Monthly reports track Pearl shelter impacts
Declining real estate values reinforce the story
Some are skeptical of Linda Witt’s monthly reports on consequences of the Northrup Street Shelter. Although her team of volunteers, who regularly check their assigned routes for crime and street disorder, strive to be thorough and balanced, some would prefer a rosier picture.
“If you haven’t seen bad stuff in the Pearl, I’m super happy for you,” Witt told Pearl District Neighborhood Association members in her April report as chair of the Shelter Oversight Committee. “But you need to know that other people have seen this stuff, and they’ve sent in these photos.
“The numbers that I showed you today look dramatically worse than the numbers I’ve showed you in the past, because things are getting worse in 2026. From the period of September 2025 through February of 2026, crime has gone up 60%; person crimes, almost 80%,” she continued.
Not so in the rest of the city.
“Look at the city—society crimes have dropped,” Witt said. “Property crimes have dropped. But here in the Pearl, we’re just the opposite. … We know this. The Pearl is absorbing a lot of the criminal activity which was previously in Old Town and [elsewhere].”
As a result, she said, people have lost hope in the district’s future. Monthly incident reports are not the only way to get a sense of the neighborhood.
“In my building [the Bridgeport] alone, just today, I published the number of units for sale—it’s nine. We’ve never had more than four or five units for sale. Everybody’s leaving town.
“You see people just bailing,” she said. “They are giving up and moving on. They’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on their property, but they just can’t take the trauma of living in an environment where you’re exposed almost every day to these safety and security threats.”
The most viewed local real estate website indeed listed nine condos for sale in the Bridgeport (at an average price of $435,000) on April 7 among 125 listing for the Pearl District.
Judie Dunken, who heads a real estate team specializing in Pearl properties, has been a mainstay in the PDNA for nine years. She concurred with Witt’s observations.
“People are losing money,” Dunken said. “They don’t want to be here.”
Many have been holding on for years hoping things would get better, but their patience has run out. The average drop in value in the past year has been 16%, she said.
“The shelter has driven values down tremendously.
“The neighborhood has changed,” she said. “It’s totally not what the mayor promised. It’s all the things that we feared.”
Special PDNA meeting called
Future of the Pearl Town Hall
April 28, 5:30 pm, at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave.
Dear Concerned Pearl District Neighbors:
You are receiving this email because you were concerned enough to communicate your thoughts about the Proposed Northrup Shelter with the mayor and city leaders and copy me in.
We are at an important moment for our neighborhood: We now need to harness the energy the shelter created to Re-Ignite the Pearl. Foot Traffic is down 30% since 2019 and we all feel the impact. It’s time to come together to restore the energy, safety and vibrancy that made this neighborhood one of the most dynamic places in Portland.
Bruce Studer
Pearl District Neighborhood Association President
I was very supportive of Mayor Wilson's plan to set up this overnight shelter in the Pearl and other neighborhoods as an inexpensive means to significantly reduce street camping, which was turning into a real plague in Portland. But it was supposed to be only a first step -- not an end in itself! What comes after opening these overnight shelters at night in terms of solving our problems with homelessness during the dayis much harder and will cost money. Even favorite solutions like "Why doesn't somebody just call the cops? Lock 'em up! Force those druggies into treatment programs, or else!..." cost serious money. Who pays for this? And what are these homeless people supposed to DO anyway -- live their tiny lives inside their tiny houses? I'm trying not to be too disillusioned, but Portland seems to coast on its reputation for progressive virtue while doing everything in this half-assed way.
The data speaks for itself. It’s clear the city created a problem. It’s clear that the city needs to step up and fix it.