This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Neighborhoods / News Neighbors Speak Up in Support of Miracles
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 11:45 AM
A couple weeks ago article I wrote about NE Portland's Miracles Club and got the impression some neighbors weren't too fond of the place. Miracles is a social hall for recovering addicts on the corner of Mason and MLK -- a place for people who are trying to keep sober to play rowdy games of dominoes, meet in AA groups and host weekend dances. While it helps locals get off drugs and off the streets, Miracles can be smoky and loud and its members like to hang out on the sidewalk.
The club is moving across the street from its current site and neighbors requested the new site design include a fence along the back of the club on Grand Ave. This raised some concerns among Miracles supporters that the new fence would physically segregate the club members, who are mostly black, from the neighborhood, which is gentrifying and becoming both whiter and wealthier. My calls to the King Neighborhood Association (KNA) president weren't returned before went to press but here's the good news: since the article was published, some Grand Ave neighbors and the KNA called in to say they're not trying to isolate Miracles Club.
Miracles member and poet Geofferson D Ca'Sin III shows off his gun collection.
KNA treasurer Trace Salmon expressed via email that his group sees Miracles as an important part of the neighborhood. "The King Neighborhood Association has supported the Miracles Club's mission for many years and has helped resolve the conflicts that have arisen in the past," he writes.
Maureen Mimiaga is one of those Grand Ave residents. Mimiaga helped collect signatures in support of a fence closing Miracles' parking lot off from her residential street and says the reasons for the fence are mundane traffic problems, not bias toward recovering addicts or African Americans. "It has nothing to do with race, it has nothing to do with who's in the facility. It could be a nursing home. It's about traffic concerns," says Mimiaga, "If there are cars coming through there all the time it will really change the neighborhood." Mimiaga says that while she and other neighbors were nervous about Miracles' move, they've sat down with club director Herman Bryant and done some "good peacemaking work."
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Driving by this club every day for the past 8 years - members and associates park in the street and block traffic all day long.
What's a fence gonna do?
D,
thanks for your comment. What a fence will do, to answer your question, is to block egress from the Miracles parking lot, which is to be situated in the middle of the block between MLK and Grand, to Grand Avenue itself. What that will do is to prevent folks from parking along Grand and cutting through the back to get to the front entrance.
That stretch of Grand is quiet and residential. More than a few of us that live on the block in question- between Mason and Skidmore- don't even own cars. Car traffic is VERY minimal; kids play in the street, pets are safe, and neighbors walk freely without having to dodge car traffic.
Miracles meetings and events draw a LOT of people. Herman Bryant and other club board members are working hard to come up with parking solutions that will not impact the community negatively. By capping the Grand egress, this in effect takes away the option to park along Grand, unless folks want to walk around the entire block to the front entrance on MLK.
Miracles members, including Herman Bryant, have been understanding and willing to sit down and work with us, and for that we are most appreciative. We are continuing to work together as neighbors and community members. It hurts our neighborhood when we are portrayed as gentrifying newcomers afraid of a certain "type" of person. It is simply not the case. We have people on our block who have lived in this community for a very long time, who are in favor of capping the egress.
We met as neighbors several times and determined that many of us felt that the best possible solution would be for the entrance to be capped. We then canvassed the block and asked as many residents within a 500-ft area if they would be willing to sign a letter requesting that entrance be capped. Without fail, every person to whom we spoke signed it. That letter was then given to our neighborhood association, the KNA, who supported our concerns.
I believe that we are one of the most diverse blocks- and neighborhoods- in the city. We want to continue to live and work together in a safe and quiet neighborhood.
Maureen Mimiaga
Fantastic. I also heard there was some city funding pumped in to the center last year, perhaps that can help.
Recovery from addiction can be a bumpy ride, no doubt. Some of us are a little too loud, and perhaps some of us are a little too black for the new folks in the neighborhood.
But miracles have happened at Miracles, and those in these days are harder and more expensive to come by.
Be patient. The city has made a good investment which will pay off for everyone.
SMALL MIRACLES by Askin Ozcan (ISBN 1598001000 - Outskirts Press) Very stunning thirty incidents of miracles in different countries.
http://www.outskirtspress.com/smallmiracles
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