PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After police and the county say a woman was mauled by a pit bull on SE Hawthorne St., neighbors in the area are sounding the alarm about vacant buildings in the area, which they say attracts crime and drug use.
Cheryl Wakerhauser, owner and pastry chef at Pix Patisserie, shared that she had been attacked by a dog while she was out for a morning run. Police say the person who was caring for the dog overdosed on fentanyl when they responded.
After KOIN 6 News reported on the attack, neighbors began to reach out with safety concerns, saying that homeless people are breaking into vacant buildings and using them as shelter.
“We have a horrible problem with the building being taken over by homeless people,” said Heather Harron, who lives in the area. “They’re people going in there squaloring, starting fires, using drugs … It keeps getting worse.”
Portland police say they’ve been called to 4511 SE Hawthorne 16 times in the past year. Portland Fire & Rescue says that the address is on their “unsafe buildings list,” and that they have responded to calls of homeless people setting fires in the building and doing drugs at that location.
“It’s awful, I never come out, because I’m afraid,” Herron said. “I have to block off a part of my yard because people will hide and do drugs and leave their needles.”
Mayor Wheeler’s Office told KOIN 6 that the dog and owner in that recent attack were believed to be living in a vacant property. The office also released a statement on the issue of vacant buildings in the city.
“Most property owners are doing the right thing, even when they are facing the challenges of vacancies. For that, we thank them, and we appreciate the difficulty of vacant spaces. Abandoned buildings are inherently dangerous and more so in our current era. Fires among these buildings and other criminal behavior make these spaces a danger to all those around them and we are directing the Portland Environmental Management Office (PEMO) to identify the most dangerous buildings across the city and take immediate abatement action or initiative immediate code enforcement action through BDS, with the appropriate involvement from partner bureaus including police and fire. These instances of fires, drug dealing, unabated graffiti, and squatters cannot continue, and together we remain focused on cleaning them up and keeping property owners accountable.”