Homelessness in the Mid-Willamette Valley has reached record levels, exposing the limits of Oregon’s current response and the financial weight of maintaining it. The 2025 Point-in-Time count identified 2,154 individuals without stable housing across Marion and Polk Counties — the highest total ever recorded. Nearly half of those surveyed said they were new to homelessness, underscoring a system increasingly unable to keep people in their homes.
The Scale of Public Spending
A 2024 study by Moss Adams, commissioned by the City of Salem, found the city spent $23.7 million addressing homelessness in 2023. Roughly $10.3 million of that total went to indirect “secondary costs,” such as police calls, emergency response, and public-space cleanup. The same report noted that 87 percent of Salem’s direct-service spending came from one-time grants — a precarious funding model for an ongoing crisis.
At the county level, Marion County’s 2025-26 budget reinstated a Mobile Crisis Team to respond to behavioral-health and drug-related emergencies, while Polk County continued funding its Coordinated Housing Fund and PATHS initiative, both aimed at rural homelessness. These programs reflect a patchwork of local investments heavily dependent on state appropriations.
The Nonprofit Workforce
The regional system is anchored by the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance (MWVHA), which coordinates funding for more than a dozen providers. Its FY 2024-25 budget totals about $25.6 million, with $721,009 retained for administration and technical assistance. Most of the money is distributed to local nonprofits that run shelters, outreach, and housing services.
Together, six of the largest agencies in the network employ more than 1,200 people and manage over $140 million annually:
| Organization | Fiscal Year | Total Revenue | Top Executive Compensation | Employees (Est.) |
| Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency | 2023 | $62.9 million | $155,644 (2024) | 628 |
| Church at the Park | 2025 | $8.9 million | $114,931 (2024) | 120 |
| Northwest Human Services | 2024 | $35.1 million | $276,594 (2020 Form 990) | 306 |
| Catholic Community Services | 2024 | $17.8 million | $177,365 (2024) | 120 |
| United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley | 2023 | $1.6 million cash revenue + $6.2 million gifts-in-kind | $134,310 (2024) | Not specified |
| Center for Hope & Safety | 2024 | $15.7 million | $168,208 (2024) | 35 |
(Figures from IRS Form 990 filings and organizational financial reports.)
Private and Public-Private Partnerships
Several collaborative initiatives connect health, housing, and public-sector funding. The Willamette Health Council contributed $1 million to integrate medical and housing services; $756,961 of that amount is being passed through to community partners. The Oregon Rehousing Initiative allocated $2,034,071 to the region, with about $1.93 million distributed to frontline providers after administrative costs.
These partnerships, while innovative, also reveal how homelessness response has become a complex ecosystem of contracts, grants, and compliance work. Each layer sustains jobs and programs but adds administrative overhead — and none insulate the system from state-level funding shifts.
A System at a Crossroads
In 2025, Oregon lawmakers funded roughly $205 million to maintain the state’s shelter system while cutting more than $100 million from eviction-prevention services. That decision has left local organizations scrambling to manage rising need with shrinking prevention resources.
The Mid-Willamette Valley’s homeless-service network now constitutes a regional industry employing more than a thousand people and administering hundreds of millions of public dollars. Yet, even as capacity grows, the number of residents falling into housing instability continues to rise. Without renewed investment in prevention, Oregon risks refining the machinery of crisis management instead of halting the crisis itself.