STATE REPRESENTATIVE Jefferson Smith stood on the sun-drenched Gateway Station MAX platform on the afternoon of Sunday, April 18, surveying what serves as the welcome mat to his district: a vast parking lot for the Oregon Clinic, two shopping carts marooned in mud, a vacant lot, an abandoned home, and a stone sculpture cordoned off with caution tape. “My district has precious little to inspire,” noted Smith.
East Portland, including Smith’s House District 47, is poor and getting poorer. Annexed from the city 20 years ago in a process a court later declared unconstitutional, the neighborhoods east of 82nd Avenue account for 26 percent of Portland’s population and 44 percent of its school kids. However, while Portland prides itself on livability and smart development, East Portland is deficient in parks, sidewalks, and funding. Projects in East Portland received less than 10 percent of citywide federal stimulus money. Now East Portland neighbors are demanding more.
Representative Smith, who owns a seafoam green ranch house in the Hazelwood neighborhood (“Within walking distance of two Targets!” he observes), caused a dustup at city hall during a public hearing on the East Portland Action Plan (EPAP) last week. The EPAP is a list of 268 priorities for the area, which city council approved last year and gave $500,000 in funding.
“Last year I came merely to say thank you and please,” Smith told city council. “Now I am truly angry.”
Smith and others say a one-time amount of $500,000 isn’t enough. They want a fair share of the Portland city budget.
There has been some progress. For the first time in the city’s history, the budget will be broken down by geographic spending. Before this year, there was no way to track exactly how much city money was spent in any specific part of the city. But it’s obvious how much city money has been spent in East Portland in the past 20 years: not enough.
Rich Rodgers was a policy advisor to former Commissioner Erik Sten, who worked on a deal to spend downtown urban renewal money in East Portland (the plan is now embroiled in a lawsuit). In Rodgers’ view, the lack of parks and sidewalks leads to serious problems like crime and dangerous roads.
“All the stuff that goes on in the center of the city is very visible—it gets written up in the New York Times,” says Rodgers. “But once you get east of 82nd, it’s ‘out of sight, out of mind.'”
Neighborhood leaders say people who are gentrified out of inner Portland have moved en masse into the numerous new cheap apartments in East Portland. David Douglas School District has increased enrollment 30 percent since 1995, according to school board member Annette Mattson, and the number of kids in school who qualify for free or reduced lunch has risen to 75 percent. Even Street Roots, the downtown-based homeless newspaper, has opened up a branch office in East Portland to be closer to its numerous vendors who live beyond sight of Portland’s skyline.
“The rest of the city is still learning that ground zero for social justice is 82nd Avenue,” says Representative Smith as he drives parallel to the MAX Blue Line past strips of drab apartment complexes with names like El-Ti-Kee and Beavercrest. There are about 5,400 people who live in this neighborhood near 162nd Avenue, says Smith, and the police responded to a whopping 3,300 calls here last year.
As for the amount of money East Portland received from President Obama’s stimulus plan—well, that depends on whom you ask. An initial review of projects by Rose Community Development Executive Director Nick Sauvie showed just .6 percent of the stimulus was spent east of 82nd Avenue. The mayor’s office responded with its own analysis showing 10 percent—but Sauvie quickly pointed out that they reached that number by including a housing project in Troutdale.
Mayor Sam Adams now admits the inclusion of the Troutdale project was a mistake, but says it’s wrong to blame his office for the lack of stimulus spending in East Portland. The kind of shovel-ready projects that qualified for federal funds needed years of backend planning work which East Portland was lacking.
“Every part of the city has improved in terms of the rate of poverty, except for East Portland,” says Adams, who says that the city is doing its best to play catch-up. “The county did not invest in basic infrastructure.”
Where is the rest of this story? What did the county say? What did Smith do at council? What do the residents say?
Not hating on – I am intrigued by the well written story SM – just want more details!
I was ready to read the rest of the story too! where’d it go? There’s gotta be more, right? Is this like Part 1 of a multi-part story?
Hold on, the mayor says his office isn’t to blame for the lack of spending in the poorest part of the city? Then who exactly is to blame? It’s very confusing because he does not provide an explanation that satisfies and does not go on the say who is at fault. This is ridiculous. Portland is a great city that we should proud of, as long as you don’t go east of 82nd. This is a social justice issue & a city that’s filled with good people who care about social justice issues should be very concerned. We need to wake up people! Portland west of 82nd is a bubble.
I’d also like to see Parts II, III, IV, and V coming soon to a Blogtown near me.
Or is that East Blogtown?
Hey D and Liz,
I’m glad to hear you want to know more. I only get so many words to use for the paper, but will definitely keep up with coverage of East Portland and budget issues both on the blog and in future print articles.
For now, check out my more thorough report on what Rep Smith said to Council last week here: http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…
And some coverage today on the blog about how East Portland is getting only 3% of the city transpo budget: http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…
Stay tuned!
I think what the Mayor means is that since the city didn’t have any plans for development in East Portland, there were no shovel-ready projects, so even if they wanted to, they couldn’t have spent many stimulus dollars there.
So, it isn’t the acute problem of inequitable stimulus spending by the city East of 82nd that is shameful…it’s the chronic problem of inadequate (or nonexistent) planning East of 82nd by the city that is shameful, and the responsibility for that lies with this City Council and Mayor, and everyone else who’s been in those positions since the annexation.
It would be interesting to see how many of the signatures on the recall petition came from people living east of 82nd. The mayor doesn’t care about neighborhoods where there are no hipsters on bicycles.
I dislike this article! As a former east of 82nder (And would gladly move back if able) It is listing “faults” that many locals would describe as pluses. They have tried to put sidewalks in several times but my dad among others protested it as it will make the streets wider and leads to higher traffic flow and faster cars. The dirt road that leads to 1 of 2 parks within walking distance of my childhood home that I am sure is considered unsafe was the best place to ride your bike! All the mud puddles 🙂 And in the winter we had our own personal skating rink. My favorite park in all of Portland is east of 82nd. Powell butte. There are great walking trails and a crab apple grove at the top. The area I grew up in was people that had lived there their whole lives. We like it the way it is! 🙂
The remaining 97% of the story is available only to computers with an ISP address west of 82nd Avenue.
Thank you, Sarah! Thanks especially for the stat about 44% of school children. Wow. One thing that needs further exploration is the Mayor’s comment that poverty has gone down everywhere but East Portland. If the “neighborhood leaders” are right that East Portland has gotten the people who’ve been gentrified out of “inner” Portland, that’s not a very satisfying answer. (Of course, even if poverty has gone down everywhere else but held steady in the East, it’s still pretty cold comfort to the East … )
East Portland is indeed critical ground for social justice work, although all of Oregon’s places and people have cause to work together.
I applaud Representative Jefferson Smith and Nick Sauvie for their actions to raise the profile and seek to address the disparities in East Portland.
OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon http://www.opalpdx.org joins in the concern about environment and in particular the slow decay of bus service – from the bus overcrowding to the ‘pass up’ incidents where people are left behind. We invite bus riders to contact us!
And…17 community centers in the city and ONE is east of 82nd Ave. This part of the city was annexed over 20 years ago in a storm of promises about all the wonderful things Portland leadership would do for us. What did we get? Higher taxes and high residential zoning without parks or zoning for jobs and businesses, much less commercial and retail services. We have the Springwater Corridor, Zenger Farm, Leach Botanical Gardens, Johnson Creek, MAX… but not the infrastructure investments and employment lands combined with zoning for ALL housing that makes for a balanced, livable and sustainable community.
There is so much more to the story. Please continue!
Great story, and something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Sarah you’re doing terrific work.
One thing I would add (that I think is outside of the official scope of the East Portland Action Plan we set up a few years ago) is that the boundaries of the 54,000 household midcounty sewer annexation extend beyond 82nd—namely into Cully and Brentwood-Darlington some 40-50 blocks farther west. These neighborhoods have experienced the same degree of infrastructure neglect.
A tragic irony in this whole mess is that the market rate for apartments (existing and new) is lowest in those neighborhoods with the least adequate infrastructure. So the highest growth in the city’s population of children and low income residents in general has been taking place–for almost 20 years–in the neighborhoods least able to accommodate them.
This stuff won’t sort itself out on its own. The same demographic dynamic has driven waves of K-8 school closures in Portland Public Schools, and now threatens the high schools. Please keep up the great journalism!
As a life-long resident of this city – there was nothing about this story that was new to me. The disparity of investment between the east and west sides of town has always been an aggravation to me and should be an embarrassment to all of us. A big “Thank you” to SM for writing (what I hope will be) the first of many articles on this issue.
My family moved to Portland in 2007-2008 (in two parts) and in order to be close to the workplace, we chose an apartment complex at 152nd and Stark. Nothing we read about the community before moving discouraged us, or indicated that the area was different from the rest of Portland. That was of course before pulling the moving truck off of 84 at 181st. We were honestly shocked. What we had read, seen and heard about Portland–and abundance of parks, trees, sense of community, etc.–was absolutely not prevalent in East Portland/County.
Some of our first reactions were specifically the severe lack of sidewalks and paved residential streets. What someone noted above–possibly tongue-in-cheek–about bike ramps and ad-hoc skating rinks being created from potholed dirt roads is actually a sign of blight in most communities. But the lack of sidewalks on streets like SE Stark, Glisan and Halsey is almost negligent on behalf of our city planners! There are “cow paths” along each of these major thoroughfares where pedestrians have to struggle while walking beside vehicles moving from 35 to 45 MPH! I am actually surprised the ADA hasn’t visited Portland with a civil suit for not putting down sidewalk and curb ramp plans.
Needless to say, we are now in a much better neighborhood (than Stark)…but we’re still East County residents!
Sam Adams blames the County for lack of basic infrastructure in East Portland. The area was annexed by the City against most of the residents’ will over 25 years ago. Seems it has had plenty of time to start making those investments.
I grew up on the east side, east of 82nd. I now live in Southwest, near Raleigh Hills. I think it is important not to pit the sides of town against each other. Frankly, there are no sidewalks on the roads on the west side outside of downtown and when I was leading the local soccer club, we had kids that had to travel to the east side to get time on a soccer field due to the shortage of parks. It’s not an east side v. west side issue. The west side lacks sidewalks and parks to the same or greater degree than the east side. It’s really about affordable housing. As we re-invent the neighborhoods close to the city core, the amount of affordable housing decreases and households with lesser means are forced to move to unimproved neighbohoods. It’s less about infrastructure (sidewalks and parks) and more about housing. Improve the distribution of truly affordable housing throughout the city, that is the only way to stop the concentration of poverty.
I live near Sandy & 82nd and there isn’t a park to walk to, although the library is nearby. If there was a New Seasons somewhere near Sandy & I-205 that would be awesome, wouldn’t it? If there were actual sidewalks all along 82nd Ave, that would be awesome, too. My property taxes are too high to not have some sidewalks ’round here.
That news is interesting to note that how civilized and moderate countries make eastern ports to decline and put them into crisis. Unfortunately this is not a good sign for world economy because Eastern Ports are very productive for westerns economy.
http://www.bayut.com