JOINT OFFICE

OF HOMELESS
SERVICES
AUDIT
Jennifer McGuirk
Multnomah County Auditor Providers were frustrated
Nicole Dewees, MBA, CIA with contract management
Audit Director
and communication
Mandi Hood, MA
Management Auditor
WHAT WE’LL TALK ABOUT

• Context for the audit

• What we did

• What we found and recommend

• What happens next

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CONTEXT FOR OUR FINDINGS

Providers expressed appreciation for the

passion and dedication of Joint Office staff

Joint Office staff face on-going criticism,

pressure to solve root causes of
homelessness

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 THE JOINT OFFICE EXPERIENCED A
SIGNIFICANT GROWTH IN THE
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

As of January 1, 2020, JOHS had 20 employees.

By January 1, 2023, they had 99 employees.

Multnomah County Auditor's Office 4

Source: Workday
 THE JOINT OFFICE WAS WITHOUT A
PERMANENT DIRECTOR FOR A YEAR

INTERIM
DIRECTOR DIRECTORS: DIRECTOR
MARC JOLIN SHANNON DAN FIELD
STEPPED SINGLE TON, HIRED IN
DOWN IN JOSHUA 2023
2022 BATES

Multnomah County Auditor's Office 5

Source: Workday
 WHAT WE DID

Reviewed Researched Reviewed Interviewed

guidance from the history of JOHS budget service
U.S. homeless documents providers and
Department of services in and JOHS staff to
Housing & Multnomah performance establish audit
Urban County and measures focus
Development City of
(H.U.D.) Portland

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WHAT WE DID

• Based on themes from preliminary

interviews, we created a survey for
providers and staff
o 69 responses from contracted
providers
o 37 responses from JOHS staff

• Re-interviewed providers to see if

things had changed since the audit
started

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SILOS

HOMELESS SERVICES
SYSTEMS OF CARE

• Adult System
• Unaccompanied youth
system
• Family system
• Domestic violence/sexual
assault survivors’ system
• Veterans’ system
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 HISTORICAL SILOS PERSIST AMONG SYSTEMS
OF CARE FOR PEOPLE EXPERIENCING
HOMELESSNESS

People are often Many providers Some providers noted

required to interact expressed frustration struggles to work
with multiple systems with coordinated across multiple
access systems that operate
differently and
separately.

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ABOUT 2 OUT OF
3 PROVIDERS
SURVEYED
BELIEVE THE “Coordination between service
JOINT OFFICE providers is so poor that it nearly
DID NOT DO A merits as "they do not provide this
GOOD JOB service." Coordination exists only as it
COORDINATING relates to enforcement (sweeps, clean-
SERVICE ups, arrests are the main topics of a
PROVIDERS
weekly "Service Coordination Call")
while JOHS [Joint Office of Homeless
Services] does nothing that I have
observed to encourage coordination
between groups to improve the
situation of houseless people.”

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COMMUNICATION

“The people we work with at JOHS are

wonderfully dedicated and really care about
us as a provider and implementer. But we have
had a cascade of managers and financial
contacts, receive communications and
information sometimes haphazardly and it is
often hard to know how and where to provide
input into system planning and feedback on
business issues. Better and more clear
communication channels would help.”

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COMMUNICATION

Sur vey questions for homeless ser vice providers.

How well does the Joint Office do in Selected Very Good or

providing… Good
Policies that are easy to understand? 38%

Clear system goals? 41%

A contact person at the Joint Office to answer 48%

questions quickly?
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CONTRACT
MANAGEMENT
“We appreciate the efforts our grant
contact makes to communcate [sic]
with us but the information often
changes quickly over time and is
clearly out of her hands…new rules,
expectations, budget changes have
been unruly, out of touch with the
work we do and the challenges
community based agencies have
regarding back office capacity.”

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CONTRACT
MANAGEMENT

Providers reported frustration with

getting contracts and payments in a
timely fashion
• Mismanagement resulted in domestic
violence survivors receiving eviction
notices during the winter
• A provider waited months for a
$300,000 invoice to be paid because
JOHS needed documentation for $25
of spending

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CONTRACT
MANAGEMENT

• Program Specialists/Program
Specialist Seniors have a conflict of
interest
• Staff had a lot of latitude to change
performance measures when
providers were unable to meet them.

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EQUITY

• Black, Indigenous and other

people of color experience
homelessness at higher rates
than White people

• Joint Office required providers to

submit equity plans

• Joint Office staff did not review

them

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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

• Our recommendations have

due dates

• We will conduct a follow-up

audit

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CONTACT US

Website: https://www.multco.us/auditor-mcguirk

Reports: https://www.multco.us/auditor-mcguirk/audit-reports

Email: mult.auditor@multco.us

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