Do you want to know a secret?
At Portland City Hall, hiding stuff is the norm. They'll show you the minimum of what they are required to, and only after they jerk you around a bit.
So the neighbors of the new "managed" homeless camp in North Portland are finding out. The "village," which is its official name, has been going for a couple of months now, and the neighborhood has suffered. As the tighty righties at KATU tell it:
Neighbors say they've connected the people who smoke meth and fentanyl on the curb outside their homes to the village, watching them walk back and forth down North Syracuse multiple times a day. They claim their concerns have fallen on deaf ears from day one.
When the nearby residents asked to see the rules by which the campers are supposed to be abiding, City Hall told them to get lost.
Neighbors tell us they're not trying to shut down the Safe Rest Village. They believe it serves an important purpose. But they do want to see the Code of Conduct, the rules for people who live there. Urban Alchemy, the non-profit that runs the site, won't give it to them, nor will [city commissioner] Dan Ryan's office.
We followed up with Ryan's spokesman and asked about the "code of conduct," he sent us a response, saying in part:
"We don't believe that sharing the village rules is the way to address concerns. As with each family's home, what is important is that community rules exist to ensure that all have a shared agreement on expectations of behavior for everyone's personal, physical, and emotional safety. People in the village want the same safety and response to concerns that the neighbors outside the fence want."
Classic. Time to lawyer up, neighbors. It's the only way to deal with the City That Works You Over.
If Commissioner Ryan’s office has a copy, then the rules are a public record, and subject to disclosure.
ReplyDeleteThe actual village rule enforcement might be significantly different than how the next door neighbors are governed.
ReplyDelete“Safe” in name only. Doesn’t sound very safe for the poor souls that have to live around that mess. The whole town is turning into the place where logic goes to die.
ReplyDeleteI’d be interesting to observe the ramifications of loading a small bus with “homeless” people and drop them off near his home.
ReplyDeleteWe could put out a spread on the Public right away. Have a sleep-over, play records do each others hair.
DeleteI want to see the City Hall's code of conduct. All I see are little children pouting whenever anyone challenges them, "Respect My Authoritah!", just like Cartman in South Park. I'm damn sure it is too late to grow a pair.
ReplyDeleteThe Scooby Squad in Ryan's office remains on-brand. Bumble and obfuscate.
ReplyDeleteA quick google will give you the code of conduct document for dorms at any public Oregon university. People living near the dorms have transparency into the policies in place. Similarly, the "Safe" Rest Villages are publicly-funded temporary housing. Why on earth shouldn't the neighbors know what the rules are there?
I'm guessing that doing drugs is not banned
DeleteIt’s not. The Scooby Squad was very clear about that when they finally got around to doing “outreach” in our neighborhood.
DeleteIt seems it is insensitive to our houseless neighbors and their personal journeys to put up artificial barriers like “sobriety” or “no fentanyl” or “no outstanding felony warrants”.
There probably isn't a code of conduct for the place. That would be more in line with the way Portland typically deals with homeless drug addicts.
ReplyDelete