News
Page 4
Street Roots • March 25-31,2016
No salvation
fo r the Joyce
Owner pulls out o f talks with
city, which offered to buy the
low-barrier, low-cost hotel as
long as tenants could stay
BY JOANNE ZUHL
STAFF W R ITER
A
¿1
n atrocity.
That’s what David Tacke calls the
X JLclosure of the Joyce Hotel and the
eviction of its low-income tenants.
Tacke is president of the hotel’s
management company, Precision Property
Management Corp., or PPM, which had
been working with the city and the
building’s owner to preserve the housing for
nearly 100 of Portland’s poorest residents.
Those efforts collapsed this week after
the owner of the building, Dan Zilka of DZ
Real Estate, pulled out of the negotiations.
R e sid en ts -were to ld th ey h ave u n til M arch
31 to vacate the building. Tacke’s frustration
is directed at the building’s owner, who,
after weeks of talks with the city, now
appears intent on selling it to another party.
“To wait until the last minute is
unconscionable to me,” Tacke said, noting
the impact on the tenants. “They probably
now are not going to be able to place
everyone, and with time, they probably
could have.”
The Portland Housing Bureau had
proposed buying the building from Zilka for
approximately $5 million, transitioning
management to a local social service
provider, and preventing the loss of the low-
income units. That offer was only good
provided the tenants remained in the hotel.
“Our interest in the building was
humanitarian,” said Kurt Creager, director
of the Portland Housing Bureau. “We were
interested in the building being occupied,
while the owner has been increasingly
recalcitrant about keeping tenants in place.”
On Dec. 31, PPM told residents they had
until March 31 to vacate the premises
because the hotel was permanently closing.
PPM has managed the hotel for decades but
was informed in December that its lease
with owners DZ Real Estate had been
terminated.
The hotel, located at Southwest 11th
Avenue and Stark Street, is one of the last
of its kind in Portland’s increasingly trendy
West End. It is the only one in the city’s
central core that allows the flexibility of
week-toweek rental, rather than month to
month.
Reached by phone, the owner of the
building, Dan Zilka with DZ Real Estate, has
repeatedly refused to talk to Street Roots.
DZ’s lawyer, Sia Rezvani, told the city in
an email dated Monday, March 21, that
while they recognize the city’s effort tp
keep the occupants in the Joyce, the owner
was not willing to budge on evicting the
hotel business and its management
company, PPM, from the building.
“Based on a variety of factors and after
much consideration DZ Real Estate has
decided that the obstacles posed by both
the city and PPM’s proposals outweigh the
potential benefits to DZ,” Rezvani stated in
the email.
Rezvani said in another email that there
are other offers from potential buyers that
Zilka is considering.
Central City Concern, which provides a
range of programs for people experiencing
homelessness, has also been a part of the
negotiations. Creager said the Portland
Housing Bureau had hoped to buy the
building and bring Central City Concern in
as new managers with a greater emphasis
on support services and graduating tenants
into permanent housing.
The city could have taken possession of
the building as soon as April, Creager said,
with PPM still in place while CCC prepared
to take over management later this summer.
With the collapse of negotiations, Central
City Concern has been going door to door
and set up a station in the lobby to assess
the housing and care needs of the
approximately 55 people who still call the
hotel their home.
“Basically this week was working with the
city to try to save the Joyce as a housing
option, and that was where all our energy
was focused,” said Sean Hubert, chief
housing employment officer with CCC. “And
now we have to scramble with plan B.”
Hubert said CCC will be working with
other social services to keep residents from
becoming homeless when the doors finally
close.
To help in that effort, Creager said the
city can tap into nearly $1 million in short
term rental assistance to tenants in need.
What the future holds for the tenants now
is a case-by-case matter.
One tenant, who did not want his name
used, spoke of hearing of possible
See JOYCE, page 5