People who knew her have said she was getting better, drinking less, while she lived at Whoville, a self organized homeless camp at Broadway & Hilyard. Then the city closed down Whoville, without creating an alternative. Local shelters such as the Mission, Opportunity Village and the legal "rest stop" camps do not allow drinking on the premises.

At a meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, when they were discussing the need for some kind of homeless shelter for alcoholics, one of the commissioners said that experts he had talked to said someone needed to "hit bottom" before they would stop drinking. County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky replied that hitting bottom shouldn't mean dying on the street. 

Portland has a SRO (single room occupancy) hotel for alcoholics. The man who runs it was quoted in the Oregonian a while back, saying that at least the people who lived there got to "die with dignity".

https://www.facebook.com/homeless.action.coalition