News from the Continuum

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

"Mayor Bennett's Monday Message 7/13/20" (a 5' risible video about City's homeless response)

The outreach position Salem Housing Authority asked for back in February has been funded by the remnant of Willamette Valley Community Health (the area's CCO before Pacific Source took over) and filled, and Redwood Crossings is expected to open August 1. 

The State of Oregon gave Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency (MWVCAA) a way around an uncooperative Marion County with new rules that allow the City (vs. the county) to request about $400K reimbursement for sheltering approximately 100 medically fragile homeless households in motel/hotels during the spring.  Only ~10% or so of participants exited to housing.  Since the program ended, the number of infections statewide has tripled.

The City estimates up to 200 of Salem's unsheltered are known to be camping in Wallace Marine and Cascades Gateway parks.  By all accounts, the City and ODOT are adhering to guidance/instructions not to clean up or remove camps elsewhere because of the pandemic.  This is known about ODOT because the City asked ODOT to conduct one or more clean ups in a state right-of-way and was told, basically, no.   

As with the protests, the City seems helpless and somewhat fixated on the negative effects of the camping on City services/resources.  Parks operations generally "continue to be strained", according to the City Manager, because of the pandemic.  Staffing and volunteers are down, inmate crews are not available, and restrooms, drinking fountains, and playground equipment have to be cleaned more frequently. See Public Works Operations Manager Mark Becktel's 6/11/20 report to the Salem Parks and Rec Advisory Board (SPRAB), below.

Back in May, we reported on SEMCA's concerns about camping at Cascades Gateway Park (see "Has Council 'moved the needle' on Homelessness?" (2 May 2020)).  A couple of weeks after that report was published, the West Salem Neighborhood Association (WSNA) (which  voted last December 2019 to "oppose use of West Salem parks as official designated locations for homeless camping") created a "homeless committee", to be chaired by Fay DeMeyer of "Hope Crest" fame (see "Zombie Hillcrest Project Revives" (29 November 2019)).

The May minutes don't reflect how or why the committee was formed, but DeMeyer stated at the June WSNA that the committee had "a mandate to look at not allowing our parks to be a homeless shelter."  She also said, however, that "any temporary move from the park would be detrimental to future plans."  What "future plans" she didn't say, but she talked a good deal about Hillcrest at the May meeting, and she mentioned it twice at the June meeting.

DeMeyer indicated that the committee planned to consult campers and come back to WSNA with a proposal that DeMeyer said would need to be executed in the next three months.  The WSNA chair asked her to coordinate with WSNA Parks Chair Micki Varney (see WSNA June meeting minutes). Varney represented SPRAB on the City's Food Task Force (see "Should the City Regulate Homeless Meal Distributions?" (9 May 2019).  As of the June meeting, DeMeyer's committee had not identified a funding source for any endeavor.

The U.S. District Court for the District Court of Oregon last week granted plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment in Blake v. City of Grants Pass on a number of issues that have implications for the City of Salem's camping and sit-lie bans. See Green, E. "Houseless plaintiffs win in lawsuit against Grants Pass."  (23 July 2020, Street Roots.)  It should be discussed at the Council work session on Police Department "responses to, and resources for, non-criminal status and behaviors (persons in mental health crisis, unsheltered persons)", which has been scheduled for September 21.  U.S. Magistrate Judge Clarke's opinion is informative, despite the surfeit of dicta, and worth the read ahead of the work session.  The decision is one more reason to believe conditions will not allow the City to enforce the camping ban at Wallace Marine or Cascades Gateway before March 2021 at the earliest.

The City is still planning to use 2640 Portland Road NE as a warming shelter for up to ~75 people, possibly in conjunction with a small (10-25) tent camping program in the parking lot, to be run by MWVCAA's The ARCHES Project.  The current plan calls for a seasonal (November-March) shelter at Portland Road and Church at the Park, supported by the Salem Warming Network.  The network consists largely of volunteers and some paid lead workers and is run by MWVCAA's outreach coordinator Ranette Gonzales, who replaces KayLynn Gesner.  See "MWVCAA's Cold-Weather Shelter 2019-2020."  (16 May 2020.)   

Pre-pandemic, the network had four locations, but not enough workers to use them all.  This season, the risk of coronavirus infection may mean even fewer volunteers.  The need to maintain social distancing certainly will reduce shelter capacity and require the use of partitions and a lot more cleaning.  So, more work, more resources, fewer workers, fewer bed nights. Weather is another unknown.  Last winter was mild; the network was "activated" for only 17 nights.  Early forecasts for the PNW this winter call for above-normal snowfalls, but MWVCAA has lowered the activation threshold for this winter to 35 degrees Fahrenheit, up from 32 degrees last winter. 

Funding is always an issue.  Although the City continues to suggest publicly that state shelter funding is a near-term possibility, the sharp drop in the state's lottery income due to the pandemic made impossible the sale of $273 million in state bonds needed to pay for such projects (e.g., affordable housing preservation ($25M) and affordable/market rate housing acquisition ($15M)).  "Funding for 37 Oregon projects killed by economic downturn from coronavirus pandemic."  (9 July 2020, AP/Statesman Journal.)  

 

12/5/20 update:  Harrell, S. "Housing Authority’s navigator acts as a bridge, connecting people on the street to help." (5 December 2020, Salem Reporter.)