PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – A group of business owners and people who live in Old Town held a press conference Tuesday, calling on city and county leaders to get a handle on crime. A KOIN 6 News crew followed Society Hotel owner Jessi Burke around the area on Friday to see some of the safety concerns.
Burke is encouraged by the change she sees just in the last few days around her hotel.
“I’m pleased with the fairly immediate action, and the support we got,” Burke said.
She thinks the clean-up is a direct result of the press conference she held earlier this week-calling on city and county leaders to get a handle of graffiti and crime there.
But as she and her friend Carrie Saum, who also works in the area, took a KOIN 6 crew around the neighborhood, they said much of Old Town is still struggling.
“Two weeks ago, I was walking here and there was a young mother. She had two super young kids and a baby on her hip, and as she walked by this encampment here, two men with hatchets started chasing each other, fighting and screaming. I immediately went over and put myself between this woman and her children and the hatchet fight,” Saum said.
Burke and Saum also pointed out large chunks of the sidewalk missing, and say people are stealing bricks from the ground.
“That’s the main source of breaking windows right now,” Burke said.
One restaurant was using packing tape to try to keep their shattered windows together. They say the violence and vandalism are driving out many businesses.
Additionally, employees at a nearby skate shop told Burke it was just shot. Burke says she’s heard shootings in the past.
“It’s like chaos reigns, it’s lawless. I think what’s really hard is that, city infrastructure exists like this because there’s a social contract for a rule of law and we don’t get that here so it’s like we just live in chaos,” Burke explained.
Burke and Saum also told KOIN 6 that on Monday mornings the sidewalks are also often covered in vomit, and said Old Town deserves better.