Mayor Wilson meets with unhappy residents
Pearl District neighbors have their say about coming homeless shelter
Mayor Keith Wilson was expecting half a dozen community representatives to join his tour of the city’s proposed overnight shelter at 1435 NW Northrup St. on Monday Instead, about 30 people greeted him, including one reporter who recently discovered the video button on his iPhone.
The pent-up stories Wilson heard could not have been what he had hoped to hear. About a dozen neighbors poured out reasons and anecdotes weighing against a 200-bed shelter in the heart of the densely populated Pearl District.
Jamey Hampton, co-artistic director of the nearby BodyVox dance studio, Pearl District Neighborhood Association President Bruce Studer and PDNA Parks Committee Chair Bill Truncali were particularly well prepared for their chance to address the mayor.
Wilson remained poised during the session, which he allowed to go on 30 minutes overtime. He listened respectfully, never revealed anger and was universally praised for the compassion of his goals.
But he was also unmoved. When asked what failure of his campaign to end unsanctioned camping by Dec. 1 would look like, he said, he had never seen failure in the U.S. cities he has visited and whose blueprint he is following.
“We can’t wait,” he said. “It’s time to care for our people.”
Jamey Hampton, Body Vox co-artistic director.
Bill Truncali, chair of Pearl District Neighborhood Association Parks Committee.
Bruce Studer, president, Pearl District Neighborhood Association.
Mayor Keith Wilson.
Meeting with our capon-mayor is a total waste of time (unless you haven't read the city charter). The mayor can complain, but the actual power resides with (1) the socialist city council, and (2) the county, which doesn't like Portland, except when it's time to pay property taxes.
I think Keith Wilson is a well-intentioned, hardworking and genuinely good human being who naïvely thinks that this problem can be solved somehow by a City and County who have demonstrated over and over again that they're long on ideas and short on performance. All we need to do is spend more money, have neighborhoods be more accommodating and tolerant of the feral among us, and continue to disregard the double standards where law-abiding taxpayers have one set of rules to follow, and those deemed "houseless"or "disabled"(think Meghan Moyer) appear to have well ---no rules to follow. We've been trying this tactic since our "Homeless Emergency" was first declared by Charlie Hales... remember him? Things are way worse now than they were 10 years ago... just take a walk.
This was brought home to me on a trip I took the last two weeks. In the Midwest and in a city larger than Portland I saw not one tent. Let me repeat, not one tent. Bigger city than Portland.... and not one tent. I saw one shopping cart loaded with junk. One guy with a blanket in a park. No tarps, no human feces, no needles and guess what? Virtually no graffiti. We were all over that city for 3 days and it was such a contrast to Portlandia. That city is much more racially diverse than Portland as well. I saw no mentally ill people screaming on the sidewalks, nobody cooking with an open fire in the back alley or under a bridge. And again let me stress, virtually no graffiti.
Something is very wrong with Portland's approach to the homeless, and I find it hard to believe that our often touted "Oregon values" haven't played a role in the mess we find ourselves in.