November 07, 2003

Leonard Declares Diginity Village To Be 'Transitional Housing'

Here's one I managed to miss completely. According to KATU, Commissioner Leonard has declared that Dignity Village is now considered transitional housing:

In an interview with KATU News, city commissioner Randy Leonard said he's declared Dignity Village as transitional housing. The declaration offers flexibility from building and city codes that most Portland residents must strictly adhere to.

Such a decision is, according to KATU, one that a member of the City Council can make without a Council vote. The decision comes in the wake of local radio talkshow host Lars Larson filing a complaint against the Village for City code violations.

Posted at 04:59 PM | PermalinkComments (4) | TrackBacks (1)
More In Livability, Metro-Area Politics

« Previous Next »

Comments (4)

  1. William on 07 Nov 2003

    Go Leonard!

    I'm glad to see someone stand up for the homeless (though I guess they are not exactly homeless if they live in Dignity Village).

  2. jack bog on 08 Nov 2003

    Lars is as bad as Rush Limbaugh, only without the opiates.

  3. Larry on 13 Nov 2003

    "Transitional Housing"?? What a joke. Someone explain to me exactly what is "transitional" about Dignity Village. Is there a well-run, successful program to move its residents from homelessness to adequate housing? No. It's a squatter's camp, pure and simple, and is probably the worst possible way to "help" those that are in need, whether they are so because of legitimate hard knocks or because of their own choosing. You may have missed that Mr. Leonard was eager to point out recently that the main benefit of Dignity Village was that it moved homeless people away from downtown merchants to a location more hidden from public view. Not only does that cast considerable doubt that the city actually cares about these people, but it also goes to show that the city is once again concerned about the image of downtown to the detriment of the rest of the city, especially the east side. God forbid anything like this should happen, but what do you think will be the outcome when someone dies in Dignity Village? Or a fire sweeps through?

  4. Tafari on 13 Nov 2003

    It doesn't feel quite so homeless anymore now that we have a village to live in.

    I think all housing is transitional at the end of the day whether it's a palace in the Pearl or a Dignity shack.

    According to our admissions committee's calculations, roughly 300 people have transitioned through Dignity in the little over two years we've leased Sunderland Yard from the City. There are only a dozen "old timers" left.

    During the two years we've been at our present site, the number of homeless people nationally has grown 14% according to the National Coalition for the Homeless' latest stats. There are now 3.5 million of us nationally.

    Most of the new homeless are single mothers with children. According to one study I've read, single homeless women are raped within 11 days of becoming homeless. There has never been a rape at Dignity Village.

    A single mother I know with a ten-year-old child stands with a sign begging for much of the day on Pioneer Square to pay their nightly shelter rent at the Salvation Army's Harbour Light Mission. I have nothing but respect for this woman and wish to Almighty God we had room for them at our village. There are currently 35 people on the waiting list who seek admission to Dignity Village.

    It costs the village about $3.50 per night per person to house our members and residents. This figure does not factor in the $2000 per month we until very recently paid the City for the .78 of an acre of asphalt we lease. We are more cost-effective than any shelter. With 600 emergency shelter beds and at least 1600 people sleeping out in Portland on any given night, allowing homeless people to take care of ourselves is the best idea to come along since sliced bread.

    We all work at Dignity. The 10 hours sweat equity a week required of all members and residents to pay our "tent rent" is universally applied as per rule four of Dignity's admissions agreement. About a third of us who live here work part- or full-time at day and night and weekend jobs. Some of us work many hours a week as unpaid de facto staff to maintain and operate our 501(C)3 non-profit facility which benefits not only Portland's poor but the whole community.

    Our new proposal's posted on our site http://outofthedoorways.org in a number of places. We're not asking to live rent free off the taxpayer's nickel for a decade as I hear local comedian Lars Larsson and others have implied. We're asking the City to make a greater contribution to help us continue the service we provide.

Trackbacks (1)

  1. From the Office of Economic Analysis on 08 Nov 2003

    During commercial breaks from watching a college football game (What happened to the Irish) and during breaks from raking up mass quantities of wet leaves I fixed my computer and noticed that somebody sent me the following link to a recent report from:...