Plans to relocate Portland's tent city provokes mixed response

Residents of one of Portland’s toniest areas are fighting plans to move a tent city to their neighborhood, but say social concern rather than financial motive is behind their objection.

Mayor Charlie Hales and city commissioners plan to decide Oct. 16 whether to relocate the camp to the Pearl District from its current home near Portland’s Chinatown. If approved, a coalition of property owners promises to sue to block the relocation of the 100-person camp.

But while those with a financial stake in the neighborhood have privately voiced concerns about diminishing property values and a potential spike in crime, Pearl District residents are choosing their words more carefully during the well-attended town hall hearings on the topic.

In a public debate that has engulfed Portland – a hotbed for social activism – criticisms of the city's expedited process and concerns about the welfare of those willing to live in a parking lot under a bridge are eclipsing more self-interested grievances.

Tiffany Sweitzer, the president of Hoyt Street Properties, a realty and development firm has helped transform the Pearl District from a dying industrial area into a thriving residential neighborhood, said "throwing a bunch of people under a bridge" should not be the city's solution to helping the estimated 2,000 residents who sleep outside each night.

"It's embarrassing, because that is not how you would treat anybody," she said.

The camp, known as Right 2 Dream Too, was established in October 2011 amidst the Occupy Portland movement in the lot of a former adult bookstore that had been empty for three years until the aggrieved owner allowed the homeless to lease the property – for $1 a year.

Every night since then, about 100 people have slept on prime downtown real estate – in tents shielded from passers-by with a barrier of colorful, old doors fashioned into an artsy makeshift wall.

Over that period of time, however, landowner Michael Wright racked up more than $20,000 in fines for operating a campsite without a permit. When he responded with a lawsuit, city Commissioner Amanda Fritz brokered a deal in which the fines would be waived, the lawsuit dropped and the homeless campers sent to the Pearl District. It all happened in a matter of weeks, angering homeowners and developers who say the city was so desperate to settle Wright's lawsuit that it bypassed zoning laws.

Fritz, a former psychiatric nurse, acknowledged that the camp is not the ideal answer to homelessness. But she said there is not enough money to provide housing to all, and Right 2 Dream Too has provided a much safer alternative than the street.

"It's been an option that's been better than nothing," she said.

Scores of people spoke for and against the proposal at a five-hour hearing on Thursday. Though a handful said their safety would be jeopardized, most Pearl District residents completely ignored quality-of-life and financial issues and repeatedly griped about the city conducting the deal in secret and delegitimized the zoning code.

Not everyone in the Pearl District is rich, they added, and the fight has been unfairly cast as the greedy against the homeless, or "us against them."

"It's a sad, confrontational, divisive atmosphere because communication was intentionally closed," said Julie Young, a retired social worker who lives in the Pearl.

Besides condominiums and the low-income apartments for older residents, there are businesses nearby, including a Marriott that is scheduled to open next year. Those who have spoken to the potential financial impact of Right 2 Dream Too suggest hotel guests won't want to stay near the camp and that it would impact on property prices.

Homeless camp residents, meanwhile, ask their prospective neighbors to give them a chance. Right 2 Dream Too has a stellar safety record, and supporters say the camp – they call it a rest area – has helped people get back on their feet and into permanent housing.

"We're not there to bring property values down," said Ibrahim Mubarak, the Right 2 Dream Too leader. "We're there to get people from sleeping on your sidewalk. We're there to stop people from sleeping in the doorways. We're there to stop the drug dealing; we're there to stop the drug use by our friends."

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