One week ago, a collection of SE Portland neighborhood advocates met to discuss the ongoing difficulties neighbors are reporting with homeless camps along the Springwater Corridor. In particular, camping and problematic activity near the Cartlandia food cart pod, where the trail crosses SE 82nd, has spurred outcry.

The advocates—including Erik Wikoff, chair of the Brentwood Darlington Neighborhood Association; Robert McCullough, board president of the powerful Southeast Uplift neighborhood coalition; and several others—discussed what some feel is irresponsible inaction by the city to clean up the situation. They were planning to call a public meeting to discuss problems with the campers. They just didn't think campers should be invited.

Here's an excerpt of minutes from the meeting [pdf], obtained by the Mercury (emphasis added):

SE Uplift board members emphasize that houseless individuals and homeless advocacy organizations should not be explicitly invited to the BDNA meeting. The sentiment is that the SE Uplift constituency is middle class people and that this meeting is meant to serve that constituency. Also, inviting houseless/homeless people might take attention to their needs rather than the neighborhood association. It is also noted that this is a public meeting so homeless advocacy groups and houseless individuals may attend and will likely do so.

That's a great way to think if you want to treat the city's homelessness crisis as an us-versus-them class conflict. Otherwise it's terrible.

Thankfully, it's not how this upcoming session, scheduled for next Thursday, is going to play out. The Mercury asked several of the attendees of last week's meeting about the minutes. McCullough, the Southeast Uplift president, got back to us. Wikoff hasn't yet.

McCullough says the sentiment laid out in the minutes isn't quite accurate.

"We’re sitting there figuring out how we actually get focused on the problem at hand," he says. "Was the issue raised about who we should invite? Absolutely. We were wondering whether we would get someone who was actually involved in that camp, or whether we would end up with a lot of activists who aren't involved."

McCullough also acknowledged that "the folks who are complaining are the middle class and the business people. Those are the calls we're getting."

One person who attended last week's meeting, neighborhood advocate Terry Dublinski-Milton, says the depiction in the minutes is more or less accurate. But he says his "minority opinion" eventually won out. McCullough has reached out to Vahid Brown, a Portland homeless advocate, who'll attend the meeting. Brown's the only advocate specifically named in a current draft of meeting plans, which also lays out a list of requests the Brentwood Darlington Neighborhood Association and local businesses plan to make of the city—including garbage service along the Springwater trail, portable toilets, and better coordination among police and the parks bureau to monitor problem activities.

Update, 5:15 pm: Homeless people who are living near the Cartlandia pod will also be invited to attend the meeting, according to Brown.

Original post:
Despite the reversal, the ideas laid out in the meeting minutes have caused concern among some Southeast neighbors, who have been putting together a letter to the Southeast Uplift board saying they're "deeply disturbed" by the sentiments.

Update, 3:30 pm: Members of four Portland neighborhood associations have signed their names onto a statement regarding last week's meeting, addressed to Southeast Uplift. It's been put up on change.org.

In part, the letter reads:

Whatever exact language took place at this meeting, the underlying attitude that informed it is clear and sadly familiar: First, that people living outside are not legitimate residents of inner Southeast Portland; and more broadly, that the proper role of Southeast Uplift is to protect the interests of the comfortable.

This is a dangerous distortion of the Portland neighborhood system's founding mission to create and support positive change.

The statement was posted by Keith Mosman, chair of the North Tabor Neighborhood Association. It's cosigned by members of the Laurelhurst, Sunnyside, and Richmond neighborhood associations (who make clear they're speaking only for themselves), as well as Portland tenant advocate Margot Black.