Pearl neighbors are keeping score

Residents document livability impacts they were promised would be corrected

Residents of the Pearl District claim the neighborhood is already seeing the effects of the overnight shelter at 1435 NW Northrup Street. This photo was taken at Northwest 13th and Marshall. (Photo by R. Christopher Klemm)

Linda Witt, who chairs the Pearl District Neighborhood Association’s Shelter Oversight Committee, has a big job.

Witt documents impacts on livability in the Pearl District related to the new Northrup Street Shelter, which Mayor Keith Wilson suggested would reduce camping, crime and trash in the vicinity, as he claimed was the case around other overnight city shelters.

Witt and other neighborhood activists doubted that claim from the start, but they realized the only path to protect their community was to carefully document each violation and report them to the city.

This is how Witt spent Sunday, Sept. 21:

“I spent two hours documenting issues and cleaning up the Northrup shelter engagement zone trash, where I got around 40 gallons of trash. I don’t understand how that can be happening if the city is doing the new seven-days-a-week Pearl cleaning via Clean Start (which I’ve never seen in the Pearl).

“In addition to the two hours cleaning on foot, I also drove through the engagement zone 6 p.m.-7 p.m. All of the issues described below thus were observed in less than a total of 3 hours on Sunday, in the small section of the engagement zone in the closest proximity to the shelter. Every single item in the list below is either a violation of the promised operational guidelines for the shelter or demonstrates a complete contradiction to the mayor’s promise at the town hall to “mitigate the effects of the shelter and substantially improve community livability.”

“I’m particularly worried about … the nearly 70 families who live at Oro Apartments next to the shelter and for the patrons of LA Fitness across the street. When the shelter capacity grows, so will these congregations.

“Note that the congregations that I saw last night around the shelter are relatively harmless (since there is currently not a lot of visible, active drug use by the current shelter participants). I know many of the shelter participants by name and feel for their situations.

“The heavy concentration of homeless near the shelter and in adjacent blocks are a blight on livability in this community. This we know from the Moore and River District shelters, a sadly inescapable, inevitable and enduring challenge—one that we look to the mayor to solve as promised in front of 580 residents at the July 28 town hall.”

Witt listed some of the other scenes she observed:

1. A homeless woman spending several hours directly on the sidewalk surrounding the Northrup shelter, littering, ranging and ranting. No staff responded.

2. A homeless man camping and unresponsive under a tarp along Northwest 13^th Avenue between Northrup and Marshall—less than 15 yards from the shelter’s perimeter. No shelter or other staff dealt with it.

3. Between 6 and 7 p.m., at least 11 homeless shelter participants waiting on Northwest 15^th between Northrup and Marshall and next to LA Fitness.

4. Two homeless men with mental health issues on Northwest 15^th between Lovejoy and Kearney. A sleeper on Northwest Kearney between 15^th and 16^th. No resources present or available for outreach.

5. Two aggressive trespassers on Northwest Kearney between 12th and NW 13^th. I was threatened. No resources present or available for outreach.

6. At Jamison Park, every bench was occupied by homeless people, some sleeping. No other people were in the park despite beautiful weather.

7. Northrup shelter users spending the day in Jamison Park despite city promises that shelter participants would be directed to Oasis day spa and not be allowed to disperse in the District.

8. A broken and boarded up window on Northwest Johnson at 14^th, and glass from a car break-in on 15^th between Johnson and Kearney.

9. An unresponsive person and a sleeper in Asa’s alcove and a partially exposed man on Lovejoy.

Other neighbors supplied revealing photos.

Unresponsive man at NW 11th and Kearney streets Sept. 22. (Photo by R. Christopher Klemm)

Northwest 13th and Marshall in Asa alcove on Sept. 23. (Photo by R. Christopher Klemm)

On Sept. 18, Brendan Jamieson reported, “The is the fourth morning in a row that I have spotted trash and/or vagrants under this bush at Tanner Springs Park. This lovely park has been subjected to increased vandalism since the Northrup Shelter opened.” (Photo by Brendan Jamieson)