DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 156
ONE DOLLAR
Under pressure,
city draws line
on homelessness
Divided Astoria City Council
backs more aggressive track
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
The Uniontown Apartments in Astoria could soon house the homeless.
Homeless shelter
expands to Astoria
Up to 70 beds
in Uniontown
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
A
former Finnish boarding
house in Uniontown could
become a dormitory for
homeless people looking to get
back on their feet.
Helping Hands, a nonprofit that
works with the homeless to rebuild
their lives and find jobs and hous-
ing, announced it has entered a
purchase agreement with North-
west Oregon Housing Authority
to buy the large yellow house on
Marine Drive next door to Motel 6.
The organization plans to turn
the boarding house into dorm-style
temporary housing. Alan Evans,
the nonprofit’s executive director,
hopes the house can accommodate
up to 60 or 70 beds, a portion of
which would be set aside for emer-
gency shelter.
Helping Hands is already
well-established in Seaside, but an
expansion to Astoria is a critical
step, said Raven Brown, the organi-
zation’s development director.
Astoria is the Clatsop County
seat and many resources will now
only be a walk or a short bus ride
away.
“We’re really looking forward to
balancing out our presence on both
sides of Clatsop County,” she said.
The sale is contingent on Help-
A large three-story building on Marine Drive in the Uniontown neigh-
borhood of Astoria may soon become a shelter for the homeless.
ing Hands obtaining any permits
the city requires, Evans said.
The city and Helping Hands
staff have had preliminary meet-
ings to figure out what the re-en-
try organization needs to apply
for going forward. Homeless shel-
ters are not explicitly addressed in
Astoria’s codes, and the Helping
Hands model is different than the
average shelter. The facility could
fall under the category of a semi-
public use, said Mike Morgan,
interim city planner.
“It’s in a good location for what
they want to do,” Morgan said.
“They’re not in a residential neigh-
borhood like the (Astoria Warming
Center) that would raise some con-
cerns of neighbors. I think it’s a
good location, but that exterior is
in really rough shape.”
One thing Morgan knows for
sure is that the house is a historic
building and any exterior repairs
will need to adhere to the city’s
historic preservation standards.
“It’s a big task to take on that
building,” he said.
Costly to repair
The Uniontown Apartments,
built around 1896, is the last
remaining Finnish boarding house
on Marine Drive, according to
city documents. Repairs could be
costly. Several years ago, the hous-
ing authority calculated it would
cost about $4 million to renovate
both the Uniontown Apartments
and the Owens-Adair Apartments
on Exchange Street.
See SHELTER, Page 4A
‘THIS PROJECT AND THE WORK HELPING
HANDS DOES ALIGNS CLOSELY WITH CURRENT
CITY, COUNTY AND STATE PRIORITIES FOR
ADDRESSING THE HOUSING CRISIS IN OREGON.’
Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose
Astoria city councilors
on Monday urged police to
more aggressively enforce
city rules after business own-
ers spoke out about how
the homeless have deterred
customers and intimidated
employees.
City Councilor Zetty
Nemlowill made a motion
to support police “in dealing
with the bad behavior of cer-
tain individuals on the street,
recognizing that homeless-
ness is not a crime.” The
motion followed numer-
ous meetings over sev-
eral months where council-
ors discussed what could be
done to address issues raised
by downtown businesses and
residents about the homeless.
Police Chief Geoff Spald-
ing had suggested at a work
session in January that the
police department could be
more proactive about enforc-
ing certain city rules, but
would want the City Coun-
cil’s support before he gave
that direction to his officers.
Nemlowill’s
motion
was supported by Coun-
cilor Bruce Jones and Mayor
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
If your New Year’s resolution was to visit the Astoria Col-
umn more and eat less ice cream, 2018 is going to be a long
year.
Frite & Scoop, which makes and sells French custard ice
cream out of a storefront on the Astoria Riverwalk, plans to
open a mobile location at the Column in May.
The Friends of the Astoria Column, looking to enhance
the experience of the park for locals and tourists, asked six
local vendors if they were interested in submitting propos-
als for serving ice cream. Only Frite & Scoop took the non-
See HOMELESS, Page 4A
Conservation
groups step into
flood plain lawsuit
Claim industry
would reverse
years of effort
By EDWARD
STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Several
conservation
groups are intervening in a
lawsuit brought by a coali-
tion of construction interests,
property owners and local
governments against the fed-
eral government over flood
plain development rules.
The Oregon Home Build-
ers Association, the National
Association of Home Build-
ers and Washington, D.C.-
based nonprofit Oregonians
for Floodplain Protection
filed suit last year against the
U.S. Department of Com-
merce, National Marine
Fisheries Service and Fed-
eral Emergency Manage-
ment Agency. Oregonians
for Floodplain Protection
A VIEW WITH A SWIRL
Ice cream vendor coming to
the Astoria Column this May
Arline LaMear. The motion
passed 3-2. Councilors Cindy
Price and Tom Brownson
voted against it, saying they
would have preferred more
time to think through the lan-
guage and the implications.
Price worried about singling
out specific populations and
individuals.
The rules councilors
want police to aggressively
enforce include minor infrac-
tions like harassment and
dogs off leash, but also cover
public urination and defe-
cation — issues noted with
increasing frequency around
downtown businesses, most
recently in the 13th Street
alley near the shuttered J.C.
Penney store.
Spalding asked the coun-
cil to include the clarify-
ing statement that “home-
lessness is not a crime,” a
phrase he has emphasized at
other meetings. He assured
Price that police officers are
already enforcing city laws.
The council, in its motion,
was not asking the depart-
ment to do anything new
or different, he said, add-
ing that the laws apply to
everyone.
profit up on the offer. The Astoria City Council
approved the proposal unanimously at a meet-
ing Monday night.
Swirl, the mobile incarnation of Frite &
Scoop, will serve soft-serve ice cream made
from scratch, said Kevin Malcolm, who
owns the business with his wife, Lisa.
“Soft serve made a lot of sense for us
because with the ice cream we make at Frite
& Scoop it requires a lot of storage and a lot of freez-
ers,” Lisa Malcolm said. “We don’t have that option
at a mobile location.”
The Malcolms also wanted to serve something
that would be unique to the Column. They plan
to add other concessions including coffee but, as
See COLUMN, Page 4A
includes property owners,
homebuilders, business orga-
nizations and local gov-
ernments covered by the
National Flood Insurance
Program, including Warren-
ton and Tillamook County.
The plaintiffs claim a bio-
logical opinion from 2016
and proposed flood plain
rules are based on inadequate
analysis, would restrict devel-
opment and have bypassed
the public rule-making pro-
cess. They seek a withdrawal
of the opinion and to suspend
implementation of the new
flood plain rules until after
a public rule-making pro-
cess and a review under the
National Environmental Pol-
icy Act.
The judge in the case
recently approved a motion
by the Audubon Society of
Portland, Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity and Defenders
of Wildlife to participate in
the case.
See LAWSUIT, Page 4A