Mayor Ted Wheeler has thwarted Commissioner Amanda Fritz’s latest effort to move the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp from its embroiled Northwest Burnside location by April 7.
The mayor will not support Fritz’s plans to move the camp to a parking lot on Southwest Naito Parkway, mayoral spokesman Michael Cox said Friday.
Businesses, workers and residents neighboring the parking lot shared concerns “varied, but uniform in their opposition” in dozens of phone calls and more than 80 emails to the mayor this week, Cox said.
“This site is not suitable for R2DToo,” he said. “The response has been overwhelming and overwhelmingly negative.”
The mayor’s decision to reject the Naito site–first reported by the Portland Mercury–is the latest blow to a years-long effort by Fritz and others to find a new home for the Old Town-based camp. Fritz has tried and failed to move the camp to more than 21 locations since 2013.
Fritz told the Mercury Friday that she would leave finding a new site up to Wheeler, noting that he manages the Housing Bureau. She also noted that he manages the Portland Development Commission, which plans to close on a $1.2 million deal April 7 to buy the Chinatown property where the camp now sits, but only if the camp is vacant by then. The commission could reconsider if the camp has not left the property by then, commission spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.
“This was my last, and in some ways best, proposal,” Fritz told the Mercury. “I’ve looked at literally hundreds of sites over the last three years.”
Fritz and her chief of staff, Tim Crail, both declined to comment for this story.
The Oregonian/OregonLive last week broke the news that Fritz hoped to move the camp the Naito location. This prompted an onslaught of angry emails from the site’s neighbors, foiling Fritz’s plans to “quietly sell” the plan to them, she told the Mercury.
One nearby property owner is Melvin Mark, a real estate company that owns the nearby Crown Plaza building, where the mayor headquartered his campaign offices for free. Wheeler did not speak to anyone at Melvin Mark about the proposed camp relocation, Cox said.
Moving the camp to the Southwest Naito parking lot would require the community to move again by May 2018, when the Portland Water Bureau plans to use the site to construct a seismically resilient drinking water pipe under the Willamette River.
“The concerns of the community have to do with the temporary nature of that site,” Cox said. “It’s not a permanent solution.”
Cox emphasized the mayor’s commitment to relocating the camp by April 7 and to addressing Portland’s homeless issue more broadly. Wheeler does not yet have a plan for where to move the camp, but he is open to solutions from the community, Cox said.
“The challenges around homelessness are broad and community-wide,” Cox said. “Our efforts are focused on addressing the full scope of homelessness challenges in this city.”
–Jessica Floum
jfloum@oregonian.com
503-221-8306
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