Multnomah County’s homeless-services list is set to shrink by roughly 3,500 names under a revised counting method. The change will alter who appears in the database, not show that thousands of people have found housing, county officials say.
Why the Numbers Are Shifting
The list included about 18,000 people as of May, and the revised method is expected to reduce that figure by nearly 20%, according to OregonLive. Anna Plumb, deputy director of Multnomah County's Homeless Services Department, said the change should not be read as a housing gain: “That doesn’t mean those people have become housed,” she said, according to the report.
Plumb characterized the revision as a data clean-up that tightens the definition of who is included. She also called it “a major quality upgrade” intended to improve accuracy going forward, the outlet reported.
Three Changes Driving the Drop
The by-name list is an administrative record of people who use tracked homeless services, such as showers, shelters or caseworker conversations; it is not a count of people who have obtained housing. Multnomah County launched its current version in April 2025. The planned changes remove outdated entries, automate sheltered-versus-unsheltered classifications and shorten the period of inactivity before someone is removed.
The inactivity window will contract from 90–180 days to 60–90 days. People who do not use a tracked service within the shorter period will leave the list sooner. Lori Kelley, the department's planning and evaluation program manager, said that shortened window accounts for most of the projected decline, according to the report.
Retroactive Fix to Avoid a False Signal
The county plans to apply the revised method retroactively to public database figures dating to January 2024. According to the outlet, the aim is to prevent the methodological shift from appearing as a sudden month-to-month drop in homelessness.
Plumb said the recalculation does not change the underlying trend: homelessness in Multnomah County has continued to rise, even as the list’s reported total falls.
Context Behind the Count
The by-name list is separate from the federally required homeless survey conducted every other year, which Plumb said undercounts the county’s homeless population. She said the database substantially increased the county’s ability to find and track people compared with older methods.
Community Solutions, which leads the national Built for Zero initiative, advised the county on the counting change, OregonLive reported. The outlet also reported that Portland Mayor Keith Wilson had advocated for a more dynamic, frequently updated list of the homeless population.
The revised count arrives amid changes to local shelter capacity. The River District Navigation Center, a 24-7 Portland shelter, was reported to be nearing closure; its documented status is addressed below. The shift in the database changes how officials measure the population, not the underlying need Plumb described.
River District Center’s Status
City of Portland records show the River District Navigation Center closed on August 31, 2026, according to the City of Portland. The verified information establishes the closure date but does not establish whether replacement capacity was planned.
