Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite

JOE PIERCE, a 58-year-old resident at the Biltmore Hotel,
says he shaves his head to keep bedbugs from nesting in his hair and
burrowing under his skin.

The Biltmore, at NW 6th and Everett in Old Town, is run by Central
City Concern (CCC), a large and respected nonprofit that offers housing
and social services to those in the city unable to support themselves.
But some tenants at the Biltmore, one of 20 properties CCC owns, have
lately taken to calling the nonprofit “Central City Unconcern.”

Biltmore tenants are organizing a union in association with the
Tenant Rights Project—an initiative of Portland State
University’s Progressive Student Union—in reaction to alleged
chronic issues with pest infestations, drug dealing and prostitution
inside the building, and CCC’s alleged callous response.

At two recent meetings in the lobby of the Biltmore, four tenants
told the Mercury that the building has a serious problem with
cockroaches and bedbugs. They say that CCC has been slow to respond and
its efforts to spray for insects have been utterly inept, even claiming
that one exterminator was shooting up on the job and lost the
building’s master key.

 “You’d rather live underneath the bridge,” says Dennis Priebe,
a 58-year-old resident who’s lived at the Biltmore for the better part
of a year. He says he’s thrown out many of his possessions because they
were crawling with insects.

Anthony Anderson, a 45-year-old tenant, says he has taken to
sleeping with the lights on so cockroaches won’t crawl over him in the
dark.

“You start scratching or jumping around even when you’re not sure
it’s there,” he says, as cockroaches scuttle around his shoes.

There is currently a complaint filed with the city’s Bureau of
Development Services about the bugs, but they’re not the only concern.
Tenants also allege that drug dealers and prostitutes regularly operate
in the Biltmore, and violence sometimes erupts in the building as a
result.

“There are predators in this building,” says Anderson.

The four tenants interviewed claim a man was thrown three stories to
the ground after a drug deal went bad about two years ago. Two tenants
told the Mercury they have been physically threatened by other
tenants for complaining about crime to management.

Ron Peterson, a 48-year-old resident, says there have been times
when he has feared for his physical safety.

Portland Police Bureau records show there were 18 incidents at the
Biltmore in 2008. The Housing Authority of Portland declined a request
for complaint records, citing a law that protects tenants’ privacy.

Leslie Foren, the director of operations for Elders in Action, says
issues raised at the Biltmore are typical with low-income housing, and
her organization receives similar complaints frequently. But according
to Priebe, getting a response is difficult.

“You almost got to walk up and kick them in the balls to get them to
do anything,” says Priebe. “We’re all interchangeable.”

“I’m taking this very seriously,” says Ed Blackburn, CCC’s executive
director. Blackburn explains that the Biltmore is an extremely
difficult property to run and houses tenants who wouldn’t be taken in
anywhere else. He adds that CCC errs on the side of keeping tenants in
the building, even when they may have hygiene problems, since booting
them may make them homeless.

“I’m not going to say that we’ve never had drug dealing in one of
our buildings,” says Blackburn. He also admits that CCC has gotten
behind in dealing with bug infestations. Blackburn says that building
staffers deal with most problems, and very few have escalated to the
point where he deals with them.

Blackburn also adds that CCC has started having quarterly meetings
with tenants to address their concerns. Blackburn stresses that most
tenants living in the Biltmore are good people and worries they’ll be
stigmatized by the actions of a few troublemakers.

CCC doesn’t allow its tenants or the public to attend its board
meetings—even though it received over $10 million in government
grants in the 2006 fiscal year, according to its most recent set of
publicly available tax documents.

Last Wednesday, March 25, the tenants took their concerns before
city council. In response, Housing Commissioner Nick Fish promised to
address code and safety issues at the Biltmore, offered bug inspections
by the Bureau of Development Services, and encouraged tenants to
continue raising their grievances.

“I appreciate the issues being brought forward,” said Fish. “We take
your concerns very seriously.”