Posted inCity Council Homeless

City Council struggles with managing vs. ending homelessness

Tonight the Salem City Council had a work session on its 2022 Policy Agenda. I watched some of it, but I have a low tolerance for discussions of this sort that tend to have elected officials and staff talking at length without really coming to grips with key issues in a fashion that ordinary people can relate to. (If you have a high tolerance for this, the work session can be viewed here.) Of course, maybe I missed a part of the work session where city councilors did come to grips with the top priority of the City of Salem…
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Posted inCity of Salem Homeless Police reform

We need to keep Salem from having Portland’s problems

I used to have Portland envy. Not so much that I wanted to move there -- I've had a Salem address since 1977 -- but Portland seemed like the cool kid to our north, while Salem was decidedly geeky. Now, though, I'll happily take Salem, even if termed So-Lame, over Portland's increasing dysfunction.  Every night my wife and I watch the Portland late night news on KGW. I used to fast forward through a couple of minutes of crime news, because I don't like the "If it bleeds, it leads" sort of journalism.  Throughout 2021, and especially recently, shootings, vandalism,…
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Posted inCity of Salem Homeless

City Council to reconsider West Salem homeless micro shelter camp

Complaining works. A Salem Reporter story, "Salem City Council to reconsider west Salem managed camp after opposition from neighbors," tells the outraged tale. West Salem's city councilor wants the council to reconsider allowing a managed homeless camp on Wallace Road after residents objected to the plan. At a Monday meeting, the council will hear a motion from Councilor Jim Lewis to reconsider the council’s previous approval of a managed camp along Wallace Road following overwhelming opposition to the project voiced during a Tuesday meeting at Salemtowne. In council documents, Lewis explained that he wanted the council to withdraw its approval…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Homeless

Salem’s homeless need Biden’s infrastructure plan

Whenever I read about Salem's homeless problem, I feel way more sympathetic toward city officials and the City Council than I usually do. There's simply no easy answers. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Today's excellent story by Whitney Woodworth in the Statesman Journal lays out the "Mission Impossible" facing city leaders.  After more than a year, Salem officials are poised to end sanctioned camping for those living in Wallace Marine and Cascades Gateway parks starting June 1. But the problem that has plagued the city for years persists — there are not enough shelter beds, transitional…
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Posted inHomeless National politics

Homelessness and other big problems always should shock us

Today the Statesman Journal had a front page story about homeless campers being flooded out of Cascades Gateway Park following the recent heavy rains.  This story didn't shock me, because I recall the same thing happening at Wallace Marine Park not too long ago, seemingly last year or the year before. Yet I should have been shocked by the very idea of people in the United States having to sleep outdoors because they lack a home. There's an old saying, familiarity breeds contempt. It also appears to lead to complacency.  This is dangerous when it comes to problems facing our…
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Posted inCity Council Homeless

Mark Wigg draws attention to plight of homeless in Wallace Marine Park

Salem citizen activist Mark Wigg doesn't mince words. Here's his advance prepared remarks that closely reflect part of what he said in public testimony at last night's City Council meeting.  Below I'll share my thoughts about what Wigg says. Mayor Bennett, I ask you, Steve Powers and Peter Fernandez to resign because your criminally negligent policies and actions may have led to the rape and murder of at least a dozen women in Wallace Marine Park. When you forced the homeless to leave downtown Salem, you told them that they could camp at Wallace Marine Park and Cascade Gateway Park.…
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Posted inCity Council Downtown Homeless

Revised sit-lie ordinance is a laudable compromise, but still flawed

Last night the Salem City Council voted 7-1 to move ahead with considering Cara Kaser's creative attempt to find a middle ground on how to deal with downtown's homeless problem. (Jim Lewis was the only no vote; Tom Andersen was out of town). A Salem Reporter story, "Salem City Council moves ahead with sit-lie -- with some conditions," explains the essence of Kaser's approach. The Salem City Council is moving forward with a plan to ban sitting and lying on public sidewalks — with provisions. Councilor Cara Kaser made a motion to go ahead with the ban on Monday, Feb.…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Downtown

Salem’s proposed sit-lie ordinance rests on a bunch of “can’ts”

Tomorrow there's a good chance the Salem City Council will approve a citywide sit-lie ordinance that prohibits sitting and lying on public sidewalks between the hours of 7 am to 9 pm, subject to certain exceptions.  Aimed at homeless people, obviously, this is the most recent attempt to pass a sit-lie ordinance, which so far has failed to get a majority vote from the City Council. Mayor Chuck Bennett Mayor Bennett really wants to have it passed this time, as a recent Salem Reporter story made clear. Here's an excerpt from "Salem Mayor pushes for 'sit-lie' in the face of…
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Posted inChamber of Commerce Citizen involvement Homeless

A view of Salem’s problems from wide angle of inequality and corporatism

Watching the Salem City Council discuss homeless solutions last Tuesday night made me feel like I was looking through a magnifying glass. The problems were real. The ideas about how to help homeless people were tiny. Now, there's nothing wrong with small steps, like allowing a women's homeless shelter to add nine beds to their current 10 bed capacity, or considering allowing the homeless to camp in industrial parts of town. But equally valuable, if not more so, is looking at Salem's problems through a wide-angle mental lens that sees homelessness, environmental degradation, lack of affordable housing, urban sprawl, and…
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Posted in2020 election City Council Homeless

Great idea to deal with Salem’s homeless problem

A few days ago Susannn Kaltwasser asked an excellent question on a Facebook page where Salem City Council issues are discussed.  Kaltwasser is correct. An October 2019 survey of Salem residents found that after being asked an open-ended question, 41% said that homelessness and poverty were their top concerns. Crime and drugs were mentioned by only 4%. Here's a screenshot from the survey report, So it's perplexing that City officials want all of a proposed employee-paid payroll tax that will be on the May 2020 ballot to go to public safety. Here's a information sheet about the payroll tax and operations fee…
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Posted in2020 election City Council Homeless

Homelessness is a lot like climate change. Local action isn’t nearly enough.

Watching how city staff and the City Council are trying to deal with Salem's homeless problem reminds me of a 60 Minutes story I saw recently about Venice's flooding problem. The periodic floods of Venice have become more threatening and more frequent. This past November, a sudden storm surge overwhelmed nearly 90% of the city. Climate scientists say what happened that night exactly two months ago in Venice is a warning to the world of what's to come – and not just in Venice. Climate change is raising sea levels. Venice is being inundated with water to a greater extent…
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Posted inCity of Salem Homeless

Not supporting Salem’s Arta Potties was a dumb move by city officials

Back in 2015, providing artistically decorated Arta Potties (portable toilets) in downtown Salem was a brilliant idea of Rebecca Maitland Courtney and other women who wanted to give homeless people a place to go, rather than defecating and urinating in public places. First Arta Potty (photo courtesy of the Arta Potties Facebook page) But the folks at City Hall, including the Mayor and City Manager, never supported Arta Potties in any meaningful way, apparently figuring that putting them downtown would encourage the homeless to congregate in central Salem. Well, guess what? Five years later, there are more homeless people sleeping downtown…
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Posted inCity of Salem Homeless

Bad P.R. for City of Salem: homeless and library debacles

The folks who run City Hall aren't doing very well in the public relations department recently. KGW News has been doing a good job of holding city officials accountable for failing to live up to their promise to add shelter beds for the homeless following a citywide ban on homeless camps. Here's how a January 3 KGW story starts out. SALEM, Ore. — More than two weeks after the city of Salem enacted a ban on public camping and two days after their self-imposed deadline, by which they promised to open 140 shelter beds, officials confirmed they’ve come up woefully…
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Posted inHomeless

Yin and Yang homeless proposals: car camping and Hillcrest purchase

Homelessness is too big a problem in both Salem and elsewhere for one-dimensional solutions. It's going to take a wide variety of ideas, both tried-and-true and out-of-the-box, to make a dent in Salem's homeless population. So congrats to City Councilor Chris Hoy for a small "yin" proposal that would set up an organized location on private property for people who sleep in their cars.  A Salem Reporter story, "Salem official eyes organized camping for people who live in vehicles," describes Hoy's idea. As city of Salem staff hunt for a place where homeless residents may legally set up tents, staff…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Homeless

Salem City Council allows homeless to camp on public property. But where?

At last night's City Council meeting a big change was made to the homeless ordinance that passed at the previous meeting, and required a "second reading" to become law. Instead of banning camping on public property entirely, the council decided to allow homeless people to camp on approved city-owned property. Here's some excerpts from a Salem Reporter story by Troy Brynelson, "Salem bans open camping and now seeks a place to host it." (Kudos to Brynelson for using "eighty-sixing" in his story. I haven't seen this term used in a long time, and I'm old.) Tents and other dwellings will…
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Posted inCity Council Downtown Homeless

Salem City Council’s “sit-lie” decision seems well-balanced

Democracy in action. At last night's City Council meeting there was spirited debate about a proposed ordinance aimed at reducing perceived problems caused by homeless people, the most controversial part being a ban on sitting or lying on a sidewalk during daytime hours.  I watched much of the meeting via a CCTV feed. Citizens testifying against the ordinance far outnumbered those in favor of it, who mostly were from the downtown business community and Chamber of Commerce. Both sides had reasonable points to make. Homeless people do cause problems, both in downtown Salem and elsewhere. But the sit-lie portion of…
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Posted in2020 election City of Salem Homeless

Homelessness is a problem that’s too big for Salem to solve

Yesterday I attended a Progressive Salem meeting that featured remarks by two highly qualified City Council candidates, Vanessa Nordyke and Trevor Phillips. (Nordyke has been appointed to the council to fill a vacancy, and is seeking a full term in the May 2020 election.)  Homelessness came up in both audience Q&A's and the initial remarks. What struck me loud and clear is a simple fact that shouldn't be overlooked even though it is obvious: Homelessness is a complex problem that will require action at all levels of government, plus the private sector and nonprofit organizations, to find viable solutions. Sure, the…
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Posted inHomeless

Why homelessness is an absurd problem, philosophically

Being human is tough. We're subjective creatures, as are all other animals. Yet unlike our fellow primates with whom we're closely related, us Homo sapiens possess a strong capacity for objectivity -- seeing the world from a perspective largely, though not completely, distinct from our personal viewpoint. Many social problems are difficult to perceive clearly given the often-blurry double vision that comes with our twin capacity for empathetic subjectivity and detached objectivity. Homelessness is one such problem. I got to thinking about this after finishing a book by philosopher Thomas Nagel today, The View From Nowhere. Nagel is more famous…
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Posted inDowntown Homeless

Check out the City of Salem’s new “sit-lie” proposed ordinance

Something needs to be done about homeless people sleeping on sidewalks during the day, and leaving their belongings on sidewalks. The City of Salem has come up with a proposed approach that seems quite reasonable. Because there's been discussion on Facebook and elsewhere that this amounts to a criminalization of being homeless -- which isn't true -- I'm hoping that people will educate themselves about the proposed ordinance before rejecting it as a bad idea. Below I've copied in the questions and answers from a City of Salem web page, "Salem responds to growing concerns of activities in public right…
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Posted inCarole Smith Downtown Homeless

A perspective on how homeless people are hurting downtown

I've said it before, and I want to say it again: We've got to get over a reluctance to talk honestly about downtown's homeless problem. It's possible to both (1) feel compassion toward homeless people and (2) feel bad about how homeless people are making downtown Salem less pleasant for visitors, residents, and business owners. Downtown Court Street in the morning Yesterday Carole Smith, who lives downtown and owns property there, sent me the message I've shared below.   In an email to the Salem City Council, Smith describes how a prospective tenant backed out of signing a lease because…
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