The Political Performance of Oak Street Village

Politicians, public employees, and contract award recipients are elated at the opening. Neighbors not so much.

Yesterday, I witnessed an incredible performance at the opening of the Oak Street Village at 333 SE 82^nd Avenue in Portland.

No, it wasn’t some local actor troupe putting on an edgy interpretation of Macbeth. It was much better than that…or should I say, it was more entertaining. I’ve gotta say, I’m honestly more of a fan of Goethe’s Faust anyway.

And much like Faust, the local political troupe that put on the performance was able to conjure visions of magic that only the most invested in the Housing First and Harm Reductionist* tropes could take seriously.

*Definition of Reductionist – Analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents.

I’m going to stop here with my endless conceit. We just don’t have that kind of attention span. Personally, I’d rather watch golden retriever videos on IG.

What I’m referring to in all of this babble is the grand opening of Oak Street Village: the new safe rest/tiny home village in the Montavilla neighborhood, which will undoubtedly be the first of many in the neighborhood. After all, no one would dream of putting one of these in Council Crest (where county chair, Jessica Vega Pederson fled to after getting her cushy 240k job a year) or Irvington, for that matter.

The usual suspects were all there, and each one of them got a turn at the podium (or shall I say, stage?), except for our newly elected district 3 city council members, Steve Novick and Tiffany Koyama-Lane (Teacher Tiffany!) Koyama-Lane didn’t show up until well in the middle of the performance. Angelita Morillo, the third and most titular of the district three council members didn’t show up. Undoubtedly, she was busy creating a TikTok exposing one of her more disagreeable constituents as being a cop-loving Proud Boy.

Those who spoke included county commissioners Julia Brim-Edwards (who represents County District 3 and was active in attending listening sessions and drafting a good neighbor agreement for the project) and the county chair Jessica Vega-Pederson. Mayor Keith Wilson was also in attendance to give his pep talk.

Of course, the Joint Office’s Director Dan Field was also there and gave some remarks as well. He also mentioned that JOHS was rebranding as the Homeless Services Department, because after all, if everyone hates you, the best thing to do is to take your $270 million elsewhere and change your name. (If anyone knows how much Multnomah County’s rebranding of the Joint Office of Homeless Services is costing taxpayers, drop me a line.)

In 2023, Portland had the highest percentage of unsheltered families experiencing homelessness in the United States.

On this rather warm, yet rainy, winter day at 10:30a on a weekday morning (presumably to keep attendance down for the folks in the neighborhood who work) you, as a reader, can probably guess the gist what the cast said. First and foremost were the self-congratulatory platitudes of how hard everyone had worked, and how they “survived” so many meetings with the less than approving public. They gave endless thanks to each other and called out the names of their partners and supporters. Most importantly, they stated over and over how we can only solve this problem “by working together as a community.” The only people who didn’t receive thanks and commendations were the neighbors who, going forward, were the ones who were going to have to deal with the fallout of placing this village in the middle of their community. Interestingly enough, the only people applauding during the duration of the performance were the politicians, the NGO participants, and bureaucrats who were all profiteers of this plan in our neighborhood. I didn’t see one neighbor in attendance applaud once, mostly because they are the ones who know what the full affect of this village will have upon their everyday lives. You could witness the emerging reality of their situation on their collective faces. They didn’t have their Greek persona masks to hide their actual feelings.

The true soliloquy was left to the Pastor Dwight Minnieweather, the principal of the project who will oversee the village. He embraced Dan Field in a brotherly hug as he approached the podium and thanked him in his speech “for his support standing by me in a way that people lied and said he wouldn’t”.

Minnieweather was able convince the city to give him and his organization $2.3 million per year to run Oak Street Village. Dwight runs Straightaways Services, which is a church run out of a warehouse near Delta Park, where the old Vanport neighborhood was formerly situated. As a matter of fact, Minnieweather told everyone that he was a “Child of Vanport”, although Minnieweather also informed the crowd that he was born in 1960 and Vanport was destroyed in a fire in 1948. Minnieweather gave his speech with a Southern Baptist call and response that his congregation in attendance encouraged him on with calls of “yes brother.”

It was a little off-key when Minneweather told the few neighbors in attendance , “This is my city. I claim it that way. Like you claim Montavilla. I claim my city. I am from Portland, Oregon, child of Vanport.”

In truth, Minnieweather was the most convincing of everyone there. His congregation appeared in black suits, except one man I spoke to who showed up dressed in a camouflage jacket, and looked every bit the part of OG Black Panther or Malcolm X acolyte. These dudes were pretty cool and engaging, and I enjoyed speaking with them.

Looking into the organization’s 990’s, in 2023, Straightaways had donations totaling less than $300k. The organization has never been involved in a project of this scope and, according to everyone there, especially Mayor Wilson, of this importance. It will be interesting to see what they do with $2.3 million.

I realize I sound skeptical. I am. Right outside the entrance to the property on Pine Street was a series of homeless tents, trash and a couple of broken down abandoned vehicles. This isn’t uncommon, it has been the norm for at least a decade. This location has been a hot spot due to the myriad of programs across the street at the church including the Multnomah County’s Needle Exchange.

It was astounding to witness 5 elected officials and over two dozen homeless advocates so close to the “vulnerable community”, yet it was as if it didn’t exist at all.

The fact is that right across the street from the property is where the county needle exchange existed at the former Saints Peter and Paul Church for nearly two decades before the Episcopalians shut it down last summer. It now serves as a day shelter called PDX Saints Love for individuals “experiencing homelessness” so they can obtain various services. One case manager told us two people had overdosed at the shelter the previous day.

Angela, my partner at PDX Real, spoke with a representative from the day shelter about the encampment on Pine Street specifically. The representative answered, “… if they came in to the day center we would help them just like everyone else.”

Angela pressed:

If someone was interested in living at the village do they start by calling 311?

Will the day center across the street give referrals to the village?

Is there another way for someone to be considered for the village?

No one we asked had an answer, but we were told enthusiastically they were planning to prioritize people in the neighborhood.

Minnieweather said his recovery started 25 years ago when someone looked at him in the eyes and said, “I can help you” and it changed his life. He said he is looking forward to telling someone else the same thing.

But not those folks on Pine Street I guess.

The property formerly an RV lot, was purchased for $2.2 million three years ago. The site cost an additional $2.2 million to build. The only public servant I spoke to after the performance was county commissioner, Julia Brim-Edwards. Mayor Keith escaped after the performance as silently as a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas (perfect time for Prufrock, no?). I asked Brim-Edwards what they were going to do about the drug dealing and trafficking that has been a nearly constant presence around the immediate blocks for a decade. “Well, I think people should let PPB know about that.” When I told her, that as a neighbor, PPB has known full well what has been happening around these blocks for several years, she didn’t have any answers for me.

Oak Street Village is going to provide services for 40 individuals, which is considerably less than 1% of Portland’s homeless population. It cost the county $4.4 million to purchase and build the site and its 40 units. It’s going to pay Straightaway Services $2.3 million to run it over a year’s period, which is a total cost of $6.7 million. The other shocking thing about Oak Street is that while Straightaways will receive over $57,000 per person to run the property, they were also asking the Montavilla community to give donations for such things as toilet paper and toothbrushes. One would think with the $2.3 million Straightaways is receiving from the county that they wouldn’t need additional funds for accessories.

The monthly cost of one person at Oak Street Village is $4750.

Me and other Portlanders have seen this scenario too many times to be fooled by this, well, Tomfoolery. At this point, I think we all know what is going to happen. A bunch of politicians are going to lay the responsibility for Oak Street Village at the feet of those who can least afford it: the community of working-class individuals already overly burdened under the constant pressure of over-taxation and lack of community safety.

Julia Brim-Edwards is likely the sole advocate we have on the Multnomah County Commission for common sense and accountability. She told the crowd yesterday that she’s a neighbor. Sure, she might live within a mile and a half of the site, but the fact is she lives on the top of Mt. Tabor. Her backyard is a beautiful and serene section of Mt. Tabor Park. She might as well live in Sarasota, Florida with how much she will be personally affected by Oak Street Village.

In the meantime, everyone in the Homeless Advocacy Cartel is getting their cut. The politicians get to slap each other on the back and the vendors, who received preferential treatment, get their cut too. The rest of us get to deal with the realities of what Portland has become.