PBOT: Suck it Up, Unhappy PDX Drivers Citywide

Bolt Bus reduces Everett to 1 lane during rush hour
Bolt Bus reduces NW Everett to one lane during rush hour

The folks who live and work around the North Park Blocks keep getting the cold shoulder from Portland’s Commissioner of Public Safety Steve Novick and his Bureau of Transportation.

For months we’ve documented how Bolt Bus turned a quiet historic park into a bus depot. We were startled when PBOT suggested we suck it up since drivers all over Portland are frustrated.

Cevero Gonzalez, constituent services coordinator for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, wrote us that “PBOT has not documented any increased safety impacts as a result of the Bolt Bus location,” … “Double parking and impatient motorists are problematic in all neighborhoods citywide.”

We invite Commissioner Novick and Mr Gonzalez to spend some time with us and watch the logjam and traffic violations created by Bolt Bus’ 40+ daily stops at NW Everett and Broadway.

Each Bolt Bus drops off up to 50 passengers (with baggage) who get picked up by double-parked drivers. Add to that another 50 passengers waiting on the sidewalk to board the next bus.  Without access to restrooms or cover from inclement weather they  seek shelter or a restroom by approaching businesses in the neighborhood.  Many huddle beneath overhangs in near-by buildings. At times more than 100 people (with baggage) block the sidewalk, making it nearly impossible for pedestrians to get through.

Simple solution – get Bolt Bus out of our historic park and let them use nearby Greyhound bus station (at NW 6th and Hoyt)

Read all about it in the Northwest Examiner.
Click headline below BoltBus Creates Logjam (August 2016)
2.5mb pdf

NW examiner Aug 2016

Why Can’t Wealthy Cities Fix the Homeless Problem?

sfhomelessproject

Reposted from Alternet: Why Can’t Wealthy Cities Fix the Homeless Problem? July 7, 2016

What follows are six unexpected takeaways from the SF Homeless Project’s coverage, starting with the surprising revelation that there were more people living on the city’s streets in the 1990s. These may be some valuable lessons for Portland.

1. May Have Been Bigger Two Decades Back. It’s common to hear San Franciscans say homelessness is worse than ever, and add it to the list of how their city has gone downhill—from the invasion of a wealthy high-tech monoculture to a growing lack of affordable housing for anyone not making six figures.

One surprising takeaway from the project’s reporting is that the number of homeless people on the streets actually may have been larger in the 1990s, according to a historial review by the CBS-TV affiliate. Then, “estimates of the street population topped 8,000, higher than today,” when a 2015 city-run census found nearly 6,700 people. That was before San Francisco, which now spends $241 million a year for homeless programs, and another $150 million a year on emergency services for the homeless, put those programs in place. However, nobody can precisely say how many people are living on the city’s streets. Estimates range from 6,686 from that one-night census in 2015 to larger estimates from the city’s health department. Those on the street include a sizable number of LGBT youths as well as growing numbers of older people. Nearly half are African American. Sixty percent have alcohol or drug abuse histories, the Chronicle reported, and half struggle with depression or serious mental health issues.

2. The City’s Budget Keeps More People Off The Street Than On It. The most obvious solution to homelessness is to provide housing, temporary or longterm. That’s what other locales, like Salt Lake City, have done. But San Francisco’s lack of low-income housing options goes back decades, when the federal government and states began cutting back public housing subsidies in the 1970s, mental health programs in the ’80s and welfare programs in the ’90s. In recent years, a series of San Francisco mayors went the opposite way and began spending millions for shelters and subsidized housing. That’s where most of the city’s homeless funds are now spent—keeping as many or more people off the street than are now living on it.

“Where does the $241 million go?” CBS-TV reported. “Fifty million each for shelters and health services, leaving $141 million. That is not spent on people on the street, but to keep people in permanent housing—9,000 people who are not counted as homeless, 3,181 in temporary shelter and 3,505 on street.” In other words, most of the money City Hall spends keeps greater numbers of homeless off the streets, even though what people see and complain about are those on the street. The public just isn’t aware that the city is already housing thousands of people who would otherwise be homeless.

3. Lack of Government Coordination Keeps People On the Street, But Non-Profits Aren’t Much Better. But even as the city is taking care of many more homeless people than is widely known, the government and non-profit safety net isn’t exactly user friendly, the media outlets found. One big takeaway was there are too many narrowly focused agencies following their own protocols. That not only fails to treat homeless people holistically, it creates red-tape deterrents for those willing to seek help. For example, street people interviewed by reporters about going to shelters frequently replied, “Come on, have you ever been there?” They don’t want to be fingerprinted and treated as petty criminals, they said.

The city manages its homeless programs through eight different departments, leaving people to ricochet among service providers at shelters, hospitals, police stations, etc. But there also are some 75 non-profits and private organizations with 400 city contracts for homeless services, the media reported, and they weren’t much better coordinated. The Chronicle’s front-page editorial starting its coverage called this mix of public and non-profit agencies a local “homeless industrial complex” that was largely accountable. The non-profit piece of this was a surprise, as these outfits histiocally have been very critical of the city’s homeless services.

The mayor’s office recently created a new single homelessness department and its director, Jeff Kositisky, acknowledged this murky bureaucratic reality. “If you’re homeless, you may need to be assessed three, four different times, answering the same questions each time; it’s unfair, inefficient and not respectful of people we’re trying to serve,” he said, pledging to change that status quo. “Clients have to get into many different lines to access services, and we’re going to ask them to get into one line.”

4. Small Minority of Homeless Cost the Most. Stepping back, the Chronicle found that other big cities—Boston, Atlanta, New York City and Washington, D.C.—“have more homeless people per-capita than San Francisco,” according to federal estimates. But San Francisco has the highest proportion of unsheltered homeless, 511 people on the streets for every 100,000 residents, they found, adding that a sizable number have very serious medical and health problems.

The Chronicle reported that the homeless cost the city about $150 million last year for emergency services, such as ambulance rides, emergency room visits, sober living centers, etc. But about one-fifth, or 1,320 people, cost $106 million in emergency medical and mental health services, each averaging $80,000.

5. Private Sector Has No Record of Providing Housing Solutions. Every social service provider agreed that the first step in stabilizing the lives of homeless people was getting a roof over their heads so they can begin to deal with other problems. This goes beyond a new trend in the city, where groups have been giving the homeless tents to live in, making them more visible and leading to sprawling encampments. But tents are no substitute for brick-and-mortar shelter, which has been in short supply for years.

As Tim Redmond, the former San Francisco Bay Guardian editor wrote for the website 48hills.org, it wasn’t simply the retreat by government subsidies that created homelessness. Progressives in government—even in this liberal city—took the same line as their conservative opponents, saying that the private sector had to build the needed housing stock. Of course, that didn’t happen then and is barely happening now—even for the city’s working- and lower-middle-class residents.

“Why didn’t we build more housing in the 1980s?” Redmond wrote. “I was here, and I can tell you that we tried: The left, the progressives, begged and cajoled and organized to demand that office developers build housing for the new workers they were bringing to town. But no: Investment capital ruled city planning then, as it does now, and the quick money was in offices, so the private sector would build no housing.”

Fast-forward to today and despite a building boom—primarily targeting techies—the private sector still is not filling the void, nor can it be expected to. Redmond’s point is that government has to create housing for the homeless, but that’s still not recognized by political and business leaders. “The developers, the speculators, and the real-estate industry, who see housing not as a social good but as a commodity to be sold for the highest possible profit, are allowed to determine what gets built, for whom, and where.”

6. Many Homeless People Are Victims of Larger Forces and Not Criminals. This conclusion came through listening to people tell their stories, which often included bad luck, economic hardship, and for women, domestic abuse—not just a result of untreated mental illness or drug abuse. As Damon Francis, interim medical director of Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless, told SFPublicPress.org, “We should be asking, ‘what happened to you?’ not ‘what’s wrong with you?’”

But that’s not the dominant media narrative, Redmond wrote, even in San Francisco. “People who are homeless must have done something wrong with their lives. Even the rare sympathetic news media coverage focuses on drugs, mental illness, crime, job losses … There is never the suggestion that people who live on the streets are victims of a system that the political leadership either helped create or tolerates.”

Reframing the Discussion

The SF Homeless Project’s coverage highlighted many nuances of the problems surrounding homelessness, poverty, mental health, social safety nets and service. It was not without critics, especially from those who have spent decades trying to help the homeless—who said it made an everyday occurrence appear as a crisis. That said, some of the more thoughtful pieces that stepped back and looked at the project were cautiously optimistic it would reframe the way the city’s political leaders faced the problem.

As Caleb Pershan concluded in a media history and criticism piece for SFIst.com, “The best thing that could come of this project… is to move the conversation beyond ‘the worst it’s ever been’ or the brand new ‘new normal, and recognize that just because our city is very pretty and rich, as cities go, this isn’t a unique problem that’s grown out of anyone’s control. And of course it’s solvable — which is true of many of society’s deepest and most complex failures… so that someday, people in poverty or those with mental illnesses won’t be treated like problems, they’ll just be treated.”

Ted Wheeler: Reclaim PDX Public Spaces

Portland firefighters called to homeless camps 79 times in two months
Portland firefighters called to homeless camps 79 times in two months

First off, our congrats to Ted Wheeler for sweeping the primary. Now it’s time to get down to work making Portland a better city for all. In case you don’t read Reddit, we wanted to repost this piece from r/Portland 18 May 2016

Open letter to Ted Wheeler 

Dear Ted,

I’m a resident of Portland, a homeowner, and one of the many people who voted for you yesterday. I chose to cast my ballot for you because of your experience and technical credentials as our state’s treasurer, but also because of your work with Portland Mountain Rescue.

Like you, I love the mountains and the outdoors: biking, hiking, climbing, skiing. It’s why I’ve chosen to make my home here.

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly watched our urban green spaces be taken over by a population of people who reject the social contract and feed off our city like parasites. Open air drug use, public defecation, rampant property crime, intimidation of law abiding folk… the list goes on. The taxpayers and responsible citizens of this city are being held hostage in their own neighborhoods. I commute to work every day past growing camps of transients who have no respect for the rule of law, and no care for the city which they are polluting. Help us. Direct the police to help us. Just… do… something.

Our city cannot tolerate another four years of passive non-leadership on this issue. Our city cannot tolerate kicking the can or shifting blame. Fight for the taxpayers on this one. Help us reclaim our parks, multi use paths, and sidewalks. Create the conditions for us to enjoy our wonderful city without fear of being harassed, victimized, or worse. Be the hero Portland needs.

Sincerely,

alpinemarmot


For more on the subject see 6 reasons why Portland’s homeless crisis is at a breaking point


Image From Portland firefighters called to homeless camps 79 times in two months ( KGW)

Portland Sidewalk Camping on Yelp

portland-sidewalk-camping2

Update: Since we first posted this on April 26th, the Yelp listing has been pulled. But we can share this archived PDF Version 600kb

While the mayor’s controversial street camping policy has triggered a lawsuit, it’s also inspired someone to create a new Yelp Business listing:  Portland Sidewalk Camping. Not surprisingly, it uses City Hall’s contact info.

Last summer we posted some unsavory photos to make the point about how bad behavior was transforming our park into  #Camplandia.

Ridicule is a better way to go. Who knows, maybe the NY Times will notice?

Gentrification and Black Displacement in Hipster Heartland

oregon

Hopefully the North Park Blocks is getting it right with  preservation of historic buildings through adaptive reuse as schools, retail, creative spaces and a few modestly priced condos. We celebrate the diversity of the people who live, work and enjoy the park and our neighbors – Emerson School, PNCA, WeWork, retail, restaurants, bars, art galleries and sizable amount of housing and services for people in transition. Unfortunately that model is not playing out in the rest of Portland.

Here’s is repost of:  Gentrification Spotlight:
How Portland is Pushing Out Its Black Residents

from Colorlines April 18, 2016 by Abigail Savitch-Lew
Read Part II of series

Between its alarming legacy of racism and its skyrocketing rents, Portland, Oregon, has become one of the country’s worst examples of Black displacement and gentrification. What will it take for this hipster heartland to live up to its warm and fuzzy reputation?

… Portland is not widely known as an expensive city. Rather, it is seen as a haven for creatives and nonconformists, the place that the popular comedy “Portlandia” famously deemed “the city where young people go to retire.” The New York Times encourages tourists to “ignore the hype, and indulge in the city’s simple pleasures—from $4 films to a puppet museum” or enjoy “shockingly affordable”delicious eats. Yet Portland is quickly becoming accessible only to the wealthiest iconoclasts. Since 2010, rents have increased an average of 20 percent, the sixth-fastest rise in the nation after cities like New York and San Jose. In 2015, Portland ranked first in the country for the percentage of land tracts identified as gentrifying by Governing Magazine. …

Read the full article at Colorlines