This morning, Oregon representative and Republican gubernatorial candidate Knute Buehler stood at a podium in front of Wapato Jail to announce his support of a “plan” to turn the never-opened detention center into a mass homeless shelter and “treatment facility.”
“I will fast-track the Wapato facility… so that we see results quickly resolving our homelessness crisis,” Buehler said. “This facility will no longer sit idle and it will not be demolished. And today, I’m calling on Kate Brown to join me and endorse the plan to turn Wapato into a shelter for those experiencing homelessness.”
Thing is, that plan doesn’t exist.
Asked by the Mercury to detail his plan for Wapato, Buehler’s campaign staff emailed a copy of Buehler’s “homelessness plan,” which supports turning “surplus government properties” into homeless shelters. It is not a plan to turn Wapato into a homeless shelter. That may be because every past iteration of this plan has been proven far too costly for taxpayers to support—and leaves little funding left over for the local homeless programs that have demonstrated success.
“This facility is a concrete example of something that could be done to get people off the street and into a safe place where we can get them the care they need,” said Buehler. “Instead, it has sat idle and now may be demolished due to lack of leadership.”
It’s clear Buehler hasn’t done his homework. Perhaps it’s time we remind him—and everyone who still thinks Wapato is the solution to Portland’s housing crising—why this idea hasn’t ever taken off.
Wapato Jail was built for $58 million in 2004, but budget cuts kept Multnomah County from ever being able to make use of it. In recent years, local lawmakers have brainstormed ways to turn the facility into something more useful for the county—while continuing to pay around $300,000 a year to maintain the building. In 2016, after Portland announced a homeless state of emergency, the county commissioned a study on the feasibility of turning the jail into a homeless shelter.
“Knute Buehler is turning people’s suffering into political gain. There is no plan to endorse that.”
The plan would cost the county more than $1.5 million, not including the costs of staffing or operating the facility. Multnomah County Commissioners decided it was wiser to spend that money on programs that created longterm housing and more accessible shelters. (Wapato Jail sits 11 miles from downtown Portland and 22 miles from Gresham.) County homeless advocates, longtime transitional housing program managers, and those who’ve experienced homelessness supported this decision, saying that shuttling people out to an abandoned jail, miles from needed resources, was a massive waste of time and money—not to mention inhumane.
In April, the commission voted to sell Wapato for a measly $5 million to developer Marty Kehoe.
“Building Wapato was a mistake but holding onto it any longer would also be a mistake,” said Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson at the time.
Kehoe then sold the propoerty to Jordan Schnitzer, one of Portland’s wealthiest developers, who said he wanted to turn the facility into a homeless shelter with private dollars. But the price proved to be too burdensome even for Schnitzer. In a Septemeber interview with Willamette Week, Schnitzer said the $50,000 monthly cost to maintain the building simply isn’t worth it—and he’ll likely demolish the place if the city doesn’t rent the building from him as a shelter. According to the Portland Business Journal, that’s when Buehler called Schnitzer and requested he wait until the November 6 election before deciding whether to bulldoze the property.
Which brings us to today’s press conference, a moment for Buehler to explain his unusual support with a detailed plan. Instead, he told reporters that he toured Wapato earlier in the morning and thinks it’s a good idea. He offered no data, research, or expertise to back up this conclusion.
Asked if Gov. Brown will endorse Buehler’s plan, Brown’s campaign spokesperson, Christian Gaston, chuckled.
“He’s asking the governor to support a plan that doesn’t exist,” Gaston says. “Knute Buehler is turning people’s suffering into political gain. There is no plan to endorse that.”
Knute’s campaign is based around his desire to emulate his hero, the lazy orange blob currently occupying our Oval Office. That orange blob managed to activate the angry and the stupid, and Knute wants to do the same thing here.
Run spellcheck and republish! Multiple big obvious typos in here.
Holy shit … you really love getting your sound bites from your favorite celebrity homeless advocate. Some advice, hang out with Katie Shepherd from the wweek now and again and maybe some basic journalism skills might rub off of onto you.
“That may be because every past iteration of this plan has been proven far too costly for taxpayers to support”
This is patently untrue, Alex. This was never on offer to taxpayers. Plenty of people would pay extra to make this happen, rather than squandering money on costly conversions of old strip clubs to shelters (the Black Cauldron project, for those who don’t know) that end up not opening for safety and structural reasons.
Just because Knute pubestache Beuhler doesn’t have a ready-made plan doesn’t mean it’s not feasible. It just doesn’t have the support of existing providers because a) they don’t want to commute, and b) it would risk diverting some of their gravy train of funding to something that might actually be effective. Look at the state of homelessness in Portland. If this is the best these “experts” can do, it’s time to find some new experts…
David Bikman – typos would be completely forgivable if the writing/reporting itself weren’t such utter shit.
Why won’t this idiotic zombie idea die? Wapato will never be a homeless shelter! It would cost millions just to get it up and running. Maintenance costs would be astronomical. There’s not even regular bus service out there. This idea has been thoroughly studied and rejected. Time to move on!
Remember: The failed “Village of Hope” (near Airport Way and 182nd) was highly endorsed by the homeless advocates extremists and The Portland Mercury. It was approximately 9 miles (as the crow flies) from downtown and “essential services,” was outside, had no electricity, plumbing, beds, WALLS or anything like that.
Wapato is approximately 7 miles from downtown (as the crow flies) from downtown and is an actual facility with WALLS, electricity, plumbing, beds, a kitchen, hospital…etc.
Makes you wonder why the homeless advocates extremists and The Mercury were in favor of an illegal outdoor camp waaaaay out near Rockwood, yet oppose the use of Wapato? Hmm…
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While I heartily concur with ZOOkeeper, Douglas_Banter is asking a question that deserves an answer. Why DO Portland’s homeless advocates seem to prefer the shantytown approach to shelter for people who live on our streets? Dignity Village seems to make this style of community work for its residents, but how many of Portland’s most needy people would actually thrive in similar circumstances?
Z00keeper, what facility that would house even close to the same number of people NOT cost millions just to get up and running and maintain? And no such facilities currently exist outside of Wapato, so we’re talking tens of millions in land and construction costs right there, in addition to the operation and maintenance costs. This is not an objection! There isn’t another alternative that you can point to that would be less costly to get up and running!
No “advocates” ever have any answers, all they have are platitudes and stating over and over again why Wapato “wouldn’t” work despite the fact that the only real barriers are logistical, and easily overcome relative to even costlier alternatives. Why not give it a shot? Set a budget, give it a 5, 7, or 10 year timeline, and see how it works out. If it doesn’t work, then scrap it and sell it off for office/industrial purposes. If it does work, then we have a good model for future expenditures on this issue.