Can ordinary citizens solve our toughest problems?

BEND, OREGON — (AP) — Eliza Wilson is a little nervous as she draws the microphone close, but she is determined to share her life story. “My father was a disabled veteran,” she says. “I first experienced homelessness when I was 5 years old.”

Wilson, who’s 36, leads programs focused on unhoused youth. On a recent Saturday, she is addressing a citizen assembly, a grassroots gathering seeking solutions to tough local challenges.

Her audience consists of 30 ordinary Oregonians. They are acupuncturists and elk hunters; house cleaners and retired riverboat pilots. None are public policy experts. All the same, these participants have been asked to recommend new strategies for combating youth homelessness — a major problem in this affluent Oregon city and the surrounding rural areas of Deschutes County.

This unusual experiment in small-D democracy is underwritten by more than $250,000 in grants from backers such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Omidyar Network. As a key early presenter, Wilson wins rapt attention, clicking through data-rich slides and sharing her story of crisis and recovery.

That’s how citizen assemblies should work, says Kevin O’Neil, an innovation specialist at the Rockefeller Foundation. His research shows Americans are frustrated with what they perceive as aloofness and gridlock within civic institutions. “People want to be directly involved in decision-making,” O’Neil says. “They recognize the value of expertise, but they don’t want to delegate decision-making to experts.”

Assemblies can help "overcome polarization and strengthen societal cohesion," says Claudia Chwalisz, founder of DemocracyNext. Her nonprofit, launched in Paris in 2022, champions such assemblies worldwide, hoping they can "create the democratic spaces for everyday people to grapple with the complexity of policy issues, listen to one another, and find common ground."

At least, that’s the theory.

To succeed, citizen assemblies can’t settle for a few days of harmonious dialogue among well-intentioned strangers. They need to inspire policy changes or new programs from government and other civic institutions. In Europe, such wins abound. In the United States, results are spottier.

The most fruitful U.S. effort to date was a 2021 people's assembly in Washington State that produced 148 ideas — including more solar canopies and food composting — to combat climate change. More often, progress is challenging.

An assembly in 2022 in Petaluma, California, spun up ideas to repurpose a long-time county fairground site. Two years later, the fair still operates under short-term leases; its long-term destiny remains in limbo. In Colorado's Montrose County, enacting an assembly's bold ideas for improving rural day care has been "more of a marathon than a sprint," says organizer Morgan Lasher.

Can central Oregon do better? It may take years to know, but evidence so far shows both the assembly system’s opportunities and the challenges.

Bend's local economy is strong, with a jobless rate of just 4.2% and median household income of more than $80,000. As housing costs have skyrocketed, though, the spectacle of people living in tent and trailer encampments has become more common. A January count found more than 1,800 people were homeless in Deschutes County, up from 913 in 2020.

In 2023, DemocracyNext and Healthy Democracy, a Portland, Oregon, nonprofit, connected with Bend officials interested in bringing the assembly idea to central Oregon. Josh Burgess, an Air Force veteran, who moved to Bend and became the proverbial "advance man" for DemocracyNext.

Operating in a county evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Burgess built rapport with both liberal and conservative members on the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. "It took four or five meetings to get there," Burgess recalls. Organizers decided to focus on homelessness among ages 14 to 24, where opportunities for progress seemed greatest.

To pick citizens for the assembly, organizers contacted 12,000 county residents before selecting just 30. Everything was balanced by age, race, gender, and geography – a slow, costly requirement.

Even so, advocates such as Michelle Barsa of Omidyar Network says assemblies’ big edge comes from using “an actual representative sample of the community, not just the people who always show up at town-hall meetings and yell into a microphone for three minutes.”

At the northern edge of Oregon State’s Bend campus, a few hundred yards from the Deschutes River, is the McGrath Family atrium, a sunlight-drenched space with panoramic woodland views. It feels almost like a spa.

As the Bend assembly gets started, black tablecloths at a huge, U-shaped table convey gravity. Name tags identify attendees as “Noelle,” “Dave,” “Alex.” The first few hours go slowly, but everything perks up after lunch.

Eliza Wilson takes command, introducing herself as director of runaway and homeless youth services at J Bar J, a social-services organization. Her voice is unfailingly steady, but emotions race fast across her face: hope, frustration, empathy, resolve, and more.

“Teens get really good at hiding their homelessness,” Wilson explains. “We don’t share family business outside of the family. I was really fortunate that a high-school counselor pointed me, at age 15, to the first youth shelter that had just opened in Bend. I stayed there for three years, until I graduated from high school. I finally got on my feet at age 21.”

As Wilson finishes, questions stream in. “Are there any programs advocating for children to get back to their parents?” one woman wants to know. “Is there open communication between you guys and the school district?” a man asks.

Wilson and other presenters respond with a road map of what exists today. They point out how homeless youth are in a precarious but not hopeless situation, counting on allies for a couch to sleep on. Less than 20 percent live outside in encampments. Practically everyone in the audience takes notes.

The next day, assembly members strike up conversations with young adults who were once homeless. Chronic problems — and glimmers of ideas about how to address them — tumble forth. Flaws in the foster parent system. The risk of sexual abuse. The unique challenges that LGBTQ youth face.

Attendees — who shared their thoughts with the Chronicle on the condition they be identified only by their first name — regarded those conversations as eye-opening breakthroughs in their hunt for policy recommendations.

“I’m coming away with a whole different point of view,” Ken told me. He had arrived believing that poor parenting and drug abuse led to homelessness, and that affected families should personally address such challenges. Now, he said, he was interested in broader solutions.

Several local officials stopped by to watch the assembly proceedings. Phil Chang, a Deschutes County commissioner, said the broad-based assembly creates “social license for us to do things that the community wants.”

Conservative county commissioner Tony DeBone worries that Oregon’s rollback of drug-offense laws has worsened social problems; he also believes that an economic upturn would do the most good. Still, he says, he’s willing to see what the assembly can offer.

Ultimately, the assembly's effectiveness will depend on whether its recommendations can overcome bureaucratic inertia, says Tammy Baney, executive director of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council. Proposed changes in police interactions with homeless youth could be acted on within a month or two if local law enforcement is receptive, she says. Improving Oregon's gridlocked foster-care system might be much harder.

“It all depends on how much political will there is,” Baney says.

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George Anders is editor-at-large at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.