Oregon
Oregon is giving homeless young people $1,000 a month to get back on their feet. Here's how it's going.
- Oregon is giving some of its homeless youth $1,000 a month.
- The state’s DHS says recipients report spending money on housing and food.
- The program is among dozens nationwide trying to alleviate poverty with a guaranteed basic income.
Oregon has a severe homelessness problem.
It’s home to the third-worst homeless rate in the country, according to a federal count published in December. And it has the highest rate anywhere of unaccompanied homeless youth.
As state leaders scramble to address the problem, one solution is showing some promise: Give those young people $1,000 cash every month, no strings attached.
The Oregon Department of Human Services launched its Direct Cash Transfer Plus Pilot in February 2022. The program targets homeless people between 18 to 24 who have an “intention to become housed,” the DHS wrote last year in a report on youth homelessness in the state.
So far 120 young people across the state are receiving the direct cash payments, the report says. About 75 of the recipients are in Multnomah County, home to Portland. Initial payments for participants in the program started in February 2023 and are scheduled to run until January 2025.
Participants receive payments of $ 1,000 a month. They can also receive a one-time $3,000 “enrichment fund” payment. The program started implementing the larger payment after conversations with participants who said they still had “significant financial obstacles” after receiving initial payments from the program, the document says.
The only qualification for the program is to be a young person who is unhoused, though there are other factors — like being a member of the LGBTQ+ community — that can give applicants priority. There are no limits on how participants spend the money.
Recipients said they spent the funds mostly on housing, repairing vehicles, furniture, and moving costs, the DHS says.
While more than 65% of the participants said they were unhoused when the payments began, after six months about 63% of them said they had found housing, the report says. About 85% of recipients reported still needing “at least occasional assistance” with getting access to food.
Point Source Youth, a national nonprofit focused on addressing the problem of youth homelessness, partnered with the state to help design, plan, and structure the program. The nonprofit has helped with similar programs in other cities and states nationwide.
Anjala Huff, a senior director at the organization, told Business Insider that enrollees have been able to obtain housing, enroll in school, and purchase cars since receiving payments.
The program’s team has helped about two-thirds of the participants find housing. The goal is for the program to act as a sort of “housing intervention” that can be funded with public money in the future, Huff said.
“It’s not just about obtaining housing. We are helping to navigate creative housing conversations on how to maintain housing beyond enrollment in the program,” Huff told Business Insider. “After receiving the cash for one year, we are seeing youth who are interested in furthering their education to jump-start their careers.”
The program also helps the young participants with other strategies to ensure long-term housing, like reducing debt, sharing housing, finding higher paying jobs, and accessing community resources, Huff said.
Oregon lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering a bill that would provide 12 monthly payments of $1,000 to people who are experiencing homelessness, at risk of homelessness, severely rent-burdened, or earn at or below 60% percent of median area income.
Several other states and cities nationwide are experimenting with guaranteed basic income plans, which are different than universal basic income plans because they target specific groups of people, but are similar in that they are direct cash transfers with no limits on how recipients can spend it.
The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund, for example, gives young parents in the city $1,000 a month. Tonaeya Moore, director of policy of the CASH Campaign of Maryland, previously told BI that surveys suggest participants mostly spent their money on the same general necessities, such as housing and food.
In Denver, the city recently extended a basic income program offering some residents up to $1,000 a month after participants reported increased housing security. And researchers in Austin found that most participants in a similar program there spent most of their funds on food and housing.
Despite the apparent success of these small regional experiments, not everyone is on board. Lawmakers in Iowa, South Dakota, Arizona, and elsewhere have proposed bills that would prevent such programs from taking place.
In January, Texas state Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent a letter to the state’s attorney general asking him to declare unconstitutional a program in Harris County, which includes Houston, to give low-income residents $500 a month.
The Oregon Country Fair is right around the corner and got an up-close preview of the annual event with generations of revelers expected to return yet again.
Vendors and construction teams were busy setting the venue up on Wednesday. It opens to the public on Friday, and organizers are expecting a big turnout.
For over fifty years, people have come together to enjoy live music, art, food and community at the event in Veneta.
“It has definitely changed and evolved and it’s definitely still holding true to the magic that has started the fair,” said fair attendee Jill Carter.
Carter has been going to the fair for about forty years, but throughout her time there, there’s always one thing on her mind.
“I’ve had a lifelong dream to do the poster, and I’ve been working on applying for a long time, and I got to do it and I’m so excited!”
Carter says over the years, she’s fine-tuned her design proposal to accurately capture the whimsey of the fair.
“In our day-to-day world, we really don’t get to connect on this kind of level of art and whimsey.”
This curated space of art and whimsey is what keeps generations returning to the fair.
“I was at a meeting the other day and somebody was a third generation Oregon Country fairgoer. Their parents were babies here. They were babies here. Now, they’re on crews that help manage the safety of this community,” says Kate Gillespie, the White Bird Rock Medicine crew coordinator.
Gillespie has been working within medical response at the fair for sixteen years.
Before fair goers even arrive, White Bird Rock Medicine works on setting up for the two hospitals provided on site as well as staffing medical crew – which consists of almost 300 medical professionals and mental health crisis workers.
“We are prepared to deal with first aid things like scrapes, bumps, bruises; injured feet are a big thing that we see – all the way up to things like cardiac events and strokes,” Gillespie explains.
And for the attendees they serve, the event is a yearly tradition that is more than just a fair – it’s a chance to catch up with old friends and make new memories.
“I think it’s really like a reunion for a lot of the people that are out here on this property,” says Gillespie.
The Oregon Country Fair runs Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the intersection of Suttle Road and Bus Road in Veneta.
For more information, visit the fair website.
The Oregon attorney general will ask a court to pause Paramount’s PSKY.O $110 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros. WBD.O for 60 days, saying on Tuesday that the company withheld records of its lobbying efforts.
While Paramount has told the state it will not close the deal before July 16, Attorney General Dan Rayfield said he will ask a Multnomah County court to order the company to hand over records and to delay the deal so the state can review them.
“We’re not going to let Paramount Skydance play hide the ball so they can rush through their massive merger,” Rayfield said in a statement. “Oregonians have a real stake in this deal – in our film industry, in our economy, in the choices they’ll have as consumers.”
A Paramount spokesperson said the information Oregon seeks “has nothing to do with whether this transaction complies with Oregon’s antitrust laws and is not a legitimate basis to delay a plainly lawful, pro-competitive transaction.”
The company has provided the state with documents relevant to the merger, the spokesperson added.
Oregon is seeking documents regarding “Project Warrior,” which was Paramount’s internal code name for efforts to obtain regulatory clearance. The state is also asking for records related to the company’s efforts to lobby the Trump administration for support of the merger.
Paramount CEO David Ellison’s father, billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has cultivated ties with President Donald Trump, and the company has hired former Trump officials.
Oregon is also seeking information on whether Paramount had any role in the U.S. Department of Justice’s statement announcing it had cleared the deal.
While Oregon ordinarily “would afford significant weight” to the DOJ’s determination, the state plans to cite a Wall Street Journal report that officials overrode career staff attorneys at the DOJ who were leaning toward a recommendation to challenge the deal, according to documents to be filed in court that Reuters reviewed.
The DOJ issued a lengthy statement last month saying it believed the deal would “increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, with benefits for American consumers and workers.”
The company has said the deal would create a stronger streaming competitor to Netflix NFLX.O and Disney DIS.N, and benefit creatives and consumers.
California, New York and other U.S. states are preparing to sue to block the deal, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last month. The states have authority to enforce laws against mergers that they believe would unlawfully decrease competition.
Opponents of the deal, including some actors, writers and media workers, have worried that it would hurt jobs.
When asked if he’d like to join the music program Keys, Beats, Bars, Mikey, who’s currently incarcerated at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, figured it would be a good chance to spend some time outside of his unit.
Through a series of workshops, the program brought local musicians and educators into the facilities. They made beats and taught the group about rhyme schemes and rap bars. It was a way for Mikey and his peers to make music, but also to discuss common interests and their shared experiences at MacLaren as they brainstormed lyrics.
Eventually, they recorded a song, “No Ceilings,” about the barriers of incarceration, the music video for which is premiering at a July 11 benefit concert at the Tomorrow Theater dubbed the Restorative Justice Showcase.
Several formerly incarcerated artists feature on the night’s bill, including Keys, Beats, Bars co-founder Talilo Marfil and influential rapper and activist Mic Crenshaw, who led the workshops that produced “No Ceilings.” Hip-hop artist Swiggy Mandela will lead a live cypher, or freestyle rap session, with music by duo Alley Oop to end the show.
Mikey, not his real name, called the songwriting process “therapeutic.”
“Being able to listen to the beats or just channel that, in a positive way,” Mikey says, “I’m glad that I got the opportunity to utilize that while I’m here.”
Music has always been a part of Mikey’s life. His mom played Mariah Carey and DeBarge, and his grandma always had something on when they spent time together on weekends. When he’s feeling irritated or doesn’t want to be bothered, he turns to music.
“You find little achievements and little accolades along the way that, while you’re doing your time, make it easier to get through the day,” Mikey says. “Some people like reading books. Some people like playing basketball. Some people like listening to music.”
Marfil, who is also executive director of the peer advocacy program Ascending Flow, says he wishes he’d had programs like this when he was incarcerated. He found support through church, “but not everybody relates to church,” he says.
After his release, Marfil enrolled in Outside the Frame, an organization that provides homeless youth access to filmmaking resources. “It made me feel like my story mattered and that it was worth telling,” he says. “They gave me opportunities to show my films, my music, to the greater public in front of sold-out shows. Going from dreaming about it in a cell to actually doing it is a game changer for an individual.”
Keys, Beats, Bars runs several music programs for disadvantaged youth. But Marfil, alongside musician and community organizer Adam Carpinelli, launched the workshops at MacLaren.
“I’ve seen it give them hope,” Marfil says. “I think that’s the most important thing: hope, motivation, inspiration and, for a moment, a sense of relief through expression.”
To protect their anonymity, the music video couldn’t feature Mikey, who raps on the song, and his bandmates directly. Instead, Marfil contracted an artist to animate the song’s narrative, which follows a boy from childhood to incarceration.
“Usually, you don’t get to do stuff like that up in jail,” Mikey says, adding that he appreciated the project’s follow-through. “It was kind of cool being able to get the opportunity to record.”
MacLaren is Oregon’s largest juvenile correctional facility. It houses up to 187 youth, ranging ages 12 to 25. While similar to a jail or prison, this style of youth correctional facility places a stronger focus on education and rehabilitation. In contrast to juvenile transitional facilities and residential programs, MacLaren is closed-custody, meaning it’s secure and fenced. In 2025, a Marion County grand jury tasked with assessing MacLaren’s conditions titled its report “Cascading Failures,” citing gang activity, extensive contraband, sexual abuse and staff shortages.
Marfil stresses the role programs like Keys, Beats, Bars play in larger efforts toward restorative justice, and towards ameliorating systemic inequities in the U.S. prison system.
Projecting incarcerated youths’ voices outside of detention facilities is a powerful means for effecting change.
“The song is really just a reflection of being in the facilities and dreaming of what could be possible without the barriers that got them there in the first place, and what they want the community to see about themselves when they get out,” Marfil says. “‘No Ceilings’ is a good example of seeing that youth who are incarcerated have hopes and dreams, and they can contribute something to society.”
SEE IT: Restorative Justice Showcase & Voices From the Inside: A Youth Music Video Premiere at Tomorrow Theater, 3530 SE Division St., tomorrowtheater.org. 3 pm Saturday, July 11. $15. All ages.
HEAR: “No Ceilings” by Keys, Beats, Bars streams on YouTube and Apple Music.
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