Council Declares Unsheltered Emergency, Now What?

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Safe Sleep Director Lynelle Wilcox 1/12/20

As predicted, Council Tuesday night adopted a resolution declaring an emergency relating to unsheltered residents, but, when it came time to face down the angry neighbors of the South Central Area, they choked.  See Brynelson, T. "Salem Declares State of Emergency on homelessness, but scraps shelter plan."  (21 January 2020, Salem Reporter.) and "Why Salem leaders, weeks into a search for homeless shelters, walked away from new shelter beds."  (22 January 2020, Salem Reporter.)  See also, Barreda, V. "Pringle Hall off the table as temporary shelter, car camping approved."  (21 January 2020, Statesman Journal.)

The declaration temporarily cleared the way for the Safe Sleep women-only shelter to expand capacity by nine more spaces, and a pilot car-camping program that's so strict it will have few if any takers.  And, the "emergency" will expire March 31.  

The work session was supposed to have been on the 2020 Policy Agenda.  Council added the emergency declaration to the agenda last week, apparently thinking they were all in agreement on the use of Pringle Hall as a temporary shelter.  But then Councilor Andersen and Mayor Bennett met with the neighbors from Gaiety Hill and the west side of Church Street, and their convictions waivered.  So, even though Council had the facts and the moral high ground to proceed with the proposal to turn Pringle Hall into a temporary overnight shelter, it ultimately did not have the votes.

606 Church Street SE, "Pringle Hall"

Mayor Bennett was never fully on board.  Like Hoy, he strongly supported sit-lie and the camping ban, as well as HRAP and strategies to end, vs. manage, homelessness.  He didn't see the Pringle Hall proposal "fitting into any kind of rational program."    

Hoy, however, came to the work session "fully intending on supporting opening Pringle Hall."  Then he heard from the neighbors.  And, like Bennett and Andersen, he waivered.  Hoy called up Jimmy Jones, the Executive Director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency (MWVCAA), and asked, "How many folks from downtown will be going out to Pringle?"

Jones had said the week before, at the meeting with the Pringle Hall neighbors, that about half of those outside Rite Aid and the Nordstrom building would use the shelter.  But, on Tuesday, he never answered the question.  He talked about the efforts to provide shelter and housing.  He explained why making Pringle Hall a women-only shelter made no sense.

So, Bennett asked Jones what "change on downtown streets" would result from opening Pringle Hall.  Jones said any change would be "largely invisible" and downtown would "stay pretty much the way it looks and things will stay pretty much how they look now during the day."  (Emphasis added.)  Jones had said earlier that opening Pringle Hall overnight would reduce suffering and even a few deaths.  He'd also said, as noted above, that about half those outside Rite Aid and the Nordstrom building would use the shelter.  Apparently, he didn't view getting people off the streets at night as a "change on the downtown streets", and neither did the Council.

Councilor Hoy 1/21/20

Hoy promptly executed a volte-face.  "We heard from our expert that Pringle Hall is not going to significantly impact the situation. And so, in my mind, if it’s not going to significantly help and we have a lot of neighbors who think it’s going to make their neighborhood worse, then it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to do it.”

But, of course, the Pringle Hall proposal was never intended to "significantly impact the situation."  It was only meant to get a few people inside at night, thereby reducing suffering and maybe a few deaths over a short period.  Hoy wasn't misinformed, and he didn't need "expert advice" to know Pringle Hall wasn't going to "significantly impact the situation" downtown during the day.   

In the end, only Councilors Lewis, Nordyke and Ausec held true to the stated purpose of the Pringle Hall proposal and voted in favor of it.  Councilors Hoy, Andersen, Nanke and Mayor Bennett all voted against.  Leung and Kaser were absent.

The vote on the Pringle Hall proposal is a good indicator of this Council's priorities.  Despite their rhetoric and posturing, the primary aim of Council is to avoid controversy, and "to see a difference downtown."  That means, in effect, that whether the "street homeless", as they are sometimes called, disappear into shelters, or permanent housing, or the woods, or industrial areas doesn't much matter right now, as long as there's no controversy, and they're not downtown.  So, how can one expect those priorities to shape the Council's future policy decisions?

City Zoning Map

Before voting against the Pringle Hall proposal, Hoy asked Jones how Council might "see a difference downtown", and Jones replied, "My advice would be to repeal the camping ban in the industrial areas of town so that there would be a place where people could safely camp without the impact on the commercial and residential areas."

Council readily asked staff to look into it. (Staff said "bad idea", but on 1/27/20, Council voted 5/4 to direct staff to come back 2/10/20 with a proposal to limit the ban to downtown, parks and residential areas.) (Separate park regs prohibit camping.)

There are, of course, no industrial areas in CANDO.  They're pretty much concentrated to the south in SESNA and SEMCA and in NEN and Northgate to the north.  (One does have to wonder if the City Council's overarching intent here isn't to maximize the number of residents offering public comment at their meetings.)  Lifting the camping ban in some areas and not others would be controversial.  Lifting the camping ban until March 31 would be extremely controversial -- and would not move people out of downtown. 

Jones had other advice:  "We" need to purchase "a duration warming facility" that would shelter up to 125 a night. He said he had a building in mind, but it wasn't zoned properly (1185 22d Street SE -- SESNA).  Jones thinks the state might cover the $3.5M purchase price.  Council readily asked staff to explore rezoning.

1185 22d St SE (aqua square)

Based on the Pringle Hall precedent, the decision to rezone will depend on whether "a lot of neighbors  think [a shelter]’s going to make their neighborhood worse", and if so, whether it will "significantly impact the situation" downtown during the day.  The decision could be very controversial.  On the other hand, SESNA's a different neighborhood, so maybe their response will be different from SCAN's.  One can only hope. 

Finally, Jones advised Council to have a navigation center "in the works or up and running" by next winter.  The nav center proposal was to come before Council as part of the discussion on the 2020 Policy Agenda (item 1c), once Council was finished with the emergency declaration.  However, the City Manager, understandably, wanted to postpone it because of the late hour and the "intensity" of the discussion up to that point.  So, without objection, Council postponed the 2020 Policy Agenda work session to February 18, 2020 (tentative).  When Council takes up the policy agenda in February, expect to see the sobering center project replaced by a nav center project.

Outside the Nordstrom Building 1/21/19

Whatever else happens in the short term, the pressure on Council to "do something" that will have a "visible impact" on downtown during the day, which is code for removing street homeless and their belongings from the sidewalks during the day, is likely to continue.  Despite its being controversial, expect Council to bring back sit-lie as early as April or May.  Do not expect Council to designate city property for camping.  (2020 Policy Agenda (item 1g)).

Longer term, expect the Salem Housing Authority to continue its Homeless Rental Assistance Program (HRAP) until the funding runs out, and to pursue homless housing projects.  Expect City staff to work with Jones to secure a building for duration warming, if the state comes through with the purchase price, and to turn 615 Commercial Street into a nav center.  Expect the City to continue to provide leadership and support for the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance, but do not expect that work to have a "visible impact" on downtown during the day.  Finally, do not expect Council to develop a comprehensive policy on homelessness, even though such a policy would allow it to avoid unnecessary and time-consuming controversies and "wandering our way through" the various homeless policy proposals it's asked to consider.