May 19, 2024 — When the Bend City Council agreed Wednesday to join an effort by the Central Oregon Civic Action Project to examine solutions to youth homelessness we had questions:
Who is this group? Where is the money coming from?
The effort will be like jury duty for setting government policy.
It’s similar to something from about a dozen years ago in Oregon called the Citizens Initiative Review. The idea was to help Oregon voters understand initiatives. It formed panels of randomly selected, demographically balanced Oregonians to look in depth at a few initiatives. They heard arguments for and against over several days. Then they would draft some language for the voters’ pamphlet, indicating support for and against and explain why.
The Citizens Initiative Review gave some Oregonians a chance to do the kind of deep dive on an issue most Oregonians don’t get a chance to and share that with their fellow voters. The Central Oregon Civic Action Project is the same kind of thing with a goal of making recommendations about youth homelessness for the county.
They plan to recruit a panel of Deschutes County residents. The residents would learn about options. They surely will be prioritizing programs and policies, rather than inventing new ones. And then they will present their findings to the Bend City Council, the Deschutes County Commission and others.
Bend and any other government body would not be obligated to adopt the recommendations.
Participants would be selected through a lottery. The goal is to mix and match to try to make the final panel of 30 people match the demographics of the community.
Participants will be paid a bit, about $15 an hour. There will be allowances for childcare and transportation. That might make more people willing to do it.
Over two weekends, the panel will spend about 30 hours listening to presentations, holding discussions and voting on what they think the county’s approach should be.
When we asked about the funding, the group told us the current budget is $250,000.
The group has received $50,000 each, so far, from the Rockefeller Foundation, Omiydar Network and the Porticus Foundation. Local donations have come in at more than $20,000. There is another $30,000 or so the group is working on from local foundations and others.
This effort is connected to the organizations Democracy Next and Healthy Democracy. Google them and the other organizations involved if you want to learn more.
The overriding goal is to try to get people in Deschutes County who are not usually involved in public policy knowledgeable about it, invested in it and having a real impact on the policy direction taken.
Not a bad idea.
Citizens assemblies are what these efforts are often called across the world. They are an attempt to reshape how policy is made, upend the power structures. It’s no wonder and no surprise some will be suspicious. Maybe give it a chance, see if it matches expectations in how it functions. It would also be important to track if any new prioritization of services for homeless youth truly improves outcomes.
