Street Roots • June 24-30, 2016
Editorial
Joyce Hotel saved from joining housing casualties
I Abe Joyce Hotel is not in any tourist
pamphlet. It’s not a go-to
recommendation for people looking for
a fun weekend in old Portland. It has never
been and never will be anyone’s second
choice if the Hilton is booked.
But when the news broke on Wednesday
that the city was buying, and thereby
preserving this so-called flophouse in the
West End, many people breathed a huge sigh
of relief.
____ _________
Because contrary to
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the hotel in its name,
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this was a home, and
one °i the only homes
for people with little
money and fewer options.
In a city with a rental vacancy rate
between fat chance and a black hole, the
Joyce offered that rarity of rarities: a place to
lay your head for the night, or a week or
more, outside of a shelter or the streets, no
matter who you were, no questions asked. It
was the last of its kind, a place where safety
could be had on a weekly basis for as little as
$19 a night And in a city changing as fast as
ours, it was becoming more rare by the day.
In December, Joyce residents were put on
notice that they had 90 days to vacate the
property. The Joyce management would be
no more. The building was being vacated.
The owner was looking for a buyer. We’ve
heard this before, haven’t we? The building is
different, .but the story is sadly familiar.
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continued much the same way others have
gone before. The residents - nearly 100 of
our community’s most vulnerable - would be
removed. Their belongings hauled away if
they couldn’t take them when they left or
had no place to put them. The building would
be renovated and the rents hoisted to the
very limit of what the market could bear. And
within two years no one would even
remember who’s father lived there after he
lost his apartment, or how understanding the
woman at the front desk was when
someone’s rent was short one week. The
former residents would become the top
agenda item at your next neighborhood
association meeting.
But this time the city rewrote the story. It
is buying the property for $4.22 million, with
the intent to fold it into its inventory of low-
income housing.
months ago, before the 90-day, March 30
cutoff on evictions, with the condition that
the tenants of the building remained.
. The owner squashed the deal and
continued to look for other offers. From that
point onward, the city worked to help get
residents of the Joyce into new housing and
connecting them with services.
The city was persistent It didn’t let the
free-for-all Portland market forces rule the
day. It stood behind long-term city planning
goals and the current housing emergency to
preserve the Joyce. In 2001, the city
committed itself to a no-net-loss policy to
preserve the remaining 8,286 affordable
rental units in the city center. It has already
lost 1,500 of them since.
Even with the deal reached this week, the
city will still have to invest millions more to
bring it up to code, install an elevator and
address other long-neglected repairs. There
are only 20 residents remaining, and Central
City Concern, the city’s primary low-income
housing service, will operate the hotel jn the
short-term, while connecting the residents
with services and alternative housing during
renovations.
After renovations, the plan by the Portland
Housing Bureau is to use the Joyce as a
temporary relocation building while upgrades
are made to other low-income buildings in
the city’s portfolio.
Kurt Creager, Director of the Portland
• Housing • Bureau, said “The loss of such units
during a housing and homelessness ..
emergency would create a real humanitarian
crisis.”
Creager, Housing Commissioner Dan
Saltzman, the workers with Central City
Concern and everyone else involved this
development - those working on the
purchase process and also one-on-one with
residents - deserve credit for rewriting the
story.
To understand the value of the Joyce is to
understand the complex soup of economic,
social, health and psychological issues that is
poverty and desperation. Falling through the
cracks is incredibly easy, and sometimes
frighteningly swift. Climbing your way back
takes time, support and resources. That’s
where the Joyce fits in. And while you may
never cross its threshold yourself, it will be a
welcome haven for thousands of Portlanders,
for many, many years to come.
Page 3
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