Bobby Weinstock, longtime housing advocate at Northwest Pilot Project, died peacefully at home on August 31, 2022. The cause was cancer.
We remember Bobby as a beloved friend, an innovative thinker, and a tireless champion for people experiencing homelessness and housing instability. All are welcome to remember Bobby at a Celebration of Life event at the Aladdin Theater on Sunday, October 23 at 1 pm.
Bobby joined Northwest Pilot Project in 1989 as the agency’s first housing placement specialist. His charge was to develop a program that would serve homeless people and emphasize permanent housing. As Bobby wrote in 2000, this moment was “an historic shift away from focusing on emergency Bandaid-type services and towards providing assistance emphasizing permanent housing solutions.” Bobby stayed at Northwest Pilot Project for 32 years, becoming the housing program manager and then our first housing advocate before retiring in July 2021.
“I believe in housing solutions that create permanent, dignified, affordable housing,” he told Street Roots in 2021. “For most homeless people, this means the opportunity to obtain a modest, low-rent apartment. For low-income renters barely able to afford their current apartments, this means help to bridge the gap between their income and the rent.”
Bobby’s vision had long been to develop a locally funded and managed rent assistance voucher program. In 2018, Northwest Pilot Project received funding from Meyer Memorial Trust to bring together key partners in an 18-month pilot to demonstrate that rental vouchers could be funded with local resources and managed by the local housing authority. Multnomah County’s Joint Office of Homeless Services, Home Forward, and other partners joined NWPP in achieving a successful outcome with the Long-Term Rent Assistance program (LRA). The project also showed that local level decision making could cut red tape out of the voucher application process. The program’s third-party evaluator CORE (Center for Outcomes, Research, and Education) deemed it a success, with almost all participants reporting that “not worrying about making rent” gave them peace of mind and drastically improved mental health, and decreased stress levels.
LRA became the model for both a statewide rent assistance pilot for at-risk youth and the Regional Long-Term Rent Assistance program launched in July 2021 as part of the Supportive Housing Services (SHS) measure. In the first year of SHS funding in the Metro region, over 700 “Bobby vouchers” prevented low-income tenants from eviction, and helped homeless people access an affordable apartment.
Bobby was an effective advocate for people experiencing homelessness because of his persistence, his exceptional understanding of housing policy, his tremendous powers of persuasion, and his brilliance in systems thinking. Above all, as former Northwest Pilot Project board chair A.C. Caldwell said, “Bobby is the most compassionate person I have ever met. There may be other reasons he has done the work he has done in his lifetime—his sense of justice, his desire to make complex systems easy for people to navigate, his deep desire to do good in the work—but witnessing his compassion for others, especially those in need, is truly transforming.”
We will all miss Bobby very much. But we can turn our grief into action and honor his memory by continuing his work. As he wrote in our newsletter in Winter 1994, the available data on homelessness support policies that vastly increase the supply of subsidized housing, target housing subsidies to households experiencing or at imminent risk of homelessness, the prioritization of funds for small, project-based subsidized buildings composed of self-contained apartments, and a focus on the creation of permanent subsidized rental housing rather than emergency shelter or transitional facilities. Many years later, we need strong voices to remind us of this vision more than ever.
You can support that vision by donating to Northwest Pilot Project in Bobby’s memory. Together, we can continue Bobby’s legacy and achieve the goal of a community with abundant affordable housing for everyone.
I worked and learned alot from Bobby during my 20+ years volunteering and employed by NWPP.
He was an amazing human, kind in every way.
RIP Bobby!!👏👏❤ job well done on this earth.
Marla, thank you for your kind words. Your statement that he did a good job on this earth really struck me because I think there are so many people who lead good lives and do good things in the world, but very few who really impact their community and world like Bobby did. He is a model for all and as one of his good friends told me recently, she has vowed to be more Bobby-like in her life moving forward, as will I. I am so glad he touched you. He will truly be missed every day forever.
God bless the Outreach workers and all those who have the great compassion to serve our brothers and sisters who are living on the streets.
Bobby transformed the way Multnomah County supports vulnerable, at-risk, and homeless community members across multiple tiers of service, advocacy, policy and more. His work will live on in sustainable systems and safeguards he worked so hard across the community and county to establish, improve, and integrate into multiple levels and avenues of improved service and care.
It was my sincere honor to collaborate with Bobby for a few years in the late 1990’s, and to call him a friend, boss, and mentor. His wisdom, innovation, compassion, humor, and dedication to serving and improving the community was unparalleled.
My sincere condolences go out to Bobby’s family, NWPP, collaborating colleagues and partners, the wider community Bobby served, and Bobby’s friends. Bobby had a tremendous, positive impact in improving so many people’s lives and outlook while honoring client dignity and the freedom of choice. His achievements and legacy live on through the sustainable services and policies continuing to impact many people, and families in a myriad of positive ways.
Sending healing energies to his family. I worked with the Franciscan Nuns in the Burnside area. Seems I met Booby
when involved with Burnside projects. One of the nuns, Sister Emily Ann worked at NWPP. In the days of Dir Peter Paulson. I came to Portland as a Jesuit Vol. in 1983. My best you! Doug Foland
I met Bobby at NWPP when he helped me with some issues where I live, without his help it could have been worse. Just having someone in my corner that cared like he did made my life better and I feel blessed to have known him!! There needs to be more people like him. when GOD sent him to earth he sent one of his head Angels!!!! I will miss him he became a dear friend too. He is gone from here, now he’s on to the next stage of his life I know that when it’s my time to go on to the next stage of my life I’ll see him again, as his spirit lives on. His love for his family and friends lives on. may we all take a page from bobby’s book and treat others as well as he did in our lives that way he’ll never be gone as he lives on in our hearts and our dealings for the better with others. I think when we do that we’ll make him proud!
I worked from the property management side with Bobby for many years, I believe starting in 1995. He was a tireless and effective advocate, collaborator and teacher. In all my roles through my career, when I’d work with folks who are difficult to house, it would always be his advice and distinctive voice that would come to mind. His blend of assertiveness, kindness, and big picture thinking should be the model for housing advocacy. I really miss him.