Commissioner Randy Leonard is reported to have hugged and made up with his fiercest critic last week over a proposed second temporary homeless shelter on NW 5th in Old Town.
SECOND DAY ACCESS CENTER: Could “derail” permanent center…

Leonard met with TPI Executive Director Doreen Binder last Thursday, January 10, two days after she criticized the timing of his plan. Binder told a meeting of the downtown public safety action committee on Tuesday, January 8 she thought Old Town neighbors wouldn’t swallow the center on top of Erik Sten’s newly announced plans for her permanent center on block 25. “I think this will derail everything that we’re working on,” she told the group. “I really do.”

Surprisingly, it didn’t. Leonard’s second center wasn’t even mentioned during an hour-long masterful performance by Sten at a meeting with Old Town neighbors last Wednesday, January 9.

“[Binder] was very concerned that the timing of Randy’s efforts with the second center might interfere with the effort to site a permanent center in Old Town,” says Leonard’s chief of staff, Ty Kovatch. “But when that didn’t appear to happen, she was much more amenable to supporting the second center. They hugged at the end of the meeting.”

Negotiations between Leonard’s office and the owner of 11 NW 5th are rumored to be reaching specifics—including the length of any prospective lease. Meanwhile, the mayor’s Street Access for Everyone committee is set to tour the site on Thursday to decide on its suitability for use as an access center, although neighbors of the new site aren’t so thrilled with the idea.

“It just seems like they push social services into Old Town,” says Jason Sajko of the Upper Playground store at 5th and Couch, two doors down from the prospective new center. “This corner has become very popular thanks to our hard work and it’s just a shame the city isn’t investing more in retail in this neighborhood.”

In other news, showers at the city’s first temporary access center—the Julia West House on SW 13th and Alder—should be back up and running this week, according to the center’s manager, Marvin Mitchell. They’ve been down for about a month while the center waited for a new heater. “But the part is on the way,” says Mitchell—just in time for this inclement weather.