Editor’s note: This is the 4th story of “The Unsheltered Truth” a 5-part series from Jeff Gianola on homelessness in Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Inside a homeless tent on Monday morning, 70-year-old Pops is being taken care of by his partner Angela.
He feels better than he did the day before, when he was unable to get up from the ground. He suffers from severe neuropathy.
“We’re just about to get something to eat. He wants some of my cereal,” Angela said.
Thirty years ago, Jeff Gianola documented Portland’s homeless population constantly on the move, scattered across the city. Three decades years later, not much has changed.
“You gotta go here, you gotta go there, you gotta go everywhere,” Pops said.
Hope for the Wapato Jail
Many hoped the never-used Wapato Jail could become a shelter for people like Pops and Angela. The facility has space for more than 500 beds and room for services like mental health evaluations, case management, medical and dental, job and life skills training.
In April 2018, Multnomah County commissioners rejected the idea and sold the building to a developer.
“It’s too expensive, it’s too far from services, there’s no transportation and the land use policies don’t allow it,” Multnomah County Chair Deb Kafoury said.
“I heard everything from it’s too far out, it doesn’t have access,” said Greg Baker, who heads Portland’s Blanchet House. They’ve been feeding, housing and rehabilitating lives for 70 years.
“I saw Wapato as an economic development engine to address a major problem here and people didn’t want to do it. They made all kinds of excuses,” he said.
Watch: Greg Baker of Blanchet House offers his solutions for Portland’s homeless
Union Gospel Mission’s Bill Russell says Wapato could have mirrored Haven For Hope, a successful homeless program in San Antonio.
“I do think it’s feasible to create a staging area out there and breed collaboration and partnership,” Russell said.
The county did spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a former strip club to house homeless families, but there were sanitary and structural problems, with part of the roof collapsing last fall. A total of 110 families had to be relocated to other shelters.
Surprise twist in Wapato saga
Local developer Homer Williams and his non-profit Harbor of Hope lost their chance to turn Wapato into a homeless shelter last year, but then in a surprise twist, the new owner sold his interest to real estate magnate Jordan Schnitzer, who offered Williams a lease to run Wapato as a shelter.
“It’s got everything you need. Kitchen, offices, land where you could build transitional housing,” Williams told KOIN 6 News..
It’s still unclear if Harbor of Hope can get final approval to run Wapato as a shelter. This isn’t Williams’ first shelter battle. Last year, his idea to turn Terminal One at the Port of Portland into a centralized homeless center was rejected by city leaders. Williams kept pushing, calling on local business leaders to step up, and they did.
Last month, Columbia Sportswear president and CEO Tim Boyle donated $1.5 million to Harbor of Hope for a new ‘homeless navigation center’ to erected near the west end of the Broadway Bridge.
“This is an ongoing problem that is not going away with one building so I’m committed to being around a long time,” Boyle said.
“The problem is so big it’s going to take an effort far above what the city is capable of doing,” Williams said. “It doesn’t have the money.”
But it’s not just the lack of money. Local government leaders have always pushed permanent housing over shelters. Williams says Harbor of Hope is focusing on dealing with the current crisis now.
“And the reality of it is job #1 is to get these people in a safe place with a covered roof, with proper medical care, with showers and bathrooms and food,” he said..
A new homeless population: Aging baby boomers
Williams warns of a new homeless population – aging baby boomers who are now finding themselves unable to afford housing. He envisions Harbor of Hope shelters in every local neighborhood.
“Every neighborhood is going to have a homeless shelter. It needs to not fight it because they’re going to have some sort of their old neighbors living there, frankly,” Williams said.