week where we had 18 people who were reunified, and then last week was 10 people. So on average, we’re on track to meet [the mayor’s] goal, and we’re really excited about that.

This is the fastest way to end homelessness and really give somebody that home and a supportive network all in one.

You can listen to the full conversation with Portland Solutions Director Skyler Brocker-Knapp here:

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/24/portland-unhoused-people-family-reunion/