8
Wednesday,March31,2021
HOMELESS
'Need to be very
proactive'
Continued from page 1
He has long said that having
services for the homeless so
close to a neighborhood and
businesses “is not a good
mix.”
As much as there is a need
for services, he said, there is
an equal need to locate those
services away from neighbor-
hoods and businesses that
are negatively affected.
“It’s unreasonable to
expect citizens to put up
with the bad behavior that is
occurring in their neighbor-
hood,” he said.
He added, “Some seem to
think that to be a good neigh-
bor you need to understand
the homeless plight and you
need to talk to them to be
understanding of the whole
situation.
“I personally have no
problem talking to persons
receiving services, some
homeless, some not. I have
gotten to know several who
are very good people. But not
all citizens are comfortable
talking to persons receiving
services who are not just
homeless, but mentally ill,
addicted to alcohol or con-
trolled substances that alter
normal behavior, and are
sometimes scary.
“Citizens should not be
made to feel guilty for not
wanting to approach those
who scare them,” Ashmore
said. “What I have learned
from most of these neigh-
bors I’ve talked to is they are
all compassionate people
who care very much. In fact,
they are hesitant to call law
enforcement. They don’t
want to see anybody get in
trouble, but they have seen
an uptick in bad behavior in
their neighborhoods, and I
can verify there is an uptick in
bad behavior in this particu-
lar neighborhood.”
He said the behavior he’s
seeing is becoming more out-
landish and unacceptable.
“Everybody pays taxes and
deserves to be in a safe envi-
ronment and safe neighbor-
hood, where they don’t have
to worry that somebody’s
going to be in their house
when they come home,”
Ashmore said.
He described some
neighbors of St. Vincent’s
who came home last month
to find an intruder in their
home. Since that break-in,
they are “probably on high
alert every time they go home
now,” Ashmore said. “How
sad is that? It makes me really
angry.”
The relative handful of the
homeless who have frequent
police contact “just laugh
at us, they could care less,”
Ashmore said. “They say,
‘You could come back and
write 10 tickets.’
“Jail is not the solution for
most of our homeless,” he
said, “but as is the case with
anyone who breaks the law,
if there is no accountability,
some just keep reoffending
and the neighbors in this
particular neighborhood are
paying the price.”
Sharron Allen, the neigh-
bor who came home to find
a strange man in her house,
holding a can of sardines and
a yogurt and clearly mentally
imbalanced or on drugs,
knows that being critical of
the homeless can be seen
as being unsympathetic or
unenlightened.
“We donate all kinds of
stuff to the homeless,” she
said. “We do give, we do
provide. We do accept that
there is an issue that needs to
be addressed.
“Our complaint is it’s not
addressed by society as a
whole.” There’s little funding
or policy in place to address
it, she said.
Allen wants to see the
city establish a place where
people can park their moto-
rhomes or vehicles and live
in them. The city “needs a
destination where it’s OK, so
they can hang out there rath-
er than in front of people’s
Columbia Gorge News
homes.”
It is essentially the same
ideal scenario that Dave
Lutgens, executive director of
St. Vincent’s, imagines.
Grant awarded
One recent development
that will bring some relief to
the neighborhood was the
awarding last week of a $3.1
million grant to the Mid-
Columbia Community Action
Council. Part of the funding
will keep open until June
2022 a pallet-home winter
warming shelter on city-
owned property in the port
industrial area. (See related
story on page 9.)
Services needed
Allen said the penalties
proposed by the criminal
justice system for the man
who broke into her house
were “financial or ridiculous,”
such as “taking a class on
why breaking into someone’s
house is bad. He ate some
sardines and drank a beer, is
he going to give me $5? He
needs drug rehab and mental
health assistance, which
our society is not set up to
provide at this time.”
She feels ordinances are
not in place to protect the
general public, but rather to
protect the homeless.
She feels like the city has
a "too bad; deal with it" ap-
proach to their situation. “If
you lived on this street with
these circumstances, how
would you feel about it?”
Allen calls police on the
cars that stay for days in front
of her house. It feels like
being stalked, she said. It can
take a number of calls about
the same vehicle before
something will be done.
Ashmore said it is not per-
missible to spend the night
in a vehicle on city streets.
But people do it all the time
and the city generally doesn’t
get complaints. If they do get
a complaint, but the person
isn’t “disturbing anybody and
they’re not breaking any laws,
the guys have too much to
do” to bother people sleeping
in their cars, he said.
“They’re parking there
because it’s close to the
services St. Vincent’s pro-
vides,” Ashmore said. “That’s
the attraction. That’s the
downfall of being in that
neighborhood.”
Committee
considers issue
The Dalles Mayor Rich
Mays is acutely aware of the
city’s homeless situation, and
has convened a committee
to look at it. He said what’s
happening in the neigh-
borhood by St. Vincent’s is
“super unfortunate. If I lived
in that neighborhood I’d be
concerned as well.”
He said no city in Oregon
or the Pacific Northwest has
been “able to solve the prob-
lem, quote, unquote.”
Mays feels the state “ought
to provide funding and facili-
ties. I don’t feel we’re getting
any help from the state at all.
They closed mental health
facilities years ago and
nothing’s happened in the
meantime to mitigate that.”
Asked if this issue fell
within city purview, Mays
said, “That’s the question
of the century and I guess it
depends on the community.”
He feels efforts to address it
are fragmented. He hopes
the group he’s convened can
bring some cohesion to it.
He’s included St. Vincent’s,
the faith community, law
enforcement, St. Vincent’s
neighbors, housing officials,
mental health experts, and
Mid-Columbia Community
Action Council, which has
overseen the pallet homes
since February.
Worsening situation
Long-Curtiss is a financial
adviser by trade who has
found herself in a new role:
She lives on-site at the pallet
shelter to oversee things.
She noted her comments
represented her own opinion
and she was not speaking as a
city councilor or on behalf of
Mid-Columbia Community
Action Council, which now
manages the pallet homes.
She said she has empathy
both for the homeless and for
the nearby homeowners of St.
Vincent de Paul.
She said with a meal site
like St. Vincent’s, it could
be expected to have some
people hanging out “who
maybe haven’t had a shower
for awhile. But the crime, the
harassment, the breaking
into the house, that’s not part
of it.”
She feels the neighbors
have gone “above and be-
yond, and when I hear them
talk at those meetings, de-
scribe all the horrible things
they’re putting up with, they
are very compassionate and
they want to help people. I
agree what is happening to
them is not OK.”
She said, “The police’s
hands are tied. Even for the
city, we don’t really talk about
it, we just say, we don’t know
what to do. But maybe we’ve
got to talk about something
longer to come up with a
solution. You’ve got to put
an emphasis on it, and it just
hasn’t happened.”
She knows no one agency
can address the situation,
and that they’ll all have to
work together.
Long-Curtiss sees no quick
fixes. A lot of the people she
works with are dealing with
mental illness. She thinks the
law needs to change. Years
ago, more rights were given
to those who have mental
illness, because there were
abuses in institutions, she
said.
But now it’s hard to get
anyone committed or put
into a treatment facility.
“They have lots of rights,
which is great, except when
they really aren’t capable
of making good decisions.
And the police don’t have a
choice. Nobody is taking the
responsibility for the people’s
behavior and what’s the
consequence? There’s almost
no consequence.”
They can’t be forced into
treatment. It can be offered
— that’s if there’s even an
available bed in a treatment
facility, which is rare — but
with a lot of mental illness,
paranoia is a symptom, and
they don’t trust what their
therapist is recommending,
Long-Curtiss said.
Long-Curtiss heard that
when the pallet homes went
in, the problems around St.
Vincent’s got markedly better.
She said St. Vincent’s has a
“wonderful program for car-
ing for people in the commu-
nity but the sheer amount of
mental illness and even drug
abuse is so dramatic all over,
not just The Dalles.”
Lutgens said, “It appears
that more folks are coming
to realize that the problem
is bigger than us feeding the
homeless. If we want to avoid
turning into Portland, we
need a year-round place for
folks with pallet homes, as
Hands are tied
well as an area for campers
in tents, and recreational
The Dalles City Councilor
vehicles.
Darcy Long-Curtiss is an
“It should have supervi-
energetic advocate for the
homeless. She worked to get sion, porta potties, and trash
them into motel rooms last
pickup and hold people
year during the early months accountable for their actions.
of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Darcy has proven it will
and more recently helped
work this winter,” he said of
the city to acquire the pallet
Long-Curtiss. “Now let’s do it
homes with funding made
year-round,” he said, shortly
available to address homeless before the announcement
issues during the pandemic. of the $3.1 million grant
The city made zoning
that would make that a
exceptions and declared an
reality.
emergency in order to put the
Now that the pallet
pallet homes on city land by home project is indeed
the public works department. going to be year-round,
Robert Wells-Clark lives
a little farther away from
St. Vincent’s, but still faces
the same problems as other
neighbors. He’s called police
countless times — he feels he
knows all the dispatchers —
but also often doesn’t bother.
Last summer, Wells-Clark
was driving by St. Vincent’s
and a man who was clear-
ly mentally ill or on drugs
lobbed what turned out
to be a plastic hand gre-
nade through his open car
window. Wells-Clark didn’t
bother calling police. He was
just impressed the guy made
the shot.
“I didn’t call that in, I was
just done with it.”
In the eight years he’s lived
in The Dalles, on a large lot
with creek frontage and a
little orchard, Wells-Clark has
seen the homeless problem
get increasingly worse, espe-
cially in the last two to three
years.
In an interview last fall, be-
fore the pallet home project
was established, Wells-Clark
said, “It’s just progressively
gotten worse as enforcement
has gotten less. I feel it’s sort
of pointless anymore. There’s
almost always someone
coming on our property on
the creek. I would love to be
able to go down there and
have my daughter go down to
the creek.”
He said when the pallet
homes went in, it improved
the situation “immensely.”
Once, a friend and her
4-year-old came to visit. They
went to the creek and the boy
found a pile of needles. “He’s
like, ‘What are these?’ And
I’m like, ‘Oh my God, don’t
touch those! We’re leaving.’
And he was really upset we
were leaving.”
He’s also seen the home-
less light fires in summer by
the creek at least four to five
times. He’s called police, and
one night watched from his
window as an officer drove
up and sat for five minutes
in his patrol car, then left. He
called dispatch back, who
told him the officer didn’t see
any fire. “Of course he didn’t
see the fire if you don’t look
at all.”
All of Wells-Clark’s efforts
have come to naught. His trail
cam got stolen. The garbage
can he put out got flattened,
its contents strewn. His No
Trespassing sign was defaced
with the words ‘F--- You.’
He and a neighbor take
turns picking up trash by
the creek. He gets four large
bags of garbage and five to six
syringes a week. “If those are
the ones I’m finding, I’m re-
ally worried about someone
going down there and getting
stuck with a dirty needle. This
is totally unacceptable to me.
I really want the homeless
people to have support and
have services they need.”
But St. Vincent’s “doesn’t
even provide a bathroom”
after hours. He’s had to clean
feces from his property multi-
ple times.
He’s largely given up on
calling things in, but did
make an exception the time a
man ran out and pounded on
the hood of their car as they
drove by.
www.columbiagorgenews.com
Long-Curtiss believes it will
continue to benefit the neigh-
borhood around St. Vincent’s,
but that it won’t solve all
problems.
She said, “People who have
food and a place to live don’t
need to steal to take care of
those basic human needs.
Having fewer people hanging
around St. Vincent de Paul
will also have an immediate
visual impact. This still leaves
the segment of the popula-
tion who need more inten-
sive services because they are
criminals or having mental
health and/or drug abuse
problems. However, case
managers and police will be
able to put more attention
toward those people if they
don’t have to spend time tres-
passing people for sleeping or
parking in places they aren’t
supposed to.”
Long-Curtiss said, “We will
still need to actively address
the problems the SVDP
neighbors are having.
“I personally feel we need
to be very proactive about
this. Enough is enough, and
it has been for quite awhile.
Addiction and the need to
fund it is one of the major
reasons people break into
people’s houses and steal
stuff.
“When the can returns
are closed and the source
of money to buy drugs and
alcohol is cut off, crime goes
up. Hopefully the mayor and
his new taskforce will be able
to implement some of the ex-
isting ideas and come up with
new ones regarding how to
reduce loitering and criminal
behavior. Change will only
take place if someone steps
up like I did and provides
strong leadership.”
FILM
While it’s a private trans-
action, Arnold made told
'All sorts of
viewers that they wish to
continue starting the con-
ramifications'
versation about the sale, and
Continued from page 1 reiterated that the environ-
mental group is speaking to
prospective buyers to voice
ramifications here,” said
their concerns.
Arnold.
Arnold gave credit to
Viewers also asked many
questions about the process StoryGorge, who provided
technical assistance and
of the sale, but Arnold said
much of it is “a big black box. guidance in the early stages
of development, and also
We just don’t know.”
thanked the board members
The conversation turned
of the FWSR as well as those
to how the community can
interviewed for the film.
get involved in the process.
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