At 4:25, we received this response from Councilor Clark:
I appreciate your coverage of the communities in District 4 impacted by the shelter planned for NW Northrup and the privately funded women’s shelter on NW Lovejoy.
I continue to meet with residents in both the Pearl District and the Northwest District. The level of concern and anxiety is very high. Both neighborhoods have faced numerous challenges since COVID and are trying desperately to recover.
The Pearl District, in particular, has been hit very hard with commercial vacancies. Members of this community are especially disappointed since they have invested more than $2 million since 2023 in supporting the Northwest Community Conservancy. This organization has helped more than 2,000 people find shelters and other services, as well as provide much-needed additional security. Members of the Stadium neighborhood and Couch Park area have also committed significant resources to support the issues surrounding homelessness. I dedicated $100,000 of my office budget for a pilot project by the Public Environment Management Office to address issues around the Interstate 405 corridor.
I have discussed these concerns with Mayor Wilson several times to make sure that he is listening to feedback from the community. As you know, the Mayor made a campaign promise to open 1,500 overnight shelter beds and end sleeping and camping on our streets, and homelessness remains a top concern across the city. The Mayor’s plan comes with risks, and we all need to be aware that success will take a collaborative effort between the City and the community. He has assured me that resources will be dedicated to minimize impacts by creating a 1,000-foot engagement area around the proposed shelters. Regular garbage pickup, graffiti and hazardous material removal, and enhanced public safety will be deployed.
My constituents, both residents and local businesses, are skeptical they will receive the support needed based on prior efforts. The weekly Problem Solver meetings should help the immediate area around the shelter, but the community is very concerned about the potential impact on safety and security across the broader neighborhood. Several business owners have also expressed concern as they continue to manage a very difficult economic climate. I urge the Mayor to continue to meet with them to share his comprehensive plan for these shelters, and provide incentives to encourage them to continue to invest in our communities. The overall health of these neighborhoods depends upon a thriving business environment, as well as residents feeling safe and secure.
While I appreciate that Clark is the ONLY representative on city council so far to even acknowledge the large and legitimate resident/business concern here, I am getting tired of this idea that a shelter with this many drug addicted/mentally ill inhabitants (80% was the estimated figure I saw) with nowhere to go every morning will ever pose anything but a problem for basically anywhere within walking distance. It does not matter how many resources you throw at it, it is going to be a big ongoing struggle. As has been pointed out many times, there is already a nearby shelter where the mayor could roll out all these incredible safeguards to keep the neighborhood secure and he is not doing it - it’s because these don’t exist. If they wanted neighborhood buy in, that was already destroyed by the complete void of transparency around this “done deal”, lying directly to people’s faces about the length of the lease, flagrantly ignoring attempts at community discourse, followed by the strategic media release of a biased “study” around shelter crime impacts.To top it all off, this entire thing is completely unnecessary, because if anyone had taken any time to strategize this, they could have found a much more appropriate location, not directly impacting thousands of residents in the middle of a business district. They should be aiming to move ALL low barrier shelters (which should be 24/7 in nature) OUT of high density areas and then enforcing laws, so that already struggling neighborhoods have some chance to get back on their feet. One person (the mayor) should not be able to make this decision in a vacuum of all logic - the main point of the new city council structure was to diffuse decision making power among the districts, in theory ensuring their representation on council. So much for that.
I think Mitch Green is being disingenuous in his comments, where he seems to imply that more people in NW/Pearl are "for" the shelter, than the reality. Those of us in the center of this crisis believe that it's more like 95% against the shelter, and 5% for. Again, the councilor seems to be favoring a model of service -- that has failed miserably -- for 200 homeless individuals (actively suffering from continued drug abuse, mental illness and more), while throwing the livability and safety of 15,000 working families and the elderly, under the bus. Mitch and others are desperately hoping that "enhanced resources" will mitigate the damage of the shelters, but there is NO REASON AT ALL to believe that can happen! Why? The closest similar shelter, managed by TPI under the City's oversight, is the River District Navigation Center on NW Naito. In the past year, and in all the previous years, that shelter has been the site of non-stop drug use, drug dealing, loitering, camping, assaults on persons, and prostitution. That shelter has HALF the size (just 90 guests) of the proposed shelter on NW Northrup. If the city can't manage to mitigate the effects of that shelter, how in the world could we expect that they can mitigate the effects of a shelter with more than twice the capacity in an even denser part of the district?
If they’re being honest, which I know is painful for them, they’ve heard from far more (actual people who would be impacted in the neighborhood) saying they don’t want this shelter there for obvious reasons. I have not talked to one person who thinks this is acceptable and when people testified on this in front of the shelter committee it was 100% opposed. This is all documented and on record, so these people just continue to lie. This mayor keeps being given the huge benefit of the doubt that he actually possesses strategy or competence that he has yet to show, and this time he will ruin an entire neighborhood (if he is allowed to proceed) in the process. In a year the damage will be done and these people won’t be held accountable, it’ll just be a lot of taxpayers suffering for their idiotic decisions as usual. They should just admit they are ineffective, highly paid doormats willing to stand by while their district is sacrificed and move on. Hope everyone remembers this if any of these people try to run for any public office again.
What else would you expect from pols elected with 25-percent of the vote (no more, no less) in a weird electronic vote system run by a computer algorithm.
They're smart enough to know that the $133,000-a-year job will be theirs if they (1) keep the 25-percent happy and (2) don't make any waves that will get other voters mad. This is the way the Charter Commission designed it--to solidify minority government. The system advantages low-turnouts, a laundry-list of candidates to confuse voters and media, and organized, disciplined parties (in supposedly non-partisan elections--a joke).
Everything flows from this. We will have unresponsive, factional representatives until the city wises up and redraws that radical part of the charter.
Totally agree. Julia Meier and Candace Avalos in concert with the DSA, commandeered the "Charter Reform Committee" under the gullible noses of the old City Council and came up with a remarkable way to take power and keep it. Unless this so-called Charter Reform with Ranked Choice Voting making winners out of 25%+1 vote clowns is replaced with something fair, honest and transparent, nothing will change.
I did not go to the meeting! The shelters are a fait accompli - in other words: It's happening no matter what we think. Councilors and mayor are either not interested or concerned about the effects on the neighborhoods. It's going ahead no matter what. I am disheartened, disgruntled and disappointed in our local politicians.
At 4:25, we received this response from Councilor Clark:
I appreciate your coverage of the communities in District 4 impacted by the shelter planned for NW Northrup and the privately funded women’s shelter on NW Lovejoy.
I continue to meet with residents in both the Pearl District and the Northwest District. The level of concern and anxiety is very high. Both neighborhoods have faced numerous challenges since COVID and are trying desperately to recover.
The Pearl District, in particular, has been hit very hard with commercial vacancies. Members of this community are especially disappointed since they have invested more than $2 million since 2023 in supporting the Northwest Community Conservancy. This organization has helped more than 2,000 people find shelters and other services, as well as provide much-needed additional security. Members of the Stadium neighborhood and Couch Park area have also committed significant resources to support the issues surrounding homelessness. I dedicated $100,000 of my office budget for a pilot project by the Public Environment Management Office to address issues around the Interstate 405 corridor.
I have discussed these concerns with Mayor Wilson several times to make sure that he is listening to feedback from the community. As you know, the Mayor made a campaign promise to open 1,500 overnight shelter beds and end sleeping and camping on our streets, and homelessness remains a top concern across the city. The Mayor’s plan comes with risks, and we all need to be aware that success will take a collaborative effort between the City and the community. He has assured me that resources will be dedicated to minimize impacts by creating a 1,000-foot engagement area around the proposed shelters. Regular garbage pickup, graffiti and hazardous material removal, and enhanced public safety will be deployed.
My constituents, both residents and local businesses, are skeptical they will receive the support needed based on prior efforts. The weekly Problem Solver meetings should help the immediate area around the shelter, but the community is very concerned about the potential impact on safety and security across the broader neighborhood. Several business owners have also expressed concern as they continue to manage a very difficult economic climate. I urge the Mayor to continue to meet with them to share his comprehensive plan for these shelters, and provide incentives to encourage them to continue to invest in our communities. The overall health of these neighborhoods depends upon a thriving business environment, as well as residents feeling safe and secure.
While I appreciate that Clark is the ONLY representative on city council so far to even acknowledge the large and legitimate resident/business concern here, I am getting tired of this idea that a shelter with this many drug addicted/mentally ill inhabitants (80% was the estimated figure I saw) with nowhere to go every morning will ever pose anything but a problem for basically anywhere within walking distance. It does not matter how many resources you throw at it, it is going to be a big ongoing struggle. As has been pointed out many times, there is already a nearby shelter where the mayor could roll out all these incredible safeguards to keep the neighborhood secure and he is not doing it - it’s because these don’t exist. If they wanted neighborhood buy in, that was already destroyed by the complete void of transparency around this “done deal”, lying directly to people’s faces about the length of the lease, flagrantly ignoring attempts at community discourse, followed by the strategic media release of a biased “study” around shelter crime impacts.To top it all off, this entire thing is completely unnecessary, because if anyone had taken any time to strategize this, they could have found a much more appropriate location, not directly impacting thousands of residents in the middle of a business district. They should be aiming to move ALL low barrier shelters (which should be 24/7 in nature) OUT of high density areas and then enforcing laws, so that already struggling neighborhoods have some chance to get back on their feet. One person (the mayor) should not be able to make this decision in a vacuum of all logic - the main point of the new city council structure was to diffuse decision making power among the districts, in theory ensuring their representation on council. So much for that.
I think Mitch Green is being disingenuous in his comments, where he seems to imply that more people in NW/Pearl are "for" the shelter, than the reality. Those of us in the center of this crisis believe that it's more like 95% against the shelter, and 5% for. Again, the councilor seems to be favoring a model of service -- that has failed miserably -- for 200 homeless individuals (actively suffering from continued drug abuse, mental illness and more), while throwing the livability and safety of 15,000 working families and the elderly, under the bus. Mitch and others are desperately hoping that "enhanced resources" will mitigate the damage of the shelters, but there is NO REASON AT ALL to believe that can happen! Why? The closest similar shelter, managed by TPI under the City's oversight, is the River District Navigation Center on NW Naito. In the past year, and in all the previous years, that shelter has been the site of non-stop drug use, drug dealing, loitering, camping, assaults on persons, and prostitution. That shelter has HALF the size (just 90 guests) of the proposed shelter on NW Northrup. If the city can't manage to mitigate the effects of that shelter, how in the world could we expect that they can mitigate the effects of a shelter with more than twice the capacity in an even denser part of the district?
If they’re being honest, which I know is painful for them, they’ve heard from far more (actual people who would be impacted in the neighborhood) saying they don’t want this shelter there for obvious reasons. I have not talked to one person who thinks this is acceptable and when people testified on this in front of the shelter committee it was 100% opposed. This is all documented and on record, so these people just continue to lie. This mayor keeps being given the huge benefit of the doubt that he actually possesses strategy or competence that he has yet to show, and this time he will ruin an entire neighborhood (if he is allowed to proceed) in the process. In a year the damage will be done and these people won’t be held accountable, it’ll just be a lot of taxpayers suffering for their idiotic decisions as usual. They should just admit they are ineffective, highly paid doormats willing to stand by while their district is sacrificed and move on. Hope everyone remembers this if any of these people try to run for any public office again.
What else would you expect from pols elected with 25-percent of the vote (no more, no less) in a weird electronic vote system run by a computer algorithm.
They're smart enough to know that the $133,000-a-year job will be theirs if they (1) keep the 25-percent happy and (2) don't make any waves that will get other voters mad. This is the way the Charter Commission designed it--to solidify minority government. The system advantages low-turnouts, a laundry-list of candidates to confuse voters and media, and organized, disciplined parties (in supposedly non-partisan elections--a joke).
Everything flows from this. We will have unresponsive, factional representatives until the city wises up and redraws that radical part of the charter.
Which ain't gonna happen. Suck it up.
Totally agree. Julia Meier and Candace Avalos in concert with the DSA, commandeered the "Charter Reform Committee" under the gullible noses of the old City Council and came up with a remarkable way to take power and keep it. Unless this so-called Charter Reform with Ranked Choice Voting making winners out of 25%+1 vote clowns is replaced with something fair, honest and transparent, nothing will change.
It seems like a lot of talk about communicating with the District 4 inhabitants, but very little real action. Why didn't you go to the meeting???
I did not go to the meeting! The shelters are a fait accompli - in other words: It's happening no matter what we think. Councilors and mayor are either not interested or concerned about the effects on the neighborhoods. It's going ahead no matter what. I am disheartened, disgruntled and disappointed in our local politicians.