WHO WE ARE
Neighbors 4 Safe Smart Shelters is a coalition of neighbors and business owners of Northwest Portland and the Pearl District working together to find safe, smart solutions to the homeless crisis in Portland that support the needs of homeless individuals, while respecting the safety and security of our shared communities.
WE SUPPORT:
✓ Safe, smart shelter for the homeless, with clearly defined strategies (starting with entry criteria) for transitioning them into permanent housing;
✓ Well-planned, targeted homeless support programming that respects its many causes and individual needs, and smartly matches participants with programs to foster success;
✓ Sharing siting of shelters and programs among all city and county neighborhoods, so services and programs are not concentrated in just one or two; and
✓ Innovative solutions like Bybee Lakes, which uses existing facilities and succeeds by bringing services ‘to’ homeless individuals in a safe place, rather than continuing the failed status quo of forcing the homeless to camp near existing services, living inhumanely in the streets and disrupting surrounding areas.
WE OPPOSE:
✗ Multiple program centers, facilities and temporary housing in clusters in any one location, especially already heavily impacted areas like the NW Portland sector roughly bordered by Burnside St, NW Naito Pkwy, and NW 9th Ave;
✗ Poorly planned homeless programs and temporary housing with no clear strategies for success, starting with not properly defining clients;
✗ Knowingly placing high risk populations – such as drug and alcohol addicted or those with mental health issues – among families and children living in high density urban housing; and
✗ The City’s and County’s disregard for the safety and sanitation concerns of communities around homeless housing sites and programs and their lack of effective action in the face of the overall impact on our entire region.
What They’re saying about Safe Rest Villages…
“Part of the program is the acceptance of residents from ‘high-impact’ encampment, which is defined in the ordinance as including but not limited to: ‘evidence of drug use, paraphernalia, or improperly disposed of syringes…verified reports of violence or criminal activity other than camping’.
In the contract for all SHS Suppliers for the Safe Rest Villages Initiative, it specifies that ‘Contractor shall design services to support the community’s commitment to Housing First,’” Evans wrote. “Housing First recognizes that everyone is ‘ready’ to return to permanent housing’. We are concerned these two policies combined would leave us unable to implement care effectively.”
Evans told KOIN 6 News yesterday that he couldn’t guarantee the safety of neighbors “without proper conditions and rules in place.” (WW 3/1/22)
Why the safe rest village concept of ‘housing’ does not work: “What you want to do is invest in housing so you can move people through the shelter into housing,” she said. “Otherwise, people are stuck in shelter forever, the shelters fill up, and then the next person who becomes homeless is on the streets.”
Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness. NYT 3/28/22
Creating Slums in Porltand – the necessary outcome of so-called “safe rest villages”. “Temporary shelters like tiny homes and Safe Sleep sites give lawmakers a relatively cheap way to start clearing the tents…Because it’s unlikely that there will be enough permanent housing soon, the question becomes: How long will the government have the political will to provide assistance for these people? What does “temporary” really mean? Plus, services like drug counseling, mental health treatment and job support aren’t abstract concepts. They require a great deal of infrastructure, staff and expertise, all of which are currently hard to find…But it also seems possible that these temporary shelter sites will become more or less permanent. (A tiny-home site in Tacoma, Wash., for example, has been running since 2019.)
–NYTimes 3/28/22
“Without enough stable housing on the other side, what was supposed to be temporary shelter becomes permanent purgatory. What would you call that? A slum.”
-NYTimes 3/28/22 Jay Caspian King
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