Friday, October 22, 2021 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3
Homeless: The urgency is growing with the change of seasons
Continued from Page A1
or discouraged at how big
the problem is. “Then it
evolves into business as
usual,” Moff ett said. “And
everybody’s busy, so that’s
an easy place to go.”
“We can talk this to
death,” City Councilor Tita
Montero said. “It’s so over-
whelming that it can just bat-
ter us down. We’ve done a lot
of good work here. We are
ready, we want to jump, but
we can’t jump because we
either don’t know which way
to jump or we don’t have the
resources to do that.”
Seaside’s push to address
homelessness grew amid
reports of people living in
cars, the streets and in the
woods.
Oregon state House Bill
2006 requires local govern-
ments to approve applica-
tions for emergency shelter,
regardless of any land use
laws. House Bill 3115 aims
to protect unsheltered Orego-
nians from fi nes or arrest for
sleeping or camping on pub-
lic property when there are
no other options. Seaside has
until mid-2023 to comply.
The topic was among the
top identifi ed issues at a City
Council goal-setting meet-
R.J. Marx
Mayor Jay Barber and Ariel Nelson of the League of Oregon
Cities at a Seaside homeless forum at the convention center.
R.J. Marx
Homeless often sleep overnight or store belongings in the city parking lot next to the Seaside
Civic and Convention Center.
ing in January. A warm-
ing center, shelters and a
homeless liaison for Clat-
sop County were identifi ed
as major needs for Seaside.
The county hired two home-
less liaisons in the spring,
but options for the homeless
off Seaside’s streets haven’t
materialized.
For Public Works Direc-
tor McDowell, the problem
transcends income levels.
“We have a huge prob-
lem in Seaside, and hous-
ing, period,” McDowell
said. “Our workforce can’t
fi nd housing. It’s not aff ord-
able. Businesses are strug-
gling with shortened hours,
which decreases revenue.
We’re a city 3 miles long,
1 mile wide at best. And we
have no housing here that’s
aff ordable for anyone. We
don’t have available land to
build the housing because
most of the land that is left is
a wetland or fl oodway.”
The urgency is grow-
ing with the change of sea-
sons, Mayor Jay Barber
said. “One of the high pri-
orities is a warming center/
navigation center centrally
located somewhere here in
Seaside,” he said.
Montero urged collabora-
tion with other governmen-
tal entities, especially in sit-
ing locations to address the
need. “While the city may
not have property for tran-
sitional or permanent hous-
ing, land may be available
elsewhere in the county,”
she said. “We have to have
a local mentality but we also
need a county mentality.”
A City Council work-
shop will take place Nov. 8
prior to the regular council
meeting, at which time
councilors could adopt a set
of initiatives.
Barber hopes to focus on
“low-hanging fruit.”
“My hope would be that
the group focuses on three
or four initiatives so that we
begin to see some tangible
work being done,” he said.
“We’ve talked in general
about some of these, like
a warming center. We’ve
talked about the tiny house
developments, we’ve talked
about fi nding a campus or
RV park — to really begin
to focus on tangible solution
projects that we can begin to
work on.”
School: No projects expected on the property before December 2023
Continued from Page A1
R.J. Marx
Former Gearhart Elementary School, after exterior, landscape work and repaving.
Prior to the August Plan-
ning Commission meeting,
Scofi Gearhart LLC with-
drew its conditional use per-
mit application after own-
ers disputed comments
presented in a staff report
prior to this month’s Plan-
ning Commission meet-
ing, including the need for
a property zone change to
add the proposed caretaker
apartments in the building,
now known as the Gearhart
Recreation Center.
The original school build-
ing was constructed in 1948
and added on to in 1968. The
Moreys purchased the 8.5-acre
property in 2020. The school
is zoned public/semi-public,
with outright uses as govern-
ment facility, public meeting
space or school.
If owners elect to include
housing in their fi nal plan,
they envision it being sin-
gle-story, one- and two-bed-
room long-term rental cot-
tages that will be designed to
be in keeping with the char-
acter of Gearhart.
Water test sites will be
monitored from Novem-
ber through April. Feedback
from the DEQ could come
possibly as early as the end
of June, Morey said. “Until
we have that feedback from
the DEQ. We really can’t do
anything else in terms of any
planning on what we can do
on the site.
At last week’s City
Council meeting, Gearhart
City Councilor Brent War-
ren said the school looks “a
whole lot better now than it
did when he bought it. It’s a
huge improvement for the
community.”
Morey doesn’t expect
any projects on the prop-
erty before December 2023.
“That would be my time,”
he said. “You’ve to get the
background before you do
anything.”
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