CANDO Archive: re Meals Under Bridge

A meal under the Marion Street Bridge, 2015

Community Conversation

23 January 2019

Revised 28 January 2019

Revision added note re meal being served in parking lot at 615 Commercial St. NE and permit form.

Intro: CANDO and First Christian Church hosted this community conversation to facilitate the sharing of information and perspectives about the situation in Marion Square Park, the need for the City to ensure public safety and the desire of residents to serve meals to people experiencing homelessness in City parks and facilities. The conversation is necessitated in large part because the City has not informed CANDO of its actions and decisions in this matter. It is also consistent with CANDO's annual goals.

Attending: Jennifer Kellar, City of Salem Public Works Department, Parks & Recreation Division; Dan Sheets, Humanitarian Ministries Network of Salem (HMNS) (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday evenings); Jenni Betschart, Salem First Nazarene (Friday evening); Erik Lindsey (Friday and Saturday); Kevin Gray, East Salem Seventh Day Adventist Church (Sunday evening); Yvonne Paez and Patricia Less, Grace Fellowship Outreach Church; Pamella Watson, First Congregational UCC; Jackie Lancaster, The Way Church; Debbie Cook, Inside Out Ministries; Jimmy Jones and Ken Houghton, Mid Willamette Community Action Agency; Dan Clem, Union Gospel Mission; Joe Schomus, Morningstar Church; Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston, CANDO; Teri Morgan, Be Bold Ministries and Culinary Missionary; Jeanne Collins and Dan Rouslin; Bob Fritts; Harold Moore; Jeremy Ellis; Lorrie Walker; Rebecca Attenberger; Neta Fredrickson; Jerry Barza; Angelina Lockhart; Trish Sickendick; Cerri Mirhlinn (sp); Harry and Jeong Ahn; Brenda Ellison; Rob Uplinger

Meeting notes: Michael Livingston opened the meeting at 5:30p, welcoming everyone and asking them to share their name, organization if they had one, and what brought them to the meeting.

The vast majority had volunteered picking up trash and serving meals under the bridges. They were at the meeting because they were concerned about the City's recent action to disallow meals under the Marion Street Bridge and hoped that the City would reconsider. They are involved in meal distribution out of moral and religious conviction and in the belief that there are about 100 people in the area who would or could go hungry, but for the meals served by these groups.

The City owns some portion of the area under the Marion Street Bridge. ODOT owns the rest, and the area under the Center Street Bridge. ODOT has always posted these areas "No Trespassing."

All agreed that the tables and benches were, at least in retrospect, a bad idea, because they invited and facilitated camping.

There was a general sense that the City should have cleared the camp much earlier than it did.

Questions about when the decision was made to clear the camp and who was consulted went unanswered, as did the question whether or not the City was willing to reconsider the ban on meals under the bridge. Kellar said that was for the task force being formed by the City Manager. (The task force work plan outline published subsequently made clear that the task force would not be reconsidering the ban.)

Most were concerned that the City had not made it known that the permitting program was in the nature of an experiment, or consulted those serving meals in its development. Kellar said the City Manager's task force would include meal providers.

There was general agreement that, despite best efforts on the part of meal providers to clean up and get consumers to leave the meal distribution area following meals, there is a nexus between the meal distribution and consumers lingering, if not camping, in the area nearby, and the need for the City to provide additional garbage removal services, though one group takes its garbage with them.

There was disagreement about the nexus between meals and other adverse impacts on Marion Square Park, e.g., graffiti, drug use and property damage. See "AGENDA: Salem to outline new task force on meals for homeless, talk of new downtown apartment." (26 January 2019, Salem Reporter.) (Quoting a City staff report and Dan Sheets about the effects of meal distributions on Marion Square Park.)

There was no disagreement that high-needs individuals are concentrated in Marion Square Park, or that the park is home to significant violence and drug trafficking.

There was general agreement that human trafficking victims were being preyed upon during the meals by drug and human traffickers.

There was general agreement that some of the homeless community simply cannot tolerate being indoors long enough to have a meal. (The groups facilitated by Dan Sheets once served their meals indoors at the SonRise Church when it was located in the Marion Car Rental and Park on Commercial Street.)

By agreement with the Mid Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, meals are being served in the south parking lot of 615 Commercial Street NE (since 15 January 2019), and the City is paying the cost of additional garbage removal services for 30 days.

The City Manager told the City Council that he would have a report for the meeting on January 28.

At 7p, Michael thanked everyone for coming and said the report would be posted on CANDO's FB page shortly after it was published.