Pearl committee: Things 'not OK' at shelter
Oversight group reports an 'explosion' of issues in the neighborhood
Despite reports that livability issues around Pearl homeless shelters are improving, a neighborhood watchdog committee disagrees.
“All is not OK,” was the theme of a Dec. 11 report from the Pearl District Neighborhood Association Shelter Oversight Committee.
“People are appalled at the explosion we’re seeing in the number of sleepers and in drug activity, not only in the parks, but in any recessed area,” committee Chair Linda Witt told the association.
“Very disturbingly, we’re seeing excessive sleeping, watering, etc., in violation of the community engagement guidelines, even around the shelter itself.
“We also see that the activity is reaching the streetcar stops … something that [Mayor Keith Wilson] said would not happen,” Witt said.
The stated goal of Wilson’s overnight shelter program, of which the 200-capacity Northwest Street Shelter is the largest, was to provide safe and comfortable shelter to people living outdoors.
That policy is sometimes overridden when occupants are dangerous or defy shelter protocols, in which case some are expelled.
“Extreme hard cases are being sent out directly to the street,” Witt said. “There is no problem-solving team that tries to figure out how to help these people. They are simply rejected from the shelter, and they are told to go hang out in the Pearl.
“The mayor said back in July, ‘If there’s open drug use or open drug dealing,’ we will rush care and public safety to address it.”
PDNA President Bruce Studer suggested that people who are expelled should be the responsibility of Multnomah County.
Witt said Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson told reporters recently that such situations are an “opportunity for the county to do its work.”
Multnomah County Commissioner Meghan Moyer will speak at a public meeting sponsored by the PDNA on Friday, 9-10:30 a.m., at the Fields Bar & Grill, 1139 NW 11th Ave.
Mayor Wilson’s office was invited to respond to the Oversight Committee report but did not do so. A Portland Solutions spokesperson asked whether incidents occurred on Oregon Department of Transportation property, which would make it ODOT’s responsibility to maintain.
Living in Old Town, it's hard to be sympathetic for those in the Pearl who are now having to contend with the conditions that have plagued our neighborhood for years while Pearl residents sat back and sighed relief that those conditions didn't cross Broadway and enter their place of peace and quiet -- and I might add, safety. You'd think, with all the social service agencies located in Old Town, that there wouldn't be a tent to be found. Instead Blanchet House (and other social service agencies) attracts them like a magnet. Flanders Street has become drug dealing central. Oasis is a joke with a 1000-foot perimeter that is rife with tents and loitering. Wilson has succeeded in clearing Downtown of homeless by pushing them to the fringes -- first Old Town and now the Pearl. Shelters are a waste of money if they sit half full because the vagrants on our streets want their drugs -- not a warm place to rest their head. And I resent anyone calling these derelicts "our neighbors." They are incorrigible addicts who could say "NO" to their situation at any time but that have been enabled by the city and bleeding heart liberals for so long there is no reason to change. "Meeting them where they are" is nothing more than enabling them to continue the same behavior without consequence. So, until we see a dramatic change in thinking and how homelessness is being addressed, the number of people living on the street will continue to grow and the taxpayers will be the ones to suffer.
For what it's worth, I am sending a complaint letter to Mayor Wilson later this morning. He can't be allowed to get away with not addressing the growing problem the city has created by placing a shelter where it did. I am glad there is a oversight group who are staying on top of things.