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White Bird discussion - NOW what can we ALL do?   (Please come to our next meeting and offer your voice to our thinking.)

At the May and June 2011 meetings, we discussed a neighborhood cleanup. The DeZarns have offered to help with work in the White Bird area - possibly yard work, planting, painting. Jackson Hite checked with a UO group that does service projects, but they are off until fall. Steve Baker and Steven Bennett offered to talk with White Bird staff about how the neighborhood could help. We will try to schedule a general neighborhood cleanup at some point this summer or fall.

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This is an excerpt from the minutes of the January General Meeting. This topic relates to issues for neighbors, including Midtown Terrace across the street, from those in the White Bird vicinity. At that meeting, there was interest in further discussion about White Bird and homelessness in West University. If you are interested in being part of that discussion, please contact Steven Bennett, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 541-485-4600.

Don DeZarn, Midtown Terrace property owner: Thanks to Dean to get the Midtown Terrace built – it was my and my wife’s first venture into this type of building. We live in Ferry Street Bridge area, and he’s lived in Eugene for 25 years. This will probably be my only project here of this type. I think we overbuilt – we’re the majority owner. Without the MUPTE, it would not have been a good deal for investors. We overbuilt in terms of the look/appeal of it. We put a lot of money into security. Most of the population is students, and as a parent I want a safe facility. There are card locks for parking, it takes out of the overall return on investment. The ROI wasn’t as important as the quality – the addition to the neighborhood. The building is built and occupied, but I have some concerns. I’ve met with the White Bird (WB) director and expressed those concerns. It’s not a Midtown Terrace problem, it’s a neighborhood problem, and it’s growing. Some adjoining property owners are with us tonight. We’re in a no-win situation. WB provides a tremendous amount of services to the city, they’re in your neighborhood, they were there when we built the project. The transient population in the neighborhood continues to get worse. We lost tenants because the WB Clinic was across the street. It scares the kids and they back out.

Anne DeZarn, Midtown Terrace property owner: It’s not the clinic. I grew up at 25^th and Lawrence. It’s not the clinic that scares people, it’s the out of control clinic patrons and those around and about. They’re camping and behaving in ways that makes students alarmed and frightened. It seems to be happening more and more.

Don DeZarn: I came tonight to see if I’m the only one who sees it. There’s a large stack of police calls (3” of paper) to WB and to the 1.5 block around WB. That’s a lot of calls. I want us all to work together to come up with some reasonable solutions. I’m not going to them saying to close their doors. I can’t have people passed out in our planting strip or loitering in the alleys. It’s getting worse and worse. We need to try to come up with a solution.

Lieut. Doug Mozan, Eugene Police Dept (EPD): Responsible for downtown and UO neighborhood. Randy Ellis is here (40 years with EPD, 11 years as West University officer). He’s the richest resource we have for context. Officer Bremer works downtown as a bike patrol officer and interfaces with WB clients. EPD has a partnership with Cahoots. We’re here more as a resource to answer questions. My understanding is mostly the behavior of the clients – when they’re coming for services and break the law, or after services, or waiting for the next set of services and break the law. I’ve personally experienced some of the satellite activity that happens around WB when I’ve come around on patrol.

Dean Hansen, Midtown Terrace property owner: Do the stats show that it’s getting worse?
Officer Randy Ellis, West University police officer: There’s an ever-increasing number of police responses. WB themselves generated the calls from 2009-10, calling the EPD for help with behavior going on at WB property. It took a while for all of us to see that Cahoots brought EPD and WB together – and that the increase in calls came from WB. The other increase came from within a few blocks of WB, and that’s a drastic increase. I track every call, I read everything that occurs between 23^rd and Broadway, campus and Oak. I’m trying to figure out a strategy to address the problems.

Dean Hansen: What can we do to help?

Brenda Cozaris, White Bird counselor: Get us some housing. Not all of the people in front of WB are our clients. There are a lot of people who come around, who are physically present, but don’t obtain services from us. We have no control or input on this.

Charles Warren, member of Midtown Business Associates: We have about 85 property owners and merchants. Our midtown area is 11th-15th, Charnelton to Ferry. Our dues go into hiring a security agency. The EPD has been very cooperative. One of the reasons we’re seeing a greater influx is because of the police chief’s new program – more downtown patrols, fortified alcohol ban in Whitaker – they came to Midtown. What WB needs to do (I’m on the Sacred Heart Foundation Board and I know what you do) – WB needs to take more responsibility for those who congregate around WB. People bleed off into the neighborhood and cause all these problems. I went by there. There was a torn-up mattress, people lying around. Is there a way to move these people on? Can’t you move them on?

Chuck Gerard, White Bird counselor: If they’re on our property, we have some say in asking them to move on. Each association says, would you move this problem out of our neighborhood. These are not transient people. They live here, they just don’t have houses. We move them from neighborhood to neighborhood. It’s a national crisis, not just in Eugene. There are different homeless groups with different characteristics in different parts of the community. 5 years ago, there were 5500 homeless in Eugene; 2 years ago it was 8500; last year there were 11,500 homeless people. What we’re not doing as a society is creating more affordable units. We’re not creating day centers where people can congregate in different neighborhoods. In the 1960s there was a movement to build asylums at the edge of town. But these people don’t live there, they live here.

Charles Warren: These aren’t normal homeless people. They don’t want a home, they want to live on the streets.

Lieut. Doug Mazen: You’re partly right. In between what both of you say is the truth. We have different groups of homeless folks. The ones who are causing a problem for the development and neighborhood are not the usual displaced people. There’s a core group of “criminal transients” who aren’t transient – they take root in a given neighborhood. Some of those were problem players 14 years ago when I was a cop around campus, before fortified alcohol and other changes. Some of them are alcoholic, some are mentally ill. Some have problems obeying simple conventions. They aren’t going to get a job or follow the rules of the Eugene Mission or Buckley House (housing for alcoholic and mentally ill). Many of these folks were regulars there, but now they won’t let them in the door. As cops, we’re caught in a Catch-22. We’re there to protect these folks, too – when they’re victimized by each other or when they are in need of medical attention or at risk of freezing to death. We need to deal with the nuisance, and we know you’re affected by this lifestyle that some people embrace.

Officer Randy Ellis: There’s a line between somebody who is homeless and somebody who is a vagrant. What you have are some “criminal vagrants.” If we could take 25 airplane tickets and put the 25 people that Officer Bremer and I could pick out in 5 minutes on the plane, 80% of the problems would disappear. Many of these folks are not homeless from Eugene. They came here, stayed, and continued the illegal behavior that they came with. A lot are in West University because they’re not tough enough to make it in Whitaker or on the west side. What they tell me is that they’re not safe in those areas, but they’re safe here. I find myself being a complainant where they’re a victim because somebody beat them up, and they’re afraid to report it. I have to write a report and do a superficial investigation so that if it gets out of control, then we can do something about it. What WB needs is a recess monitor. I’ve picked up trash in the alley while people on the porch at WB watched me doing it. I’m grateful that WB is here. I used to have to haul the smelly drunks to Buckley House myself. We’d be in big trouble without WB – crisis intervention, drug assistance, and more. Everything defaulted back to the cops when the help system crashed. We were lucky that WB was here. It makes so much sense that a second Cahoots team will go online in a month, and we’ll have Cahoots 20 hours per day. The paperwork that Don showed doesn’t include Cahoots calls. The ones he has are ones that I or my colleagues dealt with. In 2010 the number of citations and arrests made is 25% lower than the true number of crimes committed.

Norman Riddle, White Bird counselor: I’ve been a homeless case manager at WB since the late 80s. I’ve also worked at Sponsors and on Burnside projects in Portland. I’ve heard the arguments before. If you Google homelessness and crime, you’ll find hundreds of hits. Every night between 9pm and 1am I make 1-2 passes through to make sure their people are safe. I used to go to Whitaker; I also go out West 11^th. This neighborhood isn’t even in the top 2-3 of weirdest places in town. When I was a homeless case manager, I’d live on Crest Drive and not hear a sound – quite a difference. We don’t have enough money for Lane County Health to see homeless people. We used to be able to get people into the ER – now it’s hard with PeaceHealth in Springfield. When I pay my taxes, I wish you’d spend more time dealing with crimes. With lack of funding for help for people, then there’s not much WB can do.

Officer Richard Bremer: The person who pees in the bush also beats up people like Carrie Miller, another homeless person.

Norman Riddle: I can get in their face. We need to get people into a treatment program, get into housing – those programs and places don’t exist. I see the same person every day, doing the same thing.

Officer Bremer: We talked about having some kind of monitoring outside WB. A week and a half ago, I smell marijuana in the alley, and I see one of your clients on your porch smoking and drinking a beer. WB staff said to tell her she couldn’t come back for the rest of the day. To me, there’s no sanction for bad behavior from your agency for the misbehavior on your own property.

Norman Riddle: I don’t see it that way. We could discuss this at another program – with the Mayor – that might be a better forum.

Carol Berg-Caldwell: I hear people saying that WB is good but has problems. Maybe we should find some way to help. I hear someone saying that if you could move some people out of here, it would help? Have there been discussions with other homeless to see if they can deal with the ones who are bad apples? If we just tell WB to fix this, we’re not acknowledging WB’s service over 30 years.

Lieut. Doug Mazen: The people causing the problems aren’t representative of the homeless population. I needed to talk to a person in the Mission. When I walked into the Mission, I saw about 100 people in various parts of their day. Some working on job apps, some reading – I didn’t recognize any of them. It was because they were conforming to the dictates of the Mission. That segment of the homeless population would just as soon mind their own business and not deal with the other guys. They may start a discussion about what’s needed, and that can help the WB clients too. The two groups don’t relate to one another. Wet beds are for those who are chronically alcoholic, mentally disturbed – not for people who can stay at the Mission. The Service Center on Highway 99 offers many of the same services. Those folks get the services they need there, and they don’t come to West University. WU is a dense area, with lots of people and property, and tight living space. Some people love it here because students leave lots of cans, people give them stuff, it’s kind of a cool area to be in for any resident of the city – this is a kind of utopia for a criminal transient. The recess monitor is a good idea. My first hit was maybe some security. The Dining Room has employed bouncers who keep the peace there.

Officer Randy Ellis: The hanger-oners are receiving almost no services at WB. They may use the bathroom, but they will drink a beer openly in front of the building, illegally. If the front of WB was in an ordinary residential area, the neighbors would be filing abatement procedures and require them to clean it up – or the City would clean it up and bill them or place a lien on the property. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility when people get ticked off. If you came in and checked your mail at WB, you don’t need to hang around at WB for 4-6 hours and wait for someone to bring the beer down. I realize we don’t have enough public restrooms – they become brothels and drug deals. Nobody wants crap figuratively or literally in their front yard. It’s time for WB to do something about controlling their property, making it uncomfortable for a block in each direction.

Brenda Cozaris: I don’t disagree with the issue of us monitoring what’s going on at our property. It’s hard to deal with chronically mentally ill who don’t have access to a place to go to the restroom. They can’t use the bathroom at the library – where do they go? We all recognize that there is a situation going on, but there are some things we can’t enforce. We can ask them to leave if they’re down the block or down the alley, but what can you do about it? If we call the EPD about someone in the alley, what can you do about it?

Chuck Gerard: It’s not just a legal issue, it’s a moral issue. We’re not willing to tell these people they’re not welcome on the planet. If they behave, then they can use the bathroom or the phone. We don’t allow drinking and drug using – I’m going to look into what the EPD was talking about. We need to follow up on this. We don’t support these behaviors, but we’re not willing to tell people they can’t be at WB. Until the community provides more help, we can’t create the answers by ourselves.

Anne DeZarn: I’ve learned a lot. I think that when you get a group together, it’s more of a problem. When you see a group together and they have their mattress and set up a camp, it’s frightening because it’s a group. I don’t think it’s all just being understanding about people who lead different lives. We’re hoping to get people not to gather in big groups. I would love it if we could leave this meeting and try to work together to find a way to have a haven for the homeless and to make it feel safe.

Dean Hansen: We’d like WUN to ask WB to do a better job to monitor the property and to support the property owners’ efforts in monitoring their property.

Deborah Healey, WUN Board member: We are here to listen. WUN is an association of residents of this neighborhood. Many of WB clients are residents, and thus members of our association. The tenants in Midtown Terrace are also residents and members of the association. This association was set up so that only residents can be members and vote. At this point 99% of those who own property in the neighborhood don’t like it enough to live here – and they’re not voting members of WUN. We would like to help all of our residents feel at home here.

Charles Warren: As a property owner, does that mean that I’m not a member?
Deborah Healey: As a non-resident, you can participate, but you can’t vote.

Chuck Gerard: A number of us are staffed in the building on 12^th. We routinely ask the people not to congregate in large groups. We ask them to be helpful. There’s a limit to what we can do. There are the people Randy is talking about, the 25 – they don’t want our services, they don’t care what we tell them. We ask their cooperation but we don’t get it. There’s a limit to what we can do, even if we have a 24-hour monitor. As far as I understand, the majority of violence by homeless people is against homeless people. You’re less in danger as a non-homeless person. There have been some dramatic incidents of homeless-on-homeless violence.

Charles Warren: I’m at 12^th and High. I was attacked 12 years ago. I constantly have people in my bushes. My security now reports that the people we’re asking to leave are getting more aggressive. The answer seems simple to me. We recognize two kinds of people here: the legitimately homeless and Randy’s 25. Is there some way to keep the people excluded from downtown off your property?

Chuck Gerard: You’ve got them out of downtown, you don’t want them in the Midtown – where do you want them to go?

Charles Warren: This is Eugene. We have a high tolerance for this behavior.

Brenda Cozaris: I agree. They know there’s no housing, but there are support services, they’ll get fed, they’ll get clothes. It is a mecca. A large percentage of the population, perhaps including the 25, is spoon-fed by people in this area. Think about Carrie. College students befriend her, they give her space to sleep on her porch. They love the university population. The majority of the college students are very gracious. That encourages them.

Carol Berg-Caldwell: When it comes to actual help with social services and housing, we’re falling short.

Chuck Gerard: When other cities and counties were developing 10-year plans, that’s when consideration was made to housing, social services for low-income people. It’s not happening here.

Kaitlin Lange: This seems like an in-depth discussion. I would love to create meeting times and talk with all of you more. Could you create a working group?

Deborah Healey: If I try to recap – the main issue is how to get people to feel safe, both at WB and in the neighborhood.

Lieut. Doug Mazen: You can’t ship people out successfully. Other communities may send folks here. When we send folks away, they come back. We had someone we sent to California and then to Alaska, but he came back.

Mark Snyder: There was a big crackdown in DC about prostitutes. They marched hundreds of prostitutes across the bridge into Arlington.

Norman Riddle: What do we do with people we aren’t familiar with who are outside of our houses? In the 80s there was the community reinvestment act, where money went for low-income housing. That disappeared. As one member of the WB collective, I’m proud of the hippies who wanted to create community, to help people become the people they want to be. I’m interested to see what the WB community will do. Will WB get a bouncer and call ourselves a success? I like this neighborhood – it’s alive. Like Whitaker, it’s alive. WU has livability and public safety issues. Maybe we’ll do a video and let the rest of the town know what’s going on.

Steven Bennett, WUN Chair: Who is Carrie Miller?
Lieut. Doug: She’s a resident.
Officer Bremer: She’s victimized. She’s also part of the problem. It’s complicated. Everyone’s story is different. The interrelationships between residents, businesses, and the criminal justice system is complicated.

Don DeZarn: In my view, it doesn’t matter if I’m a resident or a business owner – we all have to coexist. We’re not asking WB to close their doors. We would like WB to come up with a better system, even if it’s a little bit better, it will help. All of the problems and the derivatives come via WB – their facilities and outside their facility. WB is responsible for what’s going on inside their building, but not for what’s outside their building. If you can come up with a plan, everybody would benefit.

Carol Berg-Caldwell: Maybe all of us are responsible to help.

Don DeZarn: I’ll make it work – we’ll all make it work. We knew what we were going into when we started this. It’s getting worse. I’m concerned about everyone here. I believe WB can do help. Can you find a volunteer to help? Adjoining property owners can also help. I don’t expect an answer tonight – I just want us to look at it.

Drix, WUN Board member: This isn’t just Eugene. We’re redefining America. I pick up litter – I say hi to the homeless, property owners, EPD. One of our residents, Sue, is living in a pile of leaves. It’s not right for your kids to get scared. We have a solution here – WB is part of it. I used them plenty of time in the 70s. The kids are so naïve – but where was I at 19? I was on the WB porch. This is probably the proudest meeting I’ve been through.