March 18, 2022 3:00 a.m.

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have urged President Biden to include $4 billion in homeless assistance grants in his Fiscal Year 2023 budget, so Oregon and the entire country can make additional progress towards sheltering unhoused people and ending homelessness.

A letter from the Senators said, “Nationwide nearly 600,000 people experienced homelessness on any given night, and around one-third of them are unsheltered: living somewhere unfit for a person, like a car or tent”. The senators told the president that he has an opportunity to make historic progress towards ending homelessness by investing in Emergency Solutions Grants and the Continuum of Care program with the allocation in the FY23 budget. Wyden and Merkley said, “In the strongest, wealthiest nation on earth, we must do more to support, shelter and house our most vulnerable neighbors”.

A release said the senators noted in their letter how the pandemic has highlighted significant holes in the social safety net, and that the unsheltered homeless population and the community that supports them need greater federal investment than they have received in recent years even with federal investments such as the CARES Act significantly increasing shelter beds capacity nationwide. Wyden said all levels of government need to respond to homelessness with deliberate speed, putting federal dollars to use paying rent and putting roofs over people’s heads.

The letter concluded by saying, “Its long past time that the federal government’s policies and budgets reflected that urgency – especially now with the ongoing pandemic – to safely house everyone without a roof over their head”.

Wyden and Merkley were joined by twelve other senators who signed onto the letter to President Biden.