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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 2016)
Street Roots • Jan. 8-14, 2016 Considering Wapato: A bad idea for the homeless hen one advocate brought a petition to A part of that process is identifying all of the Street Roots and others in the resources possible, including land and space for community hoping to gather public shelter and affordable housing to support people support for the Wapato Jail, an empty facility experiencing in homelessness. Part of the shelter far out North Portland, to be turned into a 525- strategy is to locate services across a broad bed homeless shelter, honestly, we didn’t think geographical area to support people getting that much about it. inside. Concentrating those resources in Wapato Months later that same petition has now been would create a vacuum across the entire metro adopted as a rallying cry by the Portland Business area. Alliance and nearly 3,000 petition gatherers who Since the homeless emergency was declared think it’s an idea worth this past fall, local government has added 160 considering. The Portland temporary women’s shelter beds in Southwest h WJk W !HE V Tribune is now calling for an Portland and 13 veterans’ shelter beds downtown. *S m i h f l b a H open forum to discuss the In February, á new facility for family shelter in possibility of Wapato being East PorÜand/Gresham will open and 100 more used as a mass shelter. temporary shelter beds will be added downtown. It’s a bad idea for many reasons, the biggest The new beds were added with little front-end being it’s in the middle of nowhere. investment and will cost only a fraction of what it The Wapato facility is 22 miles from Gresham, would cost to get Wapato up and running. That a city badly in need of more shelter. It’s 11.7 doesn’t even include ongoing operating miles from downtown Portland. costs. The location of Wapato has The location of very limited transportation If the community were to centralize options. During the weekdays Wapato has very our money and efforts into opening there’s one bus line. It comes Wapato as a mass shelter, it would not limited every hour and takes more than only be a horrible investment strategy; transportation an hour to get to Wapato from we would effectively be cutting off the options. During downtown alone. During the vast majority of people experiencing the weekdays weekends, there’s no service at homelessness in Multnomah County. there's one bus all. Did we mention there’s not one Not to mention that Wapato’s line. It comes men’s homeless shelter in Beaverton? location is completely isolated every hour and Not one. Meanwhile, Gresham and from the rest of the community. Milwaukie have few options for people takes more than There are no public businesses, e x p e rien cin g h o m e le s s n e s s . a n h o u r to g e t to including a grocery or Unfortunately, some, advocates and W a p a to fro m c o n v e n ie n c e sto re, for m iles. In th e P ortland B u s in e ss A llian ce w o n ’t le t d ow n to w n a lo n e . fact, there’s nothing but Wapato go. industrial flatlands and In a letter written to County Chair greenspace around it. Siting a Deborah Kafoury in November, the Portland mass shelter at Wapato would be nothing short of Business Alliance said, “We are gravely warehousing the poor far, far away. disappointed to receive the county’s memo If that’s not enough for you, there’s more. outlining perceived barriers to the use of Wapato A report released in November by Multnomah as a facility-based shelter with services.” County, evaluating the possibility of Wapato being The Portland Business Alliance goes on to say used as a homeless shelter, says it would cost the that the county should pay for the entire facility county millions to release the county from the and operations of the shelter and, while the bond obligation and simply get the facility online transportation issue isn’t ideal, “if services are and operating: All of this with the expectation offered onsite, the need for transportation options that cash-strapped nonprofits and agencies would will decrease.” They go on to say that exploring a expend valuable resources - better spent on direct needs - simply getting to the remote shuttle option might work. Another cost to the location and staffing an ill-furnished facility. county, throwing good money after bad. People argue that a roof and cot are still better It’s a nightmare scenario. than a tarp on the cold ground. Of course, but the That’s not to say the Portland Business fact is - were it not for neighborhood blowback on Alliance isn’t working on solutions to find more locating a shelter facility - the roof and cot are' shelter beds. In fact, just this month the Alliance the easy part. It’s providing support and worked with the city to help facilitate a new empowerment, and repairing individuals and temporary shelter to be opened downtown at families after the trauma of the streets, that Southwest Fourth Avenue and Washington Street. demands the real investment toward ending We appreciate the leadership. homelessness. With the homeless emergency being declared, Currently, local government and nonprofits are we have momentum on our side. Let’s harness implementing a very complex plan called A Home For Everyone. The plan has been bolstered by the our collective passion and resources to not only do the right thing, but to do the smart thing. homeless emergency, declared by the city of Unfortunately, opening the Wapato jail as a Portland and Multnomah County. It calls for an mass shelter is bad policy and should be forgotten additional $30 million in resources this upcoming about. Let’s move on. budget cycle. ■ Page 3 Editorial Write in j w o u would like ■have something that you’ve written published in our pages, or would like to get involved as a member of our reporting staff, contact Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl at 503-228-5657.joanne@streetroots.org. We ask that all submissions include the authors name and contact information, if available. Street Roots 211 NW Davis St. Portland. 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Advertising Interested in ad vertising in Street Roots? • Contact Isi ael Bayer at israel@streetroots.org Staff | E x e c u tiv e D ir e c t o r Israel Bayer I israel@streetroots.org Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl . joanne@stieet.roots.org : ¿77 V e n d o r C o o r d in a t o r Cote Merkel. co/e@sf reefroofs.org , Development Director Sarah Cfoud ' Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Program Assistant Scott Jackson, Jesuit Volunteer Development Assistant Ann-Derrick Gaillot Reporters Emily Green, SueZalokar, Ann-Derrick Gaillot, Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko Photographers Diego Diaz, Joe Glode, Ben Brink Editorial Assistant Monica Kwasnik Canvasser Desmond Hardison Board of Birectors Chairman Bruce Anderson Vice-Chairman Brad Taylor Treasurer Heather Stadidc Secretary Amber Bielman Directors Rich Rodgers, Michael Anderson, Leo Rhodes, Nora Coon, Darren Alexander, Eddie Barbosa, Rachel Langford, Marcus Swift Volunteers Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Brian Ritchie, Anders Frederickson, Stephanie Holum, Anjali Rathore, Sam Bouman, Joanna Chase, Zoe Klingmann, Haven Herrin, Eliese Baker, Dan Jones, Rob Shyrock, Tom Ray, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jessica Pollard, Lee Ko, Diana Richardson, Cherie Manning, Thomas Buell Jr. If you are interested in volunteering with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. 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