Dtown Hless Solutions Task Force - 1st Meeting

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Chair Cara Kaser and Urban Dev. Dept Dir. Kristin Retherford

About 100 people invested one way or another in Salem's downtown showed up for the first meeting of the Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force, including Chief Moore, Lt. Upkes, Sheriff Myers, and: 

A Somewhat Diverse Group

The task force was born out of the failure of the "sit-lie" ordinance last fall, and its charge is

[T]o address behavioral issues and propose solutions related to the specific impacts that homelessness is having on downtown vibrancy and livability, including issues such as trash and litter, abandoned property, health and hygiene, and other behaviors that impact perceptions of safety.  Our downtown should be an inviting and welcoming home to all of Salem’s residents, and a place where the rights and needs of customers, visitors, individuals experiencing homelessness, residents, business owners, and property owners are addressed equitably.

Salem's Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force First Meeting

The task force is chaired by Councilor Kaser and staffed by Urban Development Department Director Kristin Retherford.  Initially, a total of three meetings were planned, but last night there was talk of a possible fourth meeting on March 20.  (There will end up being six meetings total, last one in August.)

The members were chosen by the Mayor, Kaser and Retherford with the stated intention to have a blend of advocates, service providers, residents, businesses, and property owners.

The "advocate" designation would appear to be a matter for interpretation (name tents had only names).  Judging by the audience response to members' introductory remarks,  Shannon Garcia and Paul Logan probably qualify.

Shannon Garcia (Oregon Law Center), said she wanted to see community solutions,  particularly those involving the police, that focus on relationships.  More specifically, she wanted elected officials to treat homeless residents as "part of their constituency" and as valued members of the community.  (Applause.)

Lt. Upkes not summarizing sit/lie ordinance

Paul Logan (Northwest Human Services) (HOAP and HOST) said, "We need a recognition in the community that we need to join with businesses.  No longer is it going to work to say that social services and churches should fix this problem.  No longer is it going to work to say that law enforcement should... handle this problem [when the social services and churches efforts prove insufficient]...We've got to address this as a community." (Applause.)

Logan validated people's perception that the problem was growing by saying that, four years ago, roughly 600 patients at the West Salem Clinic identified as homeless.  Today, roughly 2,600 do so.  And, the number of kids and adults identifying as homeless in the HOST and HOAP programs has increased by 20%.  (The Mid Willamette Valley Community Action Agency (MWVCAA) closed its day shelter on Madison Street last June.  The next day, the number of people seeking services at Northwest Human Services' day shelter (HOAP) doubled to 140.  The MWVCAA shelter has not reopened.)  Logan added,

We are overwhelmed.  I have never seen a time in my 22 years here to where we almost have to close the doors... We're having to move people in shifts in order to take care of them.  There are that many more homeless people. 

And from CANDO's Neal Kern, "Like Cara said, it's an overwhelming problem to address, but I think some of the need is to feel that there's a process in place, both for folks on the verge of becoming homeless...once they are homeless...and for residents and business owners, if they're having an issue, what's their process?  Right now, it's like everyone's [trying to handle their own problems], without a lot of coordination."     

The situation is one that is leaving people feeling sad, angry, and fearful, but there was general agreement that the number of Salem residents who are homeless/at risk had sharply increased in recent years, that the increase was negatively affecting the entire community in a variety of ways, that the housing crisis resulting from the abrupt halt ten years ago in housing construction was/is a major factor, and that, while the problem is not unique to Salem, Salem needs to "do something."  But, deciding what that "something" should be, and who should do it, would have to be left for the third meeting. 

Meeting #1: Defining the Problem

The big question is, of course, what would it take to convince the business community they need to do more? 

The learning curve was looking pretty steep Tuesday night.  Sandy Powell (Olivia's) (where Shryock's used to be) told the task force that the downtown business owners she talks to are "feeling just as hopeless as the homeless are feeling."  Her observation would seem to suggest, among other things, that some in the business community are seeing themselves more as victims than as partners with social services and churches in finding solutions.  Can the task force hope to alter that perspective?

It was seven o'clock before they'd reached item "c" on the agenda.  Lt. Upkes did not summarize the sit/lie ordinance.  He did say several minutes in to his presentation that the police "can't evict someone [who's lying on] the sidewalk, yet that is one of our major complaints, so we're caught in the middle", but he also described how they don't just throw up their hands.  They engage the person who's creating the difficulty, ask them about their situation, offer to help them find services, sometimes transport them, etc.  He also explained that business owners don't always understand that, in trespass cases, "arresting" does not mean "jail."  It often just means issuing a citation (which can then lead to exclusion from the downtown).   Upkes' comments would seem to indicate the need to help business owners understand and accept a few practical and legal realities.

In the last few minutes of the meeting, the task force struggled to choose between practical needs and root causes in selecting the "top three" problems/needs from those they'd identified.  The "scope of work" says the task force is to

address behavioral issues and propose solutions related to the specific impacts that homelessness is having on downtown vibrancy and livability, including issues such as trash and litter, abandoned property, health and hygiene, and other behaviors that impact perceptions of safety.  

But it's not just the behavior of the people experiencing homelessness that the task force should be thinking about.  It's everybody's.  As Paul Logan put it,

What we can do as a city is look at a shared vision between service providers, law enforcement and businesses as to what downtown should be like -- for us [as service providers], as business people, [and] for the clients who live on the street...We [need to know where the boundaries are and] say the same things to people when we know they're crossing boundaries...We [as a city] need to be more consistent [in the way we respond to behavioral issues]...Having joint teams of law enforcement and providers [like the one between SPD and SHA] to create relationships, because behavior changes and people get ready for treatment based on a relationship that suggests there's something else out there [for them] and that they're valuable...and a lot of that does come through community policing.   

The meeting ended a few minutes after that, Logan's words having been captured on the poster paper as "shared vision" and "public-private partnership."