Northrup Shelter impact update
Pearl volunteers assess state of affairs in the district
The Pearl District Shelter Oversight Committee released its fifth report on conditions surrounding the Northrup Street Shelter last week.
The committee, chaired by Linda Witt, has gained traction at City Hall, and the mayor’s Portland Solutions team now meets with the volunteers to better understand the challenge and possible strategies to address it.
While many claim conditions are improving as a result of the city’s impact reduction efforts, Witt is not as optimistic.
“We’ve seen an explosion of people sleeping outside in the Pearl,” she said. “It really does feel like one step forward, two steps back.”
I recommend everyone fed up with The Pearl being a dumping ground for the homeless issue/Wilson’s far from perfect shelter plan continue to email or otherwise reach out to the mayor and district 4 councilors. The Pearl showed up in a big way to protect the Impact Reduction Program, and now we need to see impacts mitigated in our neighborhood. There is zero reason the areas around these shelters shouldn’t be getting extra and targeted attention so we aren’t dealing with camping, homeless trespassing and drugs/crime AND hosting hundreds of people on overnight shelters. Enough is enough.