An open letter to Mayor Wilson

Resident asks the mayor to reconsider his plan to site an overnight shelter in the Pearl District

A man sleeps on the sidewalk on NW 12th in the Pearl District.

Dear Mayor Wilson,

Family circumstances brought me from Corvallis to Portland in 2016. I decided to rent an apartment and then consider whether Portland could become my home where I could live after retiring. I fell in love with this city, sold my house in Corvallis in 2018, and bought a condo in the Pearl District in December of that year. I have since become actively involved in various activities of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, and I chair two committees within my condo association. Needless to say, I've been happy living here, and though I've been saddened over the last five years to see a decline in Portland's livability, I feel that it's worth working to save. 

Therefore, I am writing to you with my concerns about the city's decision to open a homeless shelter serving more than 200 people right amid our neighborhood, in the Regus building on the corner of NW 15th and NW Northrup. I look out at that building from the gym when I work out, and it's just a few blocks from where I live. Additionally, there are plans to open a shelter for 70+ women at the former Western Bikeworks building on Lovejoy and NW 17th. It was quite unsettling to learn about these plans through the media instead of being notified directly so that Pearl District and Northwest residents could ask questions and provide feedback. 

When you were a candidate for mayor, I, as well as thousands of other Portland residents, believed you when you said you wanted to end homelessness and had a plan. What we did not realize, apparently, is that your plan would include upending neighborhoods already severely affected by the problems that the people who are seeking out these shelters bring to the neighborhoods where the shelters are located. 

I really do have an understanding of and compassion for those who are homeless and living on the streets. My older daughter was using meth and other drugs for at least 16 years, and spent 10 years homeless which included five years on the streets of Linn County, with sporadic periods in and out of shelters in Albany. She was very much like a lot of the people I see on the streets here in Portland. However, the law enforcement of Albany and Linn County did not allow those behaviors she and others exhibited to encroach on neighborhoods, and when they did — for example, defecating and urinating in people's yards — they were cited and sometimes spent time in jail, where services were offered and provided. Fortunately, for the past eight years, my daughter has been clean, working, and living in her little home. I write all this to make it clear that I, as a parent of a once-homeless, drug-abusing adult child, understand the need for shelters and services for people in need. (The shelters she was in were NOT low-barrier and also required the residents to do chores. Seems reasonable to me.)

Locating a shelter of this size in the Pearl District — which is already hurting with loss of businesses and empty apartments and condos, once-beautiful and usable parks that, along with the sidewalks, are littered with foil and discarded needles as well as human feces and the stench of urine — is plain wrong and detrimental to the Pearl District and its livability. 

I am well aware that the city of Portland has not upheld its part of the "Good Neighbor Agreement" for the Harbor of Hope/River District Navigation Center, and I spoke out about that at various meetings, including one in which Mayor Wheeler did not even show up. The problems on Naito spill over into the Pearl. When I've walked to events at the OSU Food Innovation Center and others in the area, I have not felt safe. There is no way I'd even ride a bike because locking it up outside means it would most likely not be there when I come out. The people who find shelter in the tents on the street there engage in illegal activities, and there is no oversight. 

This past winter, just three blocks south of my building, a temporary shelter on NW 14th and Glisan opened during the severe weather period. The garbage, needles and foil around that area and for blocks in all directions were constant, and it was unpleasant to walk on the streets. I felt bad for the business owners who had to put up with this as well. People who didn't want to go into the shelter slept in businesses' doorways, leaving garbage, needles and trash, and often feces, and the streets and entrances to the businesses smelled like urine. And it continues. I see it every day when I walk to LA Fitness, as well as in other areas of my neighborhood. This is NOT acceptable. 

The Pearl District, like just about every other Portland neighborhood, has endured many challenges since 2020. If you take a walk through the Pearl District, you will see just how many empty business spaces there are here — the once vibrant Pearl District is no longer that. The fact is that we have an abundance of crime, people living on the streets, and visible drug use and drug dealing throughout our district. The Pearl District Neighborhood Association has taken up where the city has failed us. Residents volunteer to clean up the streets constantly; you will see us with our orange vests on doing the work. 

Fortunately, many of the residential properties and commercial businesses in the Pearl have funded the Northwest Community Conservancy, and we know we can call that organization when there is an issue, particularly because the police are not always available. One service that the NWCC provides is working to establish shelters and support for people using drugs. NWCC, in their recent report, stated that through the NWCC, over 2,000 people have been placed into shelters or received services, and they've responded to approximately 2,500 hotline calls regarding safety and security issues.

The Pearl neighborhood is working so hard to cope with the number of homeless people in our district. Portland's government has not shown us that it has the ability to provide the resources we require. Not every person who is homeless is a danger, but putting this HUGE shelter in our neighborhood is of great concern, considering how many of the people being served have behavior and mental health issues. While this is also a mixed-age neighborhood, there are so many older people living here and the impact of unmanaged mentally-impaired people wandering the streets increases the risks for all of us. Last year I was threatened just trying to cross NW 12th at Johnson, trying to reach my condo building, by a man who continued to circle me in the street, screaming at me for a cigarette and matches. Cars were stopped at the stop signs and no one got out of their cars to help, probably because they, too, were afraid. Our Pearl District is not equipped to provide the necessary additional social services and security that a shelter of this size will need. We have seen how the city has responded — or rather HAS NOT responded — in other neighborhoods and our own over the past few years, and I have absolutely no faith in the city's ability to do so now. 

People here are now expressing their plans to move out of Portland if this shelter is placed in our district. Property values have already declined here, and the tax base is affected as well. I do not like paying huge taxes to this city when, in return for what I pay: I cannot count on the police responding in an appropriate amount of time; residents constantly have to pick up garbage and drug paraphanalia; we walk down streets that smell like urine; and we have to watch where we walk lest we step in human feces (it used to be just dog poop we worried about). It is an embarrassment when guests come to visit now. It's not the beautiful city and neighborhood that it was five years ago. (By the way, have you ridden on the MAX or Streetcar at all? Most people riding do not pay, the stench of urine on the seats is unmistakable, and many of the people using these modes of transportation often are experiencing mental health crises.)

Please do not mistake my disappointment, frustration and even anger with the city and with you, Mayor Wilson, for a lack of compassion. I volunteer my time weekly in the Cully neighborhood and have been doing that since 2016. My son, a wheelchair user, had to move out of NE Portland near Emanuel Hospital area because the increase in gun violence was encroaching near his ground-level apartment, and because he and his caregiver could not walk on the sidewalks since there were tents everywhere. Now he lives in Oregon City. When he comes to visit me and we walk (I push his wheelchair), we have to navigate around the tents on the sidewalks — so we often walk on the streets — between the Pearl and the Alphabet District. I have to wash his wheelchair after his visits here because of what he has had to roll through. Your plan to locate this shelter, as well as the 70+ bed women's shelter, here, will make things much worse. PLEASE listen to us! 

I ask, I PLEAD, with you to rethink your plan to add more overnight shelter beds to my neighborhood. As this shelter and the one on Lovejoy are supposed to be "low barrier," that's just increasing the problems in our already overburdened and overwhelmed neighborhood. 

When I was raising my family in Corvallis, we followed the development of the Pearl. We used to come up to Old Town to go to a few of the Chinese restaurants. We'd go to Rose's on NW 23rd. We'd make a special trip just to go to Powell's. We watched as the old warehouses were turned into condo buildings and art galleries, and we loved the breweries that were popping up everywhere, and, of course, all the fine restaurants. When it was time to sell my house, the Pearl District of Portland was exactly where I knew I needed and wanted to be. Everyone I talked to, even people in other states as far away as Massachusetts, knew about the Pearl and were excited for me. I hope that one day I can welcome my guests and not be embarrassed about the condition of my lovely neighborhood, that people can once again park on the streets without worrying that their car windows will be smashed (as happened to my daughter's car once, and then, just before Christmas 2024, her car was stolen from here), that they won't step in feces, and that the sidewalks will be walkable and not be impeded with tents. 

Perhaps you're going to call me a NIMBY. Yes, I guess I am. I pay very high taxes to live here, and it seems to me that those of us who've worked our whole lives to get to this point, and who have already watched our neighborhood's livability decrease, have a right to prevent our neighborhood from further deterioration. We live in a high-density area that includes people of all income levels, and this proposed shelter does not belong here. The city of Portland is NOT capable of providing the services and oversight needed. Again, the city's failure to manage the Harbor of Hope despite its promises is indicative of what we could expect if this shelter is allowed here. 

Mayor Wilson, you have betrayed us. I hope you will reconsider your proposal. 

Yours very truly,

Judi Kloper