I hope that the Eugene city council and the city manger's office come to their senses and try a couple of new ideas to help revitalize downtown and help people BEFORE they become homeless.  A couple of ideas that I have include:

1) Help people who already live in Eugene with paying their rent or property taxes if they truly are in need. Currently, there is a rental assitance program, good for 1-3 months, and only open to people with mental disabilities which is run through Shelter Care. This program has adequate funds to meet the limited needs that it currently serves. St Vinnies also has a rental assisstance program, but it has almost zero funding, so it serves almost no one, though they receive about 20 calls per day asking for this type of assistance. I estimate that 3500 people per month could be served by such a rental assistance program at a cost of $600 per month to subsidize the rents on 2br apartments housing 4 people each for a total cost of $6.3 million dollars per year.