Temporary Men's Shelter/SW 4th and Washington: Public Outreach Meeting

A public outreach meeting regarding the temporary (three to six months) men’s shelter at SW 4th and SW Washington is scheduled for Tuesday Jan. 12 at 11:45 a.m. The meeting will be held in the lower level theatre room at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Commissioner Saltzman will attend as well as representatives of the Portland Housing Bureau and Transition Projects. You will hear about the background of this project and the plans for shelter operations. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions.

  

We recognize that there are challenges to siting any shelter and have urged that certain conditions must be met to ensure the facility is managed with minimal impact to neighboring properties and businesses. These conditions include a lottery for the beds that will be run out of Bud Clark Commons to preclude any queuing outside the building, ensuring there is storage indoors for shopping carts and personal items of those using the facility, and a request to the city for a high pedestrian zone designation while the shelter is in use.

At the end of the day, this shelter will serve people who are already sleeping in doorways and camping in tents all over the downtown core; Transition Projects estimates there are 400 people sleeping outdoors in the downtown core on any given night. We continue to press the city and the county leadership to pursue permanent solutions to this crisis.