The Overlook Neighborhood Association (OKNA) met in Kenton last night. Its purpose? It wanted to vent about Hazelnut Grove.
And, man, did it ever. For more than an hour, residents complained about the homeless camp that sprang up this summer near N Greeley and Killingsworth. They came away with a surprising conclusion: That the city should create a public list of anyone living at the camp, so that neighbors can do their own background checks of the homeless people nearby. That and other suggestions will be set down in a letter OKNA plans to sent to the mayor’s office in coming days.
As we’ve reported, Hazelnut Grove is on the verge of getting a formal permit from the City of Portland, a move that Mayor Charlie Hales’ office says will make it easier to clear out some of the problematic activity that’s sprung up nearby (there are technically two camps on the land now: Hazelnut Grove and a group that calls itself Forgotten Realms).
There was, as I say, a good deal of woe in the room last night, with the majority of people plainly indignant that Hales would allow a camp in Overlook.
It was ugly at times. Nearly everyone who spoke pledged compassion for the homeless, and said they’d do anything to help the problem—except allow the camp to stay. Many professed a worry for the safety of campers at the spot, since it’s near busy Greeley (but also adjacent to a sidewalk and bike route). Mainly, though, there was anger about trash, concerns about “panhandlers” filtering up into the neighborhood, and an overwhelming belief that such camps are Hales’ big “solution” to homelessness (which is wrong). One guy painted a Mad Max-ian future that involved an Overlook strewn with warring homeless camps. “That’s what we’re going to have to live with, or we move.”
Some other telling quotes:
“I’m all for doing everything we possibly can to help homelessness. This is not a viable option.”
“Someone’s gonna stagger out into the road. It’s gonna ruin the life of a worker who’s going to [Swan Island] to work.”
“We’re at the kids table. We’re getting scraps. [City Hall is] ignoring you guys and it really pisses me off. I’m a compassionate guy, but this sucks.”
“The mayor has rolled over.”
Several people had listened to a segment on OPB’s Think Out Loud this week, and come away with the belief everyone at Hazelnut Grove is homeless as a lifestyle choice. The program interviewed three people in camp who said that was the case, and two who said they had nowhere else to go.
It wasn’t all negative. Four people spoke passionately about the fact that the city doesn’t have enough resources to accommodate homeless people, so there’s no “better” place to campers to be.
“It’s not more safe for them to try to find a dry place every night,” one woman said. “Being homeless is unsafe.”
Another neighbor, former Oregon Law Center litigation director Spencer Neal, said the discussion was “offensive.” “These people are struggling to survive, and people are talking about it being unsightly,” he said.
But the thrust of the conversation wouldn’t be turned, and the OKNA came away with the idea of a public roster (the occupancy of Hazelnut Grove, once permitted, could be anywhere from 25 to 40 people, the mayor’s office has said). Don’t count on the mayor’s office agreeing.
The roster idea was actually a step back from another popular option, which was the city running compulsory background checks as a condition of people being allowed to live in the camp.
Another thing the OKNA will seek? A lawyer’s opinion. The association says the mayor’s office has refused to listen to its pleas re: Hazelnut Grove and that a lawsuit may be its only option. Members were pretty clear, though, that they don’t know where the money would come from.
“The mayor has rolled over.”
Yes, Hales is in the pocket of Big Homeless.
So apparently no member of the Overlook Neighborhood Association had either the brains or the guts to say “vigilante background checks of homeless people is insane and you people should be ashamed of yourselves”?
Somewhat said that almost verbatim. Just wasn’t enough to stop the inertia.
I do encourage all of you to listen to the Think Out Loud show. It is very interesting to learn who some of these people are and just what they feel entitled to. The young man from New York cooking up salmon and steak for the camp telling Portlanders who don’t like it “tough luck.” There is the man from Oklahoma who moved here two months ago because we legalized pot. (Just think about how much the Portland community “owes” him.) There are the multiple people who basically say it is a lifestyle choice. There is the organizer who wants to create 100 more such camps in the next year and clearly feels like he has the opening to do it.
But maybe the big hearts of people like Dirk will open up and all of their magical CARING will solve the whole issue. Because they are good progressives and they do care so very very much. And you know what will definitely solve homelessness? Saying the right things and professing how much we care. Can you feel it working? And the rest of you? Well, you’re just bad people.
We have in Portland, anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 people with no place to be warm and safe. We lose 50-60 human beings per year to the cold and rains, and you want to do what? This is not the entire answer to the question of how to house human being but part of the emergency call from the mayor and you want to kill it. I am ashamed of you! Please come up with solutions and stop the BS so you can sleep at night. You are not a compassionate person if you say move them someplace else.
Blabby, you only heard a brief statement that was edited in a way that made Wesley, the man you are speaking about moving here because we legalized marijuana. The edit that was made, made him sound like someone he isn’t. I’ve gotten to know him and he is a kind and generous soul.
He didn’t move here for marijuana and he hasn’t asked for anything from the city. Everything he has done, was done with what he had left in his savings. He isn’t a young man anymore and the job he moved here for, fell through. He no longer does drugs and he is about doing for others. He has very little to give, but he has, he does for others.
Here is a longer interview I did with Wesley, that I hope you will watch. It will give you a better understanding of who he is.
https://vimeo.com/146323583
We are all humans, may we all be here for one another
I wouldn’t want to live next to these folks.
There, I said it.
I support the people who live there already, toil, work and pay their taxes.
As another article in the Merc points out, compassion and throwing money at the problem ain’t working.
LoneVet, my suggestion, for the vast majority of them is to get off their asses and WORK.
Blabby is right: that Think Out Loud segment was a shot to the balls. Aside from the couple who got kicked out of their apartment thanks to their mom doing drugs, not a single person they talked to at that shanty town was the down on their luck, mentally ill poor soul forced into homelessness that everyone in the local media and city hall would lead you to believe every homeless person is. First guys was CHOOSING to be homeless, second moved to Portland from NY because he knew he could be homeless here, third was the pastor, fourth was the couple and the fifth was a professional homeless fellow from Oklahoma. So that’s 2 out of 5 people at that camp who are locals who just couldn’t make it, the other 3 came here BECAUSE of Portland’s rep as a relatively easy place to be homeless.
People! FCOL, can you not understand calling it a choice because the shame of admitting helplessness in the face of our punitive, judgemental, expensive culture? A full time, minimum wage job no longer buys even a room in a shared house in this town. All this victim-blaming is based on the idea that if the victim was behaving correctly, they would not end up on the streets. WRONG!! Poverty is brutal anywhere, but it is getting more brutal every day in this town. It’s a real estate gold rush. People with the least economic power are priced out to the streets. It is that simple.
I would like all these advocates of city-approved homeless camps to volunteer their own neighborhoods. Hell, why don’t you welcome these camps into your backyards? They could use your shower, toilet and make themselves meals on your stove. Seriously, if you’re an advocate for such things, why not welcome them, nay, ACTIVELY seek out these camps to be established in your very own backyard? It’s easy to say everyone is “heartless” or “cruel” when you don’t have to deal with the negatives. And yes, I was as shocked as anyone to listen to the Think Out Loud segment of A LOT of these people CHOOSING to be homeless. Edited or not, the words “I’m choosing to live this way” came out of more than one person’s mouth…
A vivid demonstration of how when people complain about new housing, what they’re really reacting to are the new residents.
I work in Inner SE near a bunch of the homeless travellers.
They are litterbugs, they harass people and they look physically capable of work.
As long as we coddle the lifestyle homeless by giving them $ to support their habits, by letting them shoplift brazenly, by over feeding them, the homeless problem will remain unfixable.
My solution:
Concentrate services on the non-lifetstyle homeless
Prosecute shoplifting
Arrest travellers in the train yards as they arrive in the spring
Clean up squats
The travellers are mean to the other homeless- so let’s not mis-place our compassion.
Wow –every ignorant canard that comfortable people use to villify the poor, all in one convenient comment thread. Did all you people get bored at Oregonlive?
@Euphonius – I haven’t seen Chuck yet…maybe he’s finally run everyone off
Many of us are helping our homeless community directly, offering our showers, our homes, our neighborhoods, our kitchens and our time. Many of us are working toward a solution that involves creating mini communities in which people can work together to form a safe and sustainable community, in which people can meet their basic survival needs. Many of us are working toward solutions that give people hope.
The hateful comments I am reading, are no different then the hateful comments that existed toward our poor communities during the great depression. Sadly, there will always be hateful people in our society, but thankfully, there will always be compassionate, empathetic, community minded people in our society.
I can not imagine a world filled with such hatred toward other human beings, such disregard for human life and suffering, and such selfish ambition. Power to those who show kindness in a world filled with hate, and power to those in our society, who get to know the individuals, couples, and families who are our neighbors: housed and unhoused.
I wouldn’t want to live next to frankieb.
These camps are not habitable. They are as hazardous to pedestrians as are bicycles on the sidewalk and dogshit in the park. Let’s have some equal enforcement of laws for a change. Then we can talk about solutions. Such as, perhaps, opening up City parking structures for dry overnight camping, day lockers for stowed gear, and more public restrooms with showers and sinks for doing hand laundry. This doesn’t have to cost much at all. Soap and paper towels, hot water, janitorial and security on site all day and all night. That’s about it.
Beyond that, more good camping sites for recreational campers is always a nice feature. Students of Social Work ought to take meals at the soup kitchens in order to rub elbows with the great unwashed, in order to enable them deal with the bureaucracy of applying for social services already offered.
Neighborhood associations, homeowner associations, condominium associations (etc) are almost always full of disgusting, wretched people.