Team leads met April 7th to discuss communication, shared challenges, resources and goals. A decision was made to reboot the Baysider as an online publication, facilitated by the tech team.
Garden Team — Holly Picotte, lead — Susan McClosky, board liaison
We held the 2025 garden orientation on Saturday, May 3rd with a great turnout. We met several new plot holders and gardeners were exchanging ideas about what they were going to plant in their plots! The water access was discovered to be broken (pex coming from the shelter was snapped), but Stephen, one of our gardeners, volunteered to fix it which he did that day which is fantastic. Water was set to be turned on Monday, 5/5 by Port Property.
Development Developments Team — Amelia LaBreck, lead — Alex Landry, board liaison
The Franklin Street Redesign Project is in early planning stages at the city. Several Development Team members attended an open house to reboot the project at the Rines Auditorium on April 17th. The Live Nation Music Venue has had the question of traffic and parking feasibility is to be examined by the transportation committee. 89 Elm construction is underway, though currently is more of a void in the ground than a structure. 60 Elm has had an enlargement and redesign, being workshopped May 6th. The whole Reveler MDP is undergoing some changes to be announced. 72 Parris held a public meeting at the McGoldrick Center on April 14th which was attended by many BNA members and neighborhood voices.
BNA Citizens’ Trash Brigade — Megan Holt, lead — Rob Sylvain, board liaison
Thanks to all who turned out for another successful spring cleanup on Saturday April 17th. Special thanks to city arborist Mark Reilland for providing compost and mulch for the BNA Tree Team to spread on our new neighborhood trees. Many thanks to the generous Bayside Businesses that donated gift certificates: Leavitt & Sons Deli – Isa Bistro – Wilson County BBQ – Bayside Bowl – Two Fat Cats Bakery – Tally’s Kitchen – Maine Oyster Company
Tuesday April 22 Preble Street hosted another cleanup and BBQ which was attended by BNA board and team members. Just three days after the BNA cleanup, it was noted that trash had already accumulated again.
Saturday May 3rd Portland Parks Conservancy hosted a city-wide cleanup with Megan Holt acting as a hub captain at the Bayside Community Garden. The tree team continued mulching and the garden team met to clean up and prepare the garden for spring. Holly noted that Public works did not pick up the garbage bags the following day, causing a mess on Hall Ct. Jennifer Rogers had noted the same problem after the April 17th cleanup.
Caroline Fernandez from Preble Street has indicated interest in collaborating on monthly cleanups Friday afternoons. Next cleanup is scheduled for Friday
Tech Team — Joey Brunelle, lead — Jim Hall, board liaison
The Baysider newspaper is getting an online reboot. Submissions of news and photos from team leads are needed. Also looking for content from the community including editorials, reviews, events, photos, art, poetry, and prose of all sorts. Thanks to Special Collections Librarian & Archivist Abraham Schechter, the Portland Public Library’s has been digitizing their collection of The Baysider which lives in the Portland Room archive. The public can now access searchable pdf copies of many issues of The Baysider at the Portland Public Library Digital Commons website, and the BNA website.
Tree Team — Avery Kamilla, lead — Susan McClosky, board liaison
The BNA Tree Team has been active this spring working to grow our tree canopy and tend our existing trees. During the annual Spring Cleanup, neighbors mulched all the newly planted trees on Chestnut Street and many of the newly planted trees on the Bayside Trail.
The Tree Team is also working with the Portland Park Rangers to host the annual Tree Hugging event June 7. For the first time, it will be held in the Bayside Neighborhood on the Bayside Trail. At the Tree Hugging event, Portland’s lead Park Ranger and certified forest bathing expert Liz Collado will lead a forest bathing walk and encourage participants to envision the day when the young trees on the trail become mature, heritage trees with wide canopies.
Members of the Tree Team attended the recent Tree Talk given by Portland’s arborist Mark Reiland and hosted by the West End Neighborhood Association. Reiland discussed the new planting requirements that he has initiated for new trees that mandate much larger planting wells and a compost-rich soil. The disappointing news he delivered during the talk was that he does not expect to plant any trees in Bayside or East Bayside this year. Reiland said the reason why is because the city used all the viable planting locations during last year’s tree surge.
Members of the Tree Team also attended the recent Reimagining Franklin Street event hosted by the Planning Department at the Portland Public Library. The event was a chance for the public to offer feedback about what they like and don’t like about the current street. Tree Team members advocated for the need for more trees and parkland.
Tree Team member and Portland Protectors co-founder Avery Yale Kamila talked with city officials about the need to restore Lincoln Park to its original size and further expand it. Of particular concern is preserving the heritage oaks growing in the median between Congress and Middle streets.
The Bayside neighborhood’s only playground, the Stone Street Playground, is slated for a $400,000 upgrade this budget year. However, Reiland is concerned that a major revamp of the playground will kill the park’s trees. The BNA and the Tree Team are awaiting more information about the project. Any day now the cherry trees in the Stone Street Playground will unfurl their pink blooms.
Bayside Business Breakfast Club — Tom Blackburn, lead — Betsy Boyd, board liaison
Gathered on April 30 at Coffee Me Up, hosted by Alba Zakja. Topics included creating a Bayside business map, intra-team communication via whatsapp, mentorship program with ProsperityME, updating the business contact list, outreach to corporate entities, improvement district funding, ads for Baysider, lobbying city hall, promoting good news stories to the media, and delegating action items. Tom Blackburn has stepped up to lead the team. Next meeting will be at Jay York Photography, 58 Wilmot Street on Wednesday, May 28th, 8:30am
Welcome Team — Belinda Vemba, lead — Deb VanHoewyk, board liaison
The Welcome Committee has co-hosted its first event – the Samosa Social! On Thursday, April 3rd, the BNA and the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center held an afternoon get-together at the IWC at 24 Preble Street in Bayside. The idea was to bring together various organizations, including the BNA, who serve our newly arrived neighbors who come to the IWC to learn English, access workforce and entrepreneurial programs, and navigate their way to citizenship.
Bayside neighbors and immigrants from all over the world made short work of the over 200 samosas donated by Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, along with other halal treats from Portland’s immigrant groceries and restaurants. Music and conversation were the order of the day, along with presentations by representatives from immigrant-serving organizations. Grace Mo-Phillips from Coastal Enterprises, Micky Bondo from In Her Presence, Bright Musuamba and Amen Mibaraka from Prosperity Maine, and Belinda Vemba from the Immigrant Welcome Center, all spoke about how their organizations help the community. City Councillor and Bayside resident Sarah Michniewicz was on hand not only to meet and listen to new neighbors, but also to help serve up samosas to the crowd.
The BNA formed the Welcome Committee to better connect with the various communities who comprise the very diverse population of Bayside – home to immigrants and faith groups, homeowners and renters, social service and education organizations. The Welcome Committee works to unite neighbors in making Bayside a more “welcoming” place. We’re hoping this event is the beginning of many enduring collaborations.
BAYsideBEEs — Deirdre Paul, lead — Rob Sylvain, board liaison
Working on an event calendar for the BNA website, highlighting performing arts and First Friday openings in Bayside. 82 Parris Gallery and Maine Clay Collaborative both had open houses on First Friday in May.
Student Liaison — Michael Marston, lead — Rob Sylvain, board liaison
Michael is working on a 3D model of Bayside, which should be complete by the end of the term. The mural project has been put on hold. John Wensman from Baxter Academy hopes to design a full-year project with a new student next fall.
Art Team — Carolyn Megan, lead — Betsy Boyd, board liaison
Still working on idea of painting of utility boxes. Looking for funding sources. Carolyn needs to be away most of May into mid-June and possibly into July. As such, the Art Team needs any new interested members/lead. Email Carolyn with questions and/or if you want more information.
Safe Streets Team — Bowman Brown, lead — Deb VanHoewyk, board liaison
The next meeting is scheduled for May 20 at 6 pm in the Steve Hirshon Community Room at Unity Village 24 Stone Street.Items to be addressed at the next meeting include better lighting; the group will work out how to create a list of all non-operating street lights, as well as key places where lighting could be improved, such as Portland Street – Bowman’s building is 34 Portland Street, and there are definite dark spots there. The Preble Street 295 underpass is another.
In February, the group discussed a “text buddy” system so people could text to get a buddy for walking together in unsafe situations. There were concerns about having personal numbers out there, but it seems as if WhatsApp could take care of the privacy issues. A number of people have already volunteered to participate via WhatsApp.
Pedestrian safety – hotspots are Portland Street, especially at the intersections with Parris and Hanover Streets. This is related to the lack of parking enforcement, which results in people parking every which way, making pedestrian pathways unpredictable.
Bowman distributed for discussion the New York Times article highlighting the increasing problem of Meth as opposed to fentanyl use in our neighborhood.
On June 7 the City Council will vote on whether to pass a 180-day moratorium on new emergency shelters in Bayside in order to allow shelter licensing to be approved and enacted. This is our letter of support to the Council.
June 2, 2021
To Mayor Snyder and Members of the City Council,
The Bayside Neighborhood Association is in full support of Order 260-20/21 Establishing a 180-Day Moratorium on New Shelters in the Bayside Neighborhood.
We urge you to adopt this targeted, time-bound moratorium in order to ensure that appropriate, sensitive and beneficial shelter licensing may be developed and enacted, free of the pressure or confusion that a new shelter proposal would bring to bear on the process.
The history of Bayside’s poorly integrated social service cluster, developed in the absence of planning, policies, and public process, demonstrates why this moratorium, and licensing, are desperately needed:
• Between 1987 and 2000, the City’s emergency shelter relocated twice and steadily increased capacity from 20 beds to 154 at its present Oxford Street location. All three of the shelter’s locations have been in the Bayside neighborhood.
• The City’s present family and adult emergency shelters, with a combined total of 300 beds, are located within 100′ of each other in a dense R6 neighborhood where emergency shelters are not currently permitted.
• Over the past two decades or so shelters throughout the City closed and to compensate, multiple “temporary” overflow facilities, ultimately comprising over 200 beds, were allowed to open in close proximity to the City shelters and one another without meaningful council involvement, policy development, or community engagement.
• Instead, these increases were recommended by the Emergency Shelter Assessment Committee, an independent group of social service providers, unaccountable to the City. It should be noted that the ESAC of today has not taken a position on this moratorium, nor did the majority of its member agencies, which suggests that in the opinion of some key stakeholders the proposed moratorium would not create any substantive issues or challenges to their work on behalf of individuals experiencing homelessness.
• During these expansions of services Bayside residents and businesses were not given the benefit of the public planning process that occurred elsewhere when shelters opened in other neighborhoods and the Downtown District.
• The conditional use standards for emergency shelters in effect up until 2017 only required that a shelter comply with the city’s housing assistance plan, and be registered with DHHS.
• Many ancillary services sprouted up in the general vicinity of the shelters. Some operated for years under questionable permitting and in a manner that caused excessive and unmitigated community impacts. Bayside was one of the poorest and most neglected neighborhoods in the City for well over three quarters of a century. In the 1950s the neighborhood was subjected to “slum clearance” and resident displacement. As recently as the 1990s Bayside was identified by US News and World Reports as, by some measures, one of the worst neighborhoods nationwide.
• Segregating marginalized and vulnerable populations into already socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods is a long-standing, intentional practice that’s now recognized as discriminatory, counterproductive, and inherently inequitable.
• Concurrent with the growth in the number of emergency shelter beds the levels of crime, from “low-level” to violent, increased within the boundaries of the Bayside neighborhood while remaining flat in the rest of the City, rising to and remaining at the current level of roughly 20% of the total police calls and 10% of EMS calls for service despite Bayside being 1% of Portland’s landmass and 5% of its population.
Everyone – neighbors, people seeking shelter, and Portland as a whole – has been shortchanged by this lack of planning, care and due diligence. The present urgent need to hit pause via a moratorium is the inevitable result of decades of deferred attention, not a knee-jerk reaction to current circumstances.
This moratorium will not impede or impose restrictions on the operations of any existing shelter, or on shelter planning, development or execution outside of Bayside. It will not harm people experiencing homelessness or delay their progress toward permanent housing. It will be terminated when appropriate licensing has been enacted to correct the historical and existing governance and planning gaps pertaining to emergency shelters in Portland.
What this moratorium will do is allow the City to move forward mindfully, holistically, and justly. It will solidify Portland’s commitment to equitability as it develops licensing to ensure fair distribution of facilities; effective delivery of services; and balanced and safe neighborhoods for all. It will allow Portland to fulfill its explicit and implicit obligations to constituents in neighborhoods where emergency shelters are serving people in need.
The BNA urges you to pass Order 260-20/21.
Respectfully,
Sarah Michniewicz President, Bayside Neighborhood Association
Bayside Neighborhood Association Board of Directors
Amistad Colette Bouchard Dennis Ferrante Amy Geren Jim Hall Alex Landry Susan McCloskey Carolyn Megan Scott Morrison Heidi Souerwine Rob Sylvain Deborah van Hoewyk
Preble Street is trying to add two more shelters to Bayside. There are already three, and multiple overflow spaces. If this 40 bed shelter is approved there will be Concentrating people like this doesn’t work. Enough is enough.
Preble Street hopes to fast-track conversion of Resource Center into new, permanent shelter without notifying neighborhood.
In June 2020 the BNA learned of the plan to convert the Preble Street Resource Center on Portland Street into a new, permanent 40-bed emergency homeless shelter. The goal is to replace a temporary 50-bed shelter set up at the USM Sullivan Gym to allow for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. For over a year Preble Street has also been attempting to site a shelter at 55 Portland Street, a building they purchased for this purpose despite improper zoning, a variety of incompatible covenants, and community concerns.
The Bayside neighborhood is currently home base for three homeless shelters, three overflow shelter sites, many rehab beds and sober houses, and dozens of other social services. This concentration has had tremendous negative impact and defies current understandingof best practices for serving people experiencing homelessness. For many years the BNA has been told there would be “no new shelters in Bayside,” yet these attempts by Preble Street continue.
The BNA categorically opposes siting any additional homeless shelters in the Bayside neighborhood. Below is our July 17, 2020 letter to the Portland City Council. It was approved by an overwhelming majority of the sixteen member board and eighteen community members signed in support.
June 17, 2020
Mayor Snyder and Members of the City Council,
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced shelter providers to do something no one has tried for over twenty years – disperse the ever-increasing number of people languishing in the streets around Preble Street’s resource center and soup kitchen. Spacing people out at other locations has proven successful in controlling the spread of disease amongst those experiencing homelessness. Physical and mental stress and problematic behaviors have been reduced at the distancing shelters. Apparently this is a revelation. Homeless advocates are wondering “Why didn’t we do this years ago?” That’s a very good question.
But what’s going to happen when the temporary USM Sullivan Gym shelter closes in July? Despite all logic, Preble Street wants to build a new shelter on the ruins they left behind at the resource center, that’s what. Maybe they’ll also try again at 55 Portland Street, despite improper zoning and other restrictions. Either way, the lessons of the pandemic are being ignored if not mocked.
The same people who were beginning to recover, to feel their way forward out of the chaos, will be forced back into the same mess of a neighborhood they left – the same stabbings, the same fights, the same drug deals, the same piles of trash, the same stress, the same despair, the same everything. You all know what goes on here; you know nothing has changed in over twenty years except to get worse. In fact despite over 100 people being sheltered elsewhere, police calls for service doubled in the past month or so. The entrenched idea that this is just what homelessness IS will only be validated by a new shelter.
So I will take this opportunity to remind the Council of a few things in regards to Preble Street’s plan:
• The question of shelter density was raised and ultimately tabled by the Planning Board in 2018. One planning board member referred to small shelter zoning as “a solution in search of a problem.” This indicates an unacceptable lack of familiarity with the extreme impact shelter proliferation has had on the Bayside community. No permits of any kind should be granted by the City without thorough review of Preble Street’s operational impacts and refusal to engage in problem-solving with the neighborhood.
• When shelter zoning was expanded in 2018 new, stringent conditional use standards were crafted for emergency shelters in order to best serve clients and minimize community impact. These requirements are prescriptive and not arbitrary. Any new shelter must be specifically designed to accommodate their implementation. To allow an inadequate shelter to open swiftly and permanently, or even temporarily in a potentially permanent location, is antithetical to the Council’s own intentions, contrary to existing ordinances, and invites legal action.
• Siting homeless shelters now requires extreme care, consideration, deliberation, and process, even more so in Bayside. This neighborhood is living proof of what happens when that care is not taken. Using the pandemic as a reason to expedite permits or deny Bayside complete and thorough process is unacceptable and will be challenged. This situation requires more time and care, not less.
• NO other allowable use in any zone would, in anyone’s wildest dreams, be permitted to create anything close to the impacts of the resource center and soup kitchen. These impacts are real, documented, harmful to the community, and the City apparently has no mechanism to address them. Unless and until a means of mitigating the current situation is found there can be no new shelters in Bayside.
• Preble Street has not proven nor taken any reasonable steps to prove its ability to lessen the impacts of its operations, despite full awareness of community concerns and millions of dollars in annual funding. They do not behave as a responsible community partner despite good faith efforts and even pleas on the part of the neighborhood. It is incumbent upon the city to deny expansion of its services and programs and the addition of any shelters in Bayside for any reason, particularly in an emergency situation whose amelioration depends on safe, sanitary and socially distant conditions.
• The current operations of the Preble Street resource center and soup kitchen, and operations of the City’s Oxford Street Shelter prior to winter 2018, clearly qualify as maintenance of a public nuisance. A proven public nuisance is subject to legal action and potentially an injunction and fines. While the City has instituted effective measures to mitigate, insofar as possible at the current location, the impacts of shelter operations, Preble Street has not. Indeed, Preble Street management has referred to measures such as extended hours, bathroom access, and storage for belongings as “duplicative” in light of the City’s efforts.
And perhaps most important:
• The city has devoted tremendous time and resources to the effort to site a modern homeless services center in Riverton. This process, which involved considerable input from Bayside residents, was specifically aimed at reducing negative neighborhood impacts of shelters. Had this service center moved forward at the original Barron Center site in a timely fashion the need for today’s temporary satellite shelters and hotel rooms may have been reduced if not eliminated. If any shelter deserves to be fast-tracked it is this one; if any shelter doesn’t it’s the one being proposed and operated by Preble Street.
Dan Brennan of Maine State Housing said “We simply can’t go back to the way things were… We need a new shelter system. We need a new approach.” Allowing a new shelter in Bayside is the antithesis of a new system. It’s the same old ineffective approach. It is nothing short of unethical to contemplate sending vulnerable people back to an ill-considered, hastily planned shelter in Bayside, a neighborhood where crime, violence, and despair circulate as easily as any virus.
Maine is a big state. Yet an astounding array of social services and shelters have been gerrymandered into a couple blocks in a poor neighborhood that comprises one percent of Portland’s landmass and five percent of its population. Is it any wonder Bayside commands 21% of Portland’s police calls for service? Nothing about that is even remotely okay, or necessary. Making it worse by allowing an independent nonprofit to increase the shelter capacity of Bayside – a nonprofit that has been quoted as saying that it is not responsible for any impacts outside its doors, and barely responsible for those inside – is indefensible.
Now is the time for other neighborhoods, towns, cities and counties to do their part. For the health and safety of both those people experiencing homelessness and those who live and operate businesses in Bayside, this Council, the City of Portland, and the State of Maine have a duty to ensure that new shelters be sited outside of Bayside. It’s time to stop putting broken people in a broken system into the same broken neighborhood and expect different results.
Thank you, Sarah Michniewicz President, Bayside Neighborhood Association
Bayside Neighborhood Association Board of Directors
Laura Cannon, Vice President Colette Bouchard, Secretary James Hall, Treasurer Jonathan Bass Dennis Ferrante Amy Geren Sean Kerwin Alexander Landry Susan McCloskey Scott Morrison Stephanie Scherer Heidi Souerwine Robert Sylvain Deborah Van Hoewyk Ex Officio: Preble Street (abstained)
The 16-member Board of the BNA voted unanimously to approve this letter of support for the Shelter Policy Resolution that paves the way for a new homeless services center to replace the Oxford Street Shelter
To Members of the Portland City Council,
Portland’s current model of aiding the homeless with services strewn haphazardly over several blocks becomes more outmoded, ineffective, inhumane and unsustainable with each passing day. It does not reflect current federally endorsed best practices or what Portland is capable of achieving. For Portland to effectively support those experiencing homelessness the City must immediately begin design and construction of a modern homeless services center at the approved site in Riverton.
Therefore the Bayside Neighborhood Association supports the Resolution Outlining Policy Goals For The City of Portland’s Single-Adult Shelter Facility as passed unanimously by the Health and Human Services Committee. The resolution reflects years of work, education, dedication and a determination to not repeat mistakes of the past. We ask you to vote passage on this resolution when it comes before you.
We further urge you to reject substantive amendments (such as 5, 8, 9 &12) that have been proposed by Councilor Kim Cook on the basis that they would:
Distort the purpose, scope and impact of the original resolution
Indefinitely delay the replacement of the Oxford Street Shelter (8)
Needlessly perpetuate the ever-worsening community crisis that has been created by operating out of the current failing facility (8)
Fail to provide an appropriate number of beds and level of service to achieve the primary goal of adequately sheltering those in need and improving the way Portland addresses homelessness (8 ,9, 12)
Result in a facility that is over capacity and ineffective as soon as it opens thereby replicating the same problems it was built to solve (8, 9)
Continue to unnecessarily strain the City’s public health and safety resources by failing to adequately support vulnerable populations
Shift Portland’s focus from dealing with the immediate crisis to imagining a shelter network for the entire state (5)
Distance the city from the daily reality of shelter operations and the impacts they may be having on the surrounding neighborhood (15)
Worsen the already unsustainable pressure on the Bayside neighborhood
The express intention of the resolution is to formalize guidance thus paving the way for Portland to enter the modern era of homeless services. Councilor Cook’s wholesale alteration of Item 8 and elimination of Item 9 eviscerate those intentions and instead propose that forces beyond the City’s control continue to shape Portland’s destiny.
Efforts to garner statewide support are vitally important but do not excuse the City from taking immediate and decisive action. Failure to do so will leave the City in the unfortunate position of having to defend its choice to allow an acknowledged community crisis and public nuisance to continue unabated. This is not like the paid sick leave initiative, where the City could reasonably defer action because the state was poised to act. There is no magical solution in the offing, and the stakes are too high to put off this decision any longer.
The original resolution and new homeless services center model, Shelter 2.0, will position Portland as a leader in effective, efficient delivery of services via federally endorsed best practices. It will allow us to become an example to follow instead of a cautionary tale. Most important, this facility will give shelter staff breathing room and resources to do their best work so clients have the dignity and support they need to quickly transition out of homelessness and into permanent housing.
The deficiencies of the existing city shelter were obvious twenty years ago, yet action was not taken. We are now living the consequences of allowing distortions, objections, assumptions and projected fears to drive the narrative about homelessness and prevent progress. This council has the rare opportunity to memorialize its tenure with a truly transformative decision.
We ask you to respect the expertise, research, and documented history of the process that has brought us to this point. We strenuously urge you to reject any amendment, alteration, or suggestion that delays the design and construction of the Riverton homeless services center, downgrades its capacity or compromises its mission. We ask you to choose a legacy of leadership.
Building the homeless services center in Riverton, based on policy guidance in the resolution before you, is the next step toward equity for all citizens and neighborhoods in Portland. The Board of the Bayside Neighborhood Association asks you to take that step, and the next, and the next until we enter the future through the doors of the new homeless services center in Riverton.
Sincerely,
Sarah Michniewicz President, Bayside Neighborhood Association
I live about a block away from The Oxford Street Shelter (OSS), in the green area above. In 2017 Councilor Ray facilitated a meeting requested by OSS abutters like myself, where leaders from many city departments gathered to listen to residents’ concerns. We discussed strategies to minimize the various externalities associated with hosting a cluster of social service providers that are scattered yet concentrated into a single neighborhood.
It’s now 2019, and in the last two years I’ve seen improvements to my quality of life. Where there have been specific efforts, I can point to specific results. I see this as a microcosm of the new kind of model planned for the homeless service center to be built in Riverton. The current location cannot support many of the intended best practices.
The OSS shelter is now open 24 hours a day, so there’s no need to eject clients directly into a residential neighborhood on the clock. Shelter staff regularly sweep nearby streets for both security and cleanup, as well as responding to direct calls. That has reduced litter including needles, trespassing and inappropriately stashed belongings, and public elimination.
The yellow area I call the “one-house radius” from the shelter. Unfortunately not much seems to have changed there. The Oxford-Cedar intersection is still often obstructed by antisocial loiterers. Some residents in this area fear reprisal if they complain too much, and say they have to keep their windows closed else let in spice smoke, etc.
The area in red is not directly related to the OSS, but has often been the poster child for what people fear near the new service center site (and prior proposed sites). The Preble Street Resource Center and Soup Kitchen are clearly overwhelmed, and in addition seem to consider community concerns outside their mission. If anything, things are worse here than two years ago. They’re basically maintaining an open air drug market, passively waiting for individuals to become ready to seek help.
Building Progress
In November 2017 Councilor Ray facilitated a meeting requested by abutters of the Oxford Street Shelter (OSS). Leaders from many city departments gathered to listen to residents, and discussed strategies to minimize various externalities associated with hosting a cluster of social service providers that are scattered yet concentrated into a single neighborhood. In many ways this meeting marked a baseline for measuring progress on such community concerns.
Many of the same categories raised as agenda items at that meeting have come up again in recent discussions around where and how to build a better service model. With the city council selection of a site to build a new homeless service center, and committee members starting to dig into policy details to be implemented there – this seemed like a good moment to take stock. Where have adjustments to operations already made a positive difference? What areas need attention while the existing model awaits an infrastructure upgrade? Are there lessons we can learn to make the new model even better? How can we ensure advances in Bayside survive after the OSS staff relocates?
In 2017 Bayside residents brought up issues falling into six categories:
I. – Community Relations
II. – Crime / Intimidation
III. – Substance Issues
IV. – Outdoor Overflow
V. – Excess Refuse
VI. – City Domain
I’m ranking current progress on a three-value color scale (Red–Yellow–Green), with outliers available for special cases.
Best – Consistently or Systemically Normalized / Solved
Good – Clear Improvement
Okay – Mixed Results or Partial Improvement
Bad – Worse or No Improvement
Worst – Dangerous or Emergency Situation
Taking Score
I. COMMUNITY RELATIONS
2017-2019 Progress
Generally Dismissive Culture
Neighbor
Outreach
Single Point of Contact
In 2017, OSS abutters felt nobody cared or wanted to listen, reporting a perception of general dismissiveness from all levels. Since then, improvements have gradually infused dealings with various entities, coming from the top down. Many changes have been made, with mixed results overall.
We’ve seen increased coordination of various bodies within a “non-system” originally exemplified by everyone ostensibly doing their own job, but in an insular way that previously hadn’t added up to progress. There is still no such thing as “active” community outreach, but people at a high level now make themselves available to those who go looking, and they have often provided creative, implementable solutions when so engaged. In general, a spotlight has been shone on Portland’s response to homelessness and all its surrounding issues, which has led to a wider conversation and seemingly the will to act.
The specific strategy of providing an “Abutter’s Hotline” (AKA “bat-phone”) did for a time provide a single point of access for those most affected, which was always staffed by someone versed in appropriate responses to the various types of situations one may encounter living adjacent to homeless services. However, socialization was left to residents, adoption was always low, and as fewer calls have gradually been required (due to other improvements below), the phone appears not always to be staffed when it is actually needed now, in times and seasons of higher activity. Some abutters are still fearful that frequently calling for service of any kind will make them targets of the alleged offenders.
Other affected residents don’t happen to “share an alley” with the OSS, and first contact for them is usually the police, if anyone. In 2017 a community liaison position was discussed but never materialized. Casting a wider net could potentially prepare some party that can remain available in Bayside after the OSS closes.
Calls for police service in Bayside are generally down. This is largely due to concessions by police command that the current reality in Bayside requires unique approaches which may not be relevant across the whole city. In addition, the OSS hired new dedicated, permanent security staff, provided better training, and implemented neighborhood sweeps which have helped immensely in most of the areas they patrol. Unfortunately the homes that are literally contiguous with the shelter (one even sharing a parking easement) have not seen much benefit. In addition, visibly much worse results are obvious around other providers which have not made the same efforts as the city.
The introduction of new illicit drugs onto the street has lead to more aggressive and less predictable behavior, and this is the only area marked as “worse” or “dangerous” (Bright Red) when comparing current trends to the initial baseline. This is especially true in that immediate “one-house” radius of the shelter (and other providers). In this particular realm it would help to ensure vertical consistency in police response – we’ve been told by leaders that the department needs to know when residents see obvious drug deals happening, but dispatch and responders sometimes push back on calls that don’t provide a specific opportunity to take action.
III. SUBSTANCE ISSUES
2017-2019 Progress
Public Drug Use / Drinking
Secondhand “Smoke” (spice etc)
Public Drug Dealing
Needles / other potentially dangerous paraphernalia
Although the security efforts mentioned above have reduced general incidence of all types of adverse neighborhood interactions in the middle distance from OSS (i.e. beyond directly adjoined properties and within the area that staff patrol), we do not appear to have made a dent in any problems stemming from substance abuse. Improvements in policing and sentencing strategies have not kept up with the opioid epidemic, or with increased availability of other substances such as spice, meth and fentanyl.
We need new solutions at all levels (not just the city) that can help those who are ready to recover from addiction, and also protect bystanders from core offenders such as drug dealers. We recognize this is an especially hard nut to crack, since your average drug deal is a moment in time, and police require direct evidence to remove those concealing such activities. Creative sentencing was discussed at the 2017 meeting, including ideas to utilize existing laws, but if any of these have been pursued there has been no visible effect. There is a critical need to craft solutions dealing with those who refuse service but still hang about, often preying on shelter guests, and as a byproduct anyone else who happens to find themselves nearby.
The one area marked as clearly improved (green) in the “now” column has to do with the reduction of dangerous paraphernalia littering streets surrounding the OSS. Shelter staff have really made a difference with regular pickup rounds. Again this sadly has not helped much in the critical ring right next door. And while the OSS has made valiant cleanup efforts, there are other providers that visibly have not, which are likely to remain a Bayside problem unrelated to the location of the city’s shelter intake hub.
Recommendations:
• City leaders can work closely with our more sympathetic state administration to find viable solutions to substance issues affecting Portland neighborhoods.
• OSS and Portland Police, perhaps in conjunction with the DA and/or judges, can craft a specific strategy for actively reducing the kind of entrenched predatory behavior that’s still commonplace in Bayside. This is likely to remain a locus of such activity after the transition to a new city service center elsewhere.
IV. OUTDOOR OVERFLOW
2017-2019 Progress
Loitering
Obstructing Public Ways
Noise / General Disturbance
Public Elimination / Indecent Acts
With the advent of twenty-four hour service last year, shelter clients no longer had to be ejected directly onto residential streets en masse by the clock. The security improvements already mentioned above have also helped reduced general loitering and disturbance, except in the small territory adjoining the shelter itself. That smaller circle unfortunately does include several homes, as well as the Cedar-Oxford intersection which remains obstructed during busy times and seasons. Newly installed bathrooms have reduced public elimination, leaving only a few noncompliant individuals. Other areas of Bayside require attention unrelated to the OSS, specifically the more dangerous traffic obstruction frequently present on the intersection of Preble and Oxford.
Recommendations
• Determine what can be done to improve outdoor disturbances that still occur proximal to the OSS itself
• Determine what the city can do about public disturbances in Bayside that are unrelated to OSS, and likely to continue after it closes.
V. EXCESS REFUSE
2017-2019 Progress
Litter
Stashed Belonging
Street Maintenance / Cleaning
OSS staff sweeps for both security and cleanup have greatly increased general cleanliness, and lessened the impact of general litter as well as inappropriately stashed belongings, which guests can now keep in onsite lockers. At times incentive programs have involved service users in cleanup and other benevolent activities. As with many issues, there is a small locus abutting the physical OSS shelter which remains unimproved, and a separate area of influence directly around another particular partner location that demonstrates worse problems.
Recommendations
• Find ways to enforce containment similar to those already helping nearby streets, but targeted for the homes directly touching or across the street from the OSS, perhaps reintroducing or expanding incentivized cleanup.
• We’d like to see the city work with other providers in Bayside to limit their impact in the way the OSS has.
VI. CITY DOMAIN
2017-2019 Progress
Police Response
Inspections
Housing
Economic Development
Infrastructure
Property Depreciation
Some issues transcend shelter policy but are intertwined with many of the problems Bayside residents had complained of in 2017. Specific areas looking up in Bayside at this checkpoint in 2019 include the beginnings of a relevant policing strategy rather than laissez faire attitude, and infrastructure improvements such as lighting, crosswalks and parking. A comprehensive transportation plan has been in the works and will soon go before the council.
Some areas do still need attention in Bayside. The inspections department does not appear to respond in a useful way to mitigate the presence of abandoned or dangerous buildings, and we need a more comprehensive way of dealing with absentee speculators who buy up property then neglect it. Housing developers continue to ghettoize low-income options into this district. Efforts into economic development have been poor to mixed, and increased property taxes are not reflected in market value. After the failed midtown project, the sale of city property was only a partial success, with one purchaser who promised to build offices now holding a sale agreement that would install yet more social services into the proverbial Bermuda Triangle we’ve been trying to break up.
Recommendations:
• Continue and extend the types of city programs that have had success in Bayside, from policing strategy to infrastructure improvements.
Moving Forward
SUMMARY
7
9
6
In two years the number of items ranked “bad” or “worst” has decreased to a third what it was in 2017. A lot of good work has gone into this trend for the better on the ground in Bayside. We have much work still ahead to “clear the red” from this ledger — at the OSS while the old model persists, and to counter established patterns in Bayside for the foreseeable future. Given the measurable advancements, willingness to make hard decisions, and continued attention, all this seems really possible to win for perhaps the first time.
Community Relations Improved somewhat in Bayside.
Crime / Intimidation Calls for service are down in Bayside.
Substance Issues have gotten worse in Bayside.
Outdoor Overflow & Excess Refuse Direct residential neighbors of OSS are still affected, but those in a wider radius have seen relief where there have been specific efforts. Other providers in Bayside have done little to reduce their negative impact.
City Domain Issues unique to Bayside have gotten some attention that we hope continues.
Many types of improvements have been implemented over the last two years in Bayside, and we interpret the positive vector as a microcosm of things to come. Real progress is obvious in many areas, and we do expect to see more. Nay we demand it! We hope that sharing our experience in detail can be valuable in the ongoing effort to develop the best policy and practice for everyone. Together we can make it happen.
In November 2017 Councilor Ray facilitated a meeting requested by abutters of the Oxford Street Shelter (OSS). City leaders from many departments discussed strategies to minimize the various externalities associated with hosting the city’s main emergency shelter, along with a cluster of other service providers that are scattered yet concentrated within a single mixed zone peppered with residential, business, industrial and governmental uses, all of which are mingled within the same block of streets. In many ways this meeting marked a starting point for measuring progress on community concerns around shelter services moving forward.
With the recent council selection of Riverton as the location to start building an improved service model, associated upcoming committee focus to hone city policies and procedures, and the state legislature having just voted again to allow emergency funds to be used for homelessness, this seemed to be a good time to take stock. The following “score card” is based on the experience and understanding of Bayside residents who have been living with these issues for decades, offered here with the intention of contributing to the ongoing conversation about how to continue improving the city’s service model for all parties involved. Similar efforts do need to be taken regarding concerns of guests, staff, and partners, but the express purpose of this document is to address neighborhood concerns regarding unintended negative consequences of living near shelter services.
Individual agenda items that Bayside residents raised as problems in 2017 are grouped into six larger categories:
I. – Community Relations
II. – Crime / Intimidation
III. – Substance Issues
IV. – Outdoor Overflow
V. – Excess Refuse
VI. – City Domain
A core three-value color ranking scale (Red–Yellow–Green) is used for simplicity, with outliers available for special cases.
Best – Consistently or Systemically Normalized / Solved
Good – Clear Improvement
Okay – Mixed Results or Partial Improvement
Bad – Worse or No Improvement
Worst – Dangerous or Emergency Situation
Three snapshots in time for the city shelter have been ranked:
(a) 2017 [PAST] – All concerns brought to the 2017 city meeting are ranked “low” as a baseline, since the specific purpose of that meeting was to seek solutions to problems that residents found unacceptable at that time.
(b)2019 [PRESENT] – Comparing the current experience of some of the same OSS abutters will show where improvements have been made, and where more work needs to be done.
(c)2021 [FUTURE] – Assuming the new center may become available for use some time in 2021, future rankings are largely based on changes inherent in the new designs and location, with allowances for specific issues raised either in public comment or the press. No visual ranking is shown to predict future conditions in Bayside after the OSS closes, though related items are discussed in detail text. Focusing on the new site is certainly not intended as an attempt to speak for Riverton residents, only to provide a birds-eye view of conditions directly relating to the city shelter, in hopes that such dialog will continue to enable better results.
At a high level, this analysis suggests three types of actionable items:
Improvements needed now i.e. – How to address issues that remain problematic at the current site until the new center opens.
Improvements needed to the new model i.e. – How to further enhance the new designs and plans to fit unique aspects on the ground now that the site is known.
Improvements that will still be needed in Bayside i.e. – How to address related issues that will persist in Bayside even after the OSS closes.
Taking Score
I. COMMUNITY RELATIONS
2017
2019
2021
Generally Dismissive Culture
Neighbor Outreach
Single Point of Contact
In 2017, OSS abutters felt nobody cared or wanted to listen, reporting a perception of general dismissiveness from all levels. Since then, improvements have gradually infused dealings with various entities, coming from the top down. Many changes have been made, with some improvement, and mixed results overall. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, residents near the future location are in effect “starting over” at an emotional place where they feel the city doesn’t listen or care about their experience.
We’ve also seen increased coordination of various bodies within a “non-system” originally exemplified by everyone ostensibly doing their own job, but in an insular way that had never added up to progress. There is still no such thing as “active” community outreach, but people at a high level now make themselves available to those who go looking, and they have often provided creative, implementable solutions when so engaged. In general, a spotlight has been shone on homelessness in Portland, and all its surrounding issues, which has led to a wider conversation and more awareness by more people.
The introduction of an “Abutter’s Hotline” (AKA “bat-phone”) did for a time provide a single point of access for those most affected, which was always staffed by someone versed in appropriate responses to the various types of situations one may encounter living adjacent to homeless services. However, socialization was left to residents, adoption was always low, and as fewer calls have gradually been required (due to other improvements below), the phone appears not always to be staffed when it is actually needed now (in times and seasons of higher activity). Some abutters are still fearful that frequently calling for service of any kind will make them targets of the alleged offenders.
We believe it’s time to revisit and adjust strategy for providing single point of contact when city operations adversely affect nearby populations. If possible, casting a wider net could include those affected who don’t happen to “share an alley” with the OSS. This could also potentially prepare for a transfer of such tasks to some party that will remain available in Bayside after the OSS closes, and act as a runway to new forms of outreach serving the newly affected community in Riverton.
Recommendations:
• For OSS staff to engage in a targeted effort to re-introduce direct abutters to the hotline (or other single contact), providing specific examples of types of uses, and expected response. Consider staffing a community liaison position, which was floated as an option in 2017
• For the Housing and Human Services (HHS) committee, as part of honing city shelter procedures, to develop a specific community outreach plan directed to the neighborhood that may be most affected when the new service model is implemented
• For the city to develop a specific plan detailing how it will continue providing a way for Bayside residents to seek help after the OSS staff is no longer present, until known problems are systematically not just situationally solved.
Calls for police service in Bayside are generally down. This is largely due to concessions by police command that the situation in Bayside currently requires unique strategies which may not be relevant across the whole city. In addition, the OSS hired new dedicated, permanent security staff, provided better training, and implemented neighborhood sweeps which have helped immensely in the most affected areas. Unfortunately this excludes those homes that are literally contiguous with the shelter (one even sharing a parking easement), and there are other providers which have not made the same effort as the city, and visibly much worse results are obvious on those blocks.
The introduction of new illicit drugs onto the street has meant more aggressive and less predictable behavior, and this is the only area marked as “worse” or “dangerous” (Bright Red) when comparing current trends to the initial baseline. This is especially true in the immediate “one-house” radius of the shelter (and other providers). In this particular realm it would help to ensure vertical consistency in police response – we’ve been told by leaders that the department needs to know when residents see obvious drug deals happening, but dispatch and responders sometimes push back on calls that don’t provide a specific opportunity to take action.
The new site allows some buffer that’s not possible on Oxford Street, and the new model provides services and space also impossible to accomplish in the current situation. Assuming a similar radius of overflow as historically seen at the OSS, this implies the new model will provide inherent improvements by reducing direct contact.
Although this all mostly points to additional upswing once the new design is realized, we must currently rank future state as “mixed”, due to the aforementioned unallayed fears of residents living near the new site. It’s time for the city to invent ways to actively foster trust in this process.
Recommendations:
• For police command and community policing to continue actively pursuing solutions to the unique needs of Bayside, immediately and into the foreseeable future.
• For the HHS committee / full council / city staff to produce a specific security and policing strategy as they flesh out implementation details for the new site.
III. SUBSTANCE ISSUES
2017
2019
2021
Public Drug Use / Drinking
Secondhand “Smoke” (spice etc)
Public Drug Dealing
Needles / other potentially dangerous paraphernalia
Although the security efforts mentioned above have reduced general incidence of all types of adverse neighborhood interactions in the middle distance from OSS (i.e. beyond directly adjoined properties and within the area that staff patrol), we do not appear to have made a dent in any problems stemming from substance abuse. Improvements in policing and sentencing strategies have not kept up with the opioid epidemic, or with increased availability of other substances such as spice, meth and fentanyl.
We need new solutions at all levels (not just the city) that can help those who are ready to recover from addiction, and also protect bystanders from core offenders such as drug dealers. We recognize this is an especially hard nut to crack, since your average drug deal is a moment in time, and police require direct evidence to remove those concealing such activities. Creative sentencing was discussed at the 2017 meeting, including ideas to utilize existing laws against loitering, camping in public places, smoking in vicinity of certain buildings, citing “unlicensed vendors”, stricter enforcement of failure to appear in court, etc — but if any of these have been pursued there has been no visible effect.
The one area marked as clearly improved (green) in the “now” column has to do with the reduction of dangerous paraphernalia littering streets surrounding the OSS. Shelter staff have really made a difference with regular pickup rounds. Again this sadly has not helped much in the critical ring right next door. There’s no such thing as “right-next-door” at the new site, and this type of fallout is likely to be somewhat more contained around the campus itself. And while the OSS has made valiant cleanup efforts, there are other providers that visibly have not, which are likely to remain a Bayside problem unrelated to the location of the city’s shelter intake hub.
This is as good a place as any to mention the critical need to craft solutions dealing with those who refuse service but still hang about, often preying on shelter guests, and as a byproduct anyone else who happens to find themselves nearby. The layout and location of the new center, as well as a clear contrast to existing pedestrian patterns in that area, all indicate that it will be less possible for such activity to blend into the street. However, this is another area where Riverton residents appear to fear the worst, and the city needs to provide a detailed plan of how its improved model will specifically prevent a new open air drug market from springing up.
Recommendations:
• City leaders can work closely with our more sympathetic state administration to find viable solutions to substance issues affecting Portland neighborhoods.
• OSS and Portland Police, perhaps in conjunction with the DA and/or judges, can craft a specific strategy for actively reducing the kind of entrenched predatory behavior that’s still commonplace in Bayside. This is likely to remain a locus of such activity after the transition to a new city service center elsewhere.
• At the same time, the council and/or city can demonstrate a specific plan for preventing such activity from taking root around the new location.
IV. OUTDOOR OVERFLOW
2017
2019
2021
Loitering
Obstructing Public Ways
Noise / General Distrurbance
Public Elimination / Indecent Acts
With the advent of twenty-four hour service last year, shelter clients no longer had to be ejected directly onto residential streets en masse by the clock. The security improvements already mentioned above have also helped reduced general loitering and disturbance, except in the small territory adjoining the shelter itself. That smaller circle unfortunately does include several homes, as well as the Cedar-Oxford intersection which remains obstructed during busy times and seasons. Newly installed bathrooms have reduced public elimination, leaving only a few noncompliant individuals.
The new model contains services onsite that OSS guests would currently need to traverse residential streets to access. As mentioned above, the new site includes a buffer that would subsume the sphere of most problematic activities. It is also not placed on an intersection like the OSS.
Riverton residents have expressed concerns that malignant behavior could leak into the nearby wooded areas, and this is a topic that requires a specific plan (reflected here in the “needs improvement” ranking of future public elimination). Other areas of Bayside require attention unrelated to the OSS, specifically the more dangerous traffic obstruction frequently present on the intersection of Preble and Oxford.
Recommendations
• Determine what can be done to improve outdoor disturbances that still occur proximal to the OSS itself
• Craft a specific plan to placate fears of inappropriate behaviors penetrating to the woods near the new site
• Determine what the city can do about public disturbances in Bayside that are unrelated to OSS, and likely to continue after it closes.
V. EXCESS REFUSE
2017
2019
2021
Litter
Stashed Belonging
Street Maintenance / Cleaning
OSS staff sweeps for both security and cleanup have greatly increased general cleanliness, and lessened the impact of general litter as well as inappropriately stashed belongings, which guests can now keep in onsite lockers. At times incentive programs have involved service users in cleanup and other benevolent activities. As with many issues, there is a small locus abutting the physical OSS shelter which remains unimproved, and a separate area of influence directly around another particular partner location that demonstrates worse problems. Also similar to other categories, the new system appears designed and placed in a way that will fundamentally contain the basic overflow, though we should remain vigilant when the service center goes into maintenance mode to ensure these expectations play out. Concerns about the wooded area mentioned in the last section also show up in the area of inappropriately stashed items.
Recommendations
• Find ways to enforce containment similar to those already helping nearby streets, but targeted for the homes directly touching or across the street from the OSS, perhaps reintroducing or expanding incentivized cleanup.
• Determine a specific protocol to preclude stashed belongings and other effects of siting services near wooded area.
• We’d like to see the city work with other providers in Bayside to limit their impact in the way the OSS has.
VI. CITY DOMAIN
2017
2019
2021
Police Response
Inspections
Housing
Economic Development
Infrastructure
Property Depreciation
Some issues transcend shelter policy but are intertwined with many of the problems Bayside residents had complained of in 2017. Specific areas looking up in Bayside at this checkpoint in 2019 include the beginnings of a relevant policing strategy rather than laissez faire attitude, and infrastructure improvements such as lighting, crosswalks and parking. A comprehensive transportation plan has been in the works and will soon go before the council.
Some areas do still need attention in Bayside. The inspections department does not appear to respond in a useful way to mitigate the presence of abandoned or dangerous buildings, and we need a more comprehensive way of dealing with absentee speculators who buy up property then neglect it. Housing developers continue to ghettoize low-income options into this district. Efforts into economic development have been poor to mixed, and increased property taxes are not reflected in market value. After the failed midtown project, the sale of city property was only a partial success, with one purchaser who promised to build offices now holding a sale agreement that would install yet more social services into the proverbial Bermuda Triangle we’ve been trying to break up.
We are not aware of similar concerns coming from people near the new site, so have marked these “good”. We hope that Riverton residents may self-advocate if such issues do exist. The one area we felt needed to be marked as mixed at the future site involves security fears already mentioned above.
Recommendations:
• Continue and extend the types of city programs that have had success in Bayside, from policing strategy to infrastructure improvements.
• Address security concerns in the new neighborhood with specific plans procedures and protocols for staff, police and neighbors.
VII. SUMMARY
2017
2019
2021
22
7
3
0
9
9
0
6
10
In two years the number of “bad” or “worst” items has decreased to a third what it was in 2017, and appears poised to halve again just based on existing design aspects of the new model. “Mixed” items are flattening out, while “improved” entries are projected to continue increasing over time.
A lot of good work has gone into this trend for the better, both on the ground in Bayside and in the research and development of the new service model. We have much work still ahead to “clear the red” from this ledger — at the OSS while the old model persists, in preparation to accommodate concerns about the new site, and to counter established patterns in Bayside for the foreseeable future. Given the measurable advancements, willingness to make hard decisions, and continued attention, all this seems really possible to win for perhaps the first time.
Community Relations Improved somewhat in Bayside, but just beginning in Riverton.
Crime / Intimidation Calls for service are down in Bayside. Riverton residents fear the worst.
Substance Issues have gotten worse in Bayside, and present a key fear to Riverton residents.
Outdoor Overflow & Excess Refuse Direct residential neighbors of OSS are still affected, but those in a wider radius have seen relief where there have been specific efforts. The new location and model are designed with a larger buffer, but nearby residents fear it will look more like other providers in Bayside who have done little to reduce their negative impact.
City Domain Issues unique to Bayside have gotten some attention that we hope continues.
Moving Forward
As I write this the city’s HHS committee is set to begin deliberations into city shelter policies and procedures. Specific questions have been raised about how many people Portland’s shelters system should serve, knowing that a third of Portland shelter guests currently come from other Maine municipalities, and another third from outside the state (not to mention the recent emergency with so many refugees finding their way to Portland from out of country). How do we intend to operate intake, and how will we enforce any new caps? What expectations do we have of those seeking services, and how will we handle cases where malicious persons may need to be expelled from the new center? Do data exist on why some people choose not to stay at the shelter, and how to reach them?
Homeless services involve many complex issues outside the purview of this survey, the basic focus of which has been neighborhood quality-of-life concerns. How best to serve protect and transport guests, how best to support staff, how to establish the best partnerships, how to involve other municipalities and levels of government, how to balance the needs of existing citizens with the needs of asylum seekers, how to balance a desire to help all who need it with the realities of Portland’s tax base, how best to support associated issues around mental health, etc etc etc. The council will ultimately have to touch on these and other questions as they tackle the details of building a better service model.
The types of improvements that have been implemented over the last two years in Bayside resemble miniature versions of the best-practices going into the design of the new service center, and we interpret the positive vector as a microcosm of things to come. Real progress is obvious in many areas, and we do expect to see more. Nay we demand it! We hope that sharing our experience in such detail can be valuable in the ongoing effort to develop the best service model for everyone. Together we can make it happen.
