Bamboozle Time in Montavilla

Homelessness Inc.™ pitches its latest scheme; someone actually utters the words, "property values."

This is how the Joint Office of Homeless Services crams its latest project down a neighborhood’s throat.

Invite the “community” and let them vent, take some mild and rather polite abuse, and then go ahead and do what you were going to do all along.

Let’s go to a neighborhood meeting¹ and watch it happen.

The “to do” in this case is the conversion of a former used RV lot at 333 Se 82d Avenue, near Stark Street, which the county bought during former chair Deborah Kafoury’s real estate binge; Portland Maps indicates that the property at 333 SE 82d sold for $575,000; Joe Loeb, in his Montavilla News micro-newsletter, says the owner told him that the county paid $2,250,000. (A second property at 1818 SE 82d was purchased by Kafoury for $2,015,000—so we tend to believe Loeb’s figure).

The neighborhood in question is Montavilla² , which has the bad luck of having halfway-affordable middle class neighborhoods bisected by Portland’s dirty joke of a street. The state mismanaged it for decades but recently tossed into the lap of the city and PBOT, which has plans to turn it into a sort of Parisian boulevard.

We talked about the dodgy purchase of the lot here in July, ‘23…but just to remind our late-comers, it’s next door to the loopy Sts Peter and Paul Church—few parishioners, but a haven for the homeless and drug addicts as one of the county’s “harm reduction” giveaways of pipes ‘n’ needles.

Nice for junkies; a disaster for nearby residents. (We’ll get to the latest chapter in that drama in a moment.)

I spent time at a recent party in the neighborhood talking with one of the next-door homeowners (who never got the memo from GuvTina that single-family houses are an enemy of the state), and let’s just say that “harm reduction” doesn’t extend to guarding neighbors’ property values.³

Copulation in your back yard? Check!

Syringes and tinfoil? Gotcha!

Any protection from the city? Who ya kidding?

And so the bureaucrats in the Joint Office of Homelessness (the black-box bureaucracy that’s supposed to pull the county and city governments together, even though they hate each other) showed up at the Montavilla United Methodist Church. Irony of ironies, it was itself a neighborhood eyesore allowing bums to camp on the sidewalks surrounding the church until recently. I remember driving home from my favorite dive bar one evening and seeing one of the tents burning merrily. It wasn’t unusual.

The head of the Joint Office was there, Daniel Field⁴, along with a few of his underlings.

…he’s in the middle, looking Portland cool in a down vest.

To her credit, the east side’s county commissioner, Julia Brim-Edwards, somehow found time from her other duties on the Portland school board to sit in a pew and take copious notes. She gave a short, noncommittal speech to kick things off, and then…

The dog ‘n’ pony show! The centerpiece was an architectural schematic of the site’s most recent iteration, revision, and rethink…

…which will take, according to the Joint, another $2-million and change to slam together after the neighbors get their chance to vent.

As one person in the audience noted, those block-shaped structures behind the lot are actually very nice Craftsman-era houses.

Here’s another view of the cubes…

….where people live (and, coincidentally, pay ever-escalating property taxes—which the RV lot used to also pay, but that’s now off the books).

Not to worry, said the speakers from the Joint: there will be an eight-foot fence at the back of the Village. One of the slides in the presentation mentioned that the community will be asked to determine the color of the “privacy slats” on the fence; the hues on offer are neutral, earth-tony, although, personally, we’d prefer Day-Glo orange.

A fenced-in village sounds a little medieval, which leaves one wondering, who’s being kept in and who’s kept out? Since the inmates will be “selected” (criteria left unmentioned), why have a fence at all?

As for the proximity of people who might want to (one day, soon) sell those houses, it prompted my first question: why, if Kafoury was happy to pay $2.5-million for the half-block, why not just buy out the houses as well? More room for more bums; a win-win.

Brim-Edwards shrugged that the deal happened before her election to the board. When I noted her semi-response (I used the word, “ducking”), the church’s pastor, Rev. Heather Riggs, grabbed the microphone, admonished me to be polite and added, “You’re in my house.”

It didn’t seem to be the right time for a theology discussion, so Brim-Edwards’ response stood. ⁵

But back to the schematic! Bottom line: this will be a crowded place…

One neighbor asked about the environmental impact of so many clunkers in one place, dripping oil and other fluids; one of the Joint spokespeople said they’d probably⁶ draw the line at replacing a transmission or dropping an engine; changing headlights would probably be OK.

Probably. A word much-used in the presentation.

The schematic didn’t actually pencil-in those 33 cars and their passengers⁷ but you can bet the guests will be milling around—there’s a little covered communal something-or-other in the center of the pod collection—but beyond taking showers and cooking in the communal kitchen, there’s nothing much to do. They’re not prisoners, and they will roam, just like any other bored citizens. Who knows; the campers might stroll to the nearby Vestal Elementary school—kids are such fun to watch.

Or they could go a block away to a McDonalds,since the Village’s operators are only on the hook, as the contract says, for a “minimum of one meal a day.” Or they could jaywalk to a pot store across the street, or maybe venture to one of the avenue’s nearby “massage parlors,” or to a gas station convenience store that’s notorious for bums doing little sidebar deals, and don’t forget the car wash on Glisan to spruce up their cars…who knows?

One bet is that there will be more little “God bless” signs held by people begging from passing motorists (who do not have free housing). There are semi-permanent beggers at Stark and Glisan and Burnside; competition may be lively for alms.

Which was the unspoken subtext (one of many) clearly troubling the neighbors in the audience. After all, the clients will be people who can’t seem to figure out the basic issue of shelter without government intervention, and who may be—on the evidence of the disorder at the former needle exchange at Sts. Peter and Paul, a trifle problematic in the area of crime and drugs—although as one of the Joints said, “They’re not all criminals!”

Not to worry: the Joints assured the audience that there’s a Good Neighbor Agreement in the works with the local neighborhood association. Plus, there will be an unmarked 150-foot cordon sanitaire around the Village, although things got vague when the Joint rep was asked what would happen if, say, a fentanyl dealer showed up to service the campers.

Answer: The city would have to take care of that.

Too bad there was no representative from the city at the meeting, thus no need to talk about the city’s fumbling attempts to get its “no street camping” ordinance past the courts.

The suggestion to call the police if all else failed got a quiet laugh.

Then it was time for a few words from the Rev. Dwight Minnieweather, whose nonprofit, Straightway Services, was picked (if that’s the right word; they were the only NGO who bid for the contract) to run the Village.

Whatever you can say about the Rev, he’s a talker, orator, stem-winder, pulpit-pounder. A question about his and the nonprofit’s experience running an operation this size resulted in a lengthy word-fog: He’s been “working with” the homeless for 20 years, distributing old clothes and visiting camps, and finding housing for some folks, and then (as Joint director Field began looking like a guy waiting for an overdue Uber) he promised that anyone from the community could drop by the Village, walk right in, see what it’s all about, nothing to hide. Anytime.

Joint director Field’s jaw didn’t drop—give him credit for self-control. But, if the Rev makes good on his promise, it will be the only one of the Joint’s portfolio of dingy apartments, clapped-out motels, and pod-collections⁸ to allow unfettered access.

If you doubt that, try strolling up to your nearest Village and asking for a taxpayer’s tour.

After the meeting, I managed to collar Director Field and asked if the Rev had gotten that part right.

“You don’t allow people to just walk into your home, do you?” he snapped, then moved swiftly to press someone else’s flesh.

He was gone before I could frame an answer—perhaps there’s a difference between a free, taxpayer-funded shed and something with a six-percent mortgage and escalating property taxes. Or…maybe not. It’s theology again.

As we reported back in ‘23, Straightway Services has never, ever handled anything of this size and complexity. Just to be sure about our memory, we pulled out Straightway’s pitch to the JOHS…

We have an accessible clothing closet, a food pantry, family mentorship programs, drug addiction mentorship programs, spiritual guidance, holiday gift assistance for 500 families per year, re-entry assistance for the workforce and housing, weekly walks through houseless communities to feed and converse, and many other forms of assistance.

After the meeting, I queried the Joint for a copy of the county’s contract with Straightway. Back came a PDF, 36 pages, filled with typical contract boilerplate, with the obligatory taking of the knee to POCs and “Racial and Social Justice,” without which nothing can be done by any Oregon government entity. Among the requirements: “…a synthesis of person-centered practices, positive and liberation psychology,” and “unconditional positive regard.”

Write if you can decode this stuff.

In addition, the contract lectures that “Housing First” is the governing philosophy (see Kevin Dahlgren’s dissection of that fantasy here), which recognizes that everyone is “ready” to return to permanent housing as soon as a suitable unit becomes available. No screening of applicants for “past legal history,” or “past or current substance use or mental condition,” is allowed and the campers can stay on the lot up to 24-months. ”Participants” who can’t follow the rules, such as they are, will be “excluded.”

To where? Don’t ask.

Finally, on page 27, we get to…

Who knows; maybe the metrics will include guided tours to view the “participants.”

It seems safe to assume that many in the audience—those with, as they say, “lived experience”—viewed the Joint’s eyewash with some skepticism. After all, it’s impossible to ignore all of the other stuff the city and county have dumped into the neighborhood in an effort to sop up the “homelessness” problem.

There’s the public-housing project we dubbed “the Whale” back in ‘22, with a total of 137 units crammed on a half-block of, mostly, single-family homes, including over 40 “low barrier” units for (you guessed it) people “exiting homelessness.“

The neighborhood freaked out last year when the city launched a trial balloon over a property on Glisan and 87th as one of the city’s Safe Rest Villages (see other neighborhood’s reactions to their Villages here); the mayor journeyed out to calm neighbors and backed off. But then Volunteers of America bought the derelict bunker-like church, and will raze it to construct a campus with (you guessed it) buildings for “substance use, behavioral health, and childcare services.”

Then there’s an old motel at 82d and the MAX stop, housing psych patients released from (aka kicked out of) local hospitals; plus a couple of halfway houses, and the other county lot waiting for the Joint’s tender mercies.

And then, a day later, came this announcement in Montavilla News…

On March 21st, PDX Saints Love held a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the beginning of new day services at the former Saints Peter & Paul Episcopal Church property. In a partnership with Shelter Portland, the nonprofit will help unsheltered and housing-insecure community members access food, housing, behavioral health treatment, healthcare, and work opportunities.

Another bum-magnet.

PDX Saints Love’s founder, Kristle Delihanty, expects the site to be active most weekdays, although outward-facing services occur only on certain days and times.

As for the inevitable outcome—bums just want to be together—Delihanty had this reassurance…

"If someone is camped right outside on Pine or Ash [street] and they came in to get services, we would have a conversation with them. We would let them know about the Community agreement with our neighbors and that we need them to abide by it. If they continue after a seven-day period to stay and camp, then we would withhold services…"

That bit of news was unknown to the people at the Joint meeting. Who clapped politely when the Joint called time—Portland Nice endures!

There will be another dog-n-pony show at the church on April 3. Maybe someone from the city will show up; could make for a lively exchange.

Ms. Brim-Edwards might attend again, since she’s got a political problem on her hands:

• There’ll be spokespeople from a Joint that doesn’t seem to answer to anyone (it’s fiendishly designed that way), with a message of “We might tweak the Village—but it’s a done deal, so suck it up.”

• She’ll have to decide how to vote to hire a charity run by a loquacious reverend that will have to learn as it goes, 24/7, TBD.

• Next door, there will be a new place for the feral in the wild to freshen up.

• There’s an elementary school a block or two away.

• Plus there are the usual cruising denizens on the avenue—the hookers are back near McDaniel (nee Madison) High—who are part of the native flora.

• Plus this drama will unfold a few blocks away from the residence of Angela Todd, who runs PDX.Real. She’s got 119K followers on Instagram. And likes to stir things up.

And this will all land in Ms. Brim-Edwards’s lap. How will she vote? (In the midst of a quiet civil war between the county council’s Big Girls over the chair’s unfettered power—yet another leftover of the Kafoury era.)

“I’ll be doing more than listening,” she said bravely after the meeting.

In the end it will be a binary decision, even though progressives don’t believe in the concept..

Yes or No?

We’re waiting.

1. As the local Montavilla News reported: “On December 7th, the Multnomah County Board of County Commissioners unanimously voted to postpone the two agenda items related to this project, asking for more community engagement before breaking ground on the SE 82nd Avenue site.”

2. As per Wikipedia: The name "Montavilla" originated from the abbreviations used on the streetcar destination signs when streetcars served the area starting in 1892.

3. The term “lowering our property values” was actually uttered by one of the audience members; no one hissed.

4. Field has an impressive pedigree, as per the county’s PR site: “Beyond his nearly two decades with Kaiser Permanente, Field also served as a staffer for former Gov. John Kitzhaber when Kitzhaber was president of the Oregon Senate, and as chief of staff for former Portland Mayor Vera Katz when she was speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives.” He’s being paid $220,000, plus benefits, to sort out the well-known mess at the Joint Office of Homelessness Services.

5. I had met B-E before, when she was running for office, at a coffee at Angela Todd’s house. I asked her a couple of creampuff questions; afterward she asked one of the hosts, “Who was that angry old man?”

6. Unfortunately, no one asked if this was the “best and highest use” of the property, nor did anyone ask how long this facility might be operated—assuming the progressive machine will, one day, solve “homelessness.”

7. Will any of the campers bring kids? It’s unclear from the Joint remarks or the contract with Straightway if that will happen. But, rest assured, there’s a little plot on the schematic for inmates’ dogs to relieve themselves.

8. A Joint representative noted the pods will be recycled from the county’s Covid-era downtown encampments—fully refurbished, of course, and fully air conditioned.