Street roots
« X /V /« s i
June 24,2011
3
Local street
count shows
increase in
homelessness
STAFF REPORTS
he City of Portland and Multnomah
County are showing an overall
increase in people experiencing
homelessness.
The latest 2011 Point-in-time count
conducted by the city and county showed
2,727 people who were homeless —
meaning sleeping in emergency shelter,
vouchered into motels or sleeping
outdoors. An additional 1,928 people
were sleeping in transitional housing on
the night of the count, bringing the total
number of individuals and families to
4,655.
Levels of homelessness in Multnomah
County were 7 to 9 percent higher
compared with recent, counts in 2009 and
2010.
Several disturbing trends are
highlighted in the report, including that
thé number of unsheltered families with
children has risen 35 percent.
“I am very concerned about the
growing number of families with children
on the streets and in shelters,” says
County Commissioner Deborah Kafoury.
“While this report shows that we have
increased the availability of emergency
shelter, we can and must do better for
the families in our cpmmünity. Our
hope is that every family who comes to
us in crisis is safe, off the street and back
into a home as quickly as possible.”
Another sign that gentrification and
the lack of equity across the.pity is .
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Interstate and beyond
Lessons o f history resonate as the city prepares to expand
the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area
having an effect are th a t populations of
color made up 46 percent of the
homeless population compared to only
29 percent of the overall population. The
report notes that the over-representation
is especially high for Native and African
Americans.
Twelve percent of the homeless
population in Portland and Multnomah
County are U.S. Veterans.
The city and county report comes on
the heels of statewide cuts to human
services, and a recent report from the
State of Oregon Department of Housing
and Community Services showing an
overall increase in homelessness of 29
percent.
The reports are mandated by the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban
Development, and help determine future
funding for housing and homeless
services dollars.
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paper whenever possible; Please report any
errors to our managing editor, Joanne Zunl, at
503-228-5657, or write to streetrootsnews®
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B Y J A K E TH O M A S
1 S T A F F W R IT E R
T 'X o sly n Hill can no longer quite
visualize the neighborhood shefgrew
J L V iip in. Probably because it doesn’t
exist anymore.
While in the third grade, in the mid
1950s, her family had to leave their
neighborhood in Northeast Portland to
make way for development that would
become the Memorial Coliseum.
The construction of the stadium has been
part of the vexed history between the city
and North and Northeast Portland. But the
64-year-old African American real estate
developer with greying dreadlocks seems
hardly bitter when recalling how her family
was forced from their home. Instead she
seems mQre focused on the commercial
properties she’s been developing in
Northeast Portland since moving back to
the city in 1990 after a stint in the Bay
Area.
Hill has been part of a renewed economic
interest in Alberta Street and the
surrounding area and has developed
properties into coffee shops and art
galleries. Today, the once gritty and crime-
ridden street that is now better known for
its eateries, boutiques and the creative
types that have been drawn to it in recent
decades.
Called the “Queen of Alberta” by some,
Hill hopes that the revitalization will help
transform the area into a vibrant
neighborhood that retains its multicultural
character while drawing newcomers who are
genuinely vested in it.
But, according to Hill, Alberta isn’t
reaching its full commercial potential and
large chunks of it remain “underdeveloped”
and could use the help of a powerful city
agency that has big plans for the street and
other parts of North and Northeast Portland
that have followed a similar trajectory.
The Portland Development Commission,
the city’s economic development arm, has
had an uneasy relationship with North and
Northeast Portland, a part of town that has
been the heart of Portland’s African
American community and has suffered from
1^
racially motivated disinvegtinentin jthe.past.
“The expansion of the Interstate Corridor
Urban Renewal Area will allow PDC to
extend their programs and services to even
more neighborhood businesses, to help
them remain stable or to expand and make
improvements that lead to job creation,”
said Mayor Sam Adams, who has
spearheaded a proactive and sometimes
controversial applications of URAs “For
example, by utilizing PDC’s programs, Por
Que No on North Mississippi was able, to
expand their seating area, and in turn hire
additional staff. By expanding the ICURA to
other commercial corridors, we hope to be
able to do the same for many other
neighborhood businesses.”
The planning for this expansion dates
back to 2008 as part of the North/Northeast
Economic Development Initiative. It
includes placing some property of the
Oregon Convention Center in ICURA and
allows for reinvestment in the Rose Quarter.
So far, it seems feelings from the
stakeholders on the expansion are mixed,
but there is strong support for it — from
surprising sources. Many in the African
American community and others, want in on
this new round of urban renewal.
“They do do something,” said Hill of the
PDC, of which she’s had largely positive
experiences, “but you have to bring
something to the table. They’re not going to
throw money at you.”
Hill has used the PDC’s financing tools
for some of her properties on a stretch of
he Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal
Alberta Street located in the Oregon
Area, created in 2000, is the largest
urban renewal area in the city, sprawling Convention Center Urban Renewal Area.
She said she supports the PDC’s plan to
about 3,800 acres and spanning 10
extend urban renewal on Alberta up to 33rd
neighborhoods in North and Northeast
Avenue, which she hopes will help fill-in
Portland. The expansion will increase the
underdeveloped patches and kick start small
roughly $202.8 million in urban renewal
businesses.
funds currently available in ICURA to
Adrienne Livingston, the executive
$221.3 million through 2021. That infusion,
director of the Black United Fund, is also
says the PDC, will create 960 jobs. The
supportive of the expansion that would put
expansion of ICURA would encompass
her organization’s headquarters, located on
about 430 acres of “underdeveloped”
29th Avenue and Alberta Street, in ICURA.
property in need of “rehabilitation” along
Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Alberta and
Killingsworth Streets, the S t Johns Town
Center and the south side of Lombard
See IN TERSTA TE page 10
Part of the uneasiness stems from the
PDC aiding Emanuel Hospital’s expansion
in the 1960s and 70s, which resulted in the
displacement of many black-owned homes
and businesses. In recent decades, North
and Northeast have become whiter and
more affluent, while residents with deeper
roots in the area have left, seeking cheaper
rents on Portland’s periphery.
In more recent years, the city’s use of
urban renewal has been blamed for
amplifying that gentrification. The latest
census figures for 2010 shows that in the
past decade approximately 10,000 people of
color, primarily African Americans, moved
away from the city’s tore, particularly the
inner North and Northeast communities.
A recent report for the PDC by
Northwest Ideas, based on interviews with
opinion leaders in North and Northeast
Portland, stated, “It would be hard to
overstate the distrust of the PDC and City
government in the Black community.”
Now the PDC wants to expand urban
renewal deeper into North and Northeast
Portland. In July, City Council will consider
giving the final approval on the expansion of
the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area
to encompass even more of the
neighborhoods traditionally home to people
of color, but growing less so with each
passing year.
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