Portlanders are beginning to sour on Mayor Keith Wilson’s homelessness plan that propelled him into office.

At a public meeting Monday night, Wilson’s promises to solve the city’s homelessness crisis were met with boos, scoffs, and thumbs down gestures from a crowd of people unhappy with his pitch to open a new shelter in the Pearl District neighborhood.

“The mayor’s plan, I don’t think we really are buying it,” said Todd Zarnitz, president of the Northwest District Association, a neighborhood district that lies west of the Pearl District and includes the bustling NW 23rd shopping district.

Zarnitz said that Wilson’s plan to end unsheltered homelessness by December 1 is hasty and doesn’t take into account Portlanders’ perspectives.

“We’ve been told, ‘This is the plan, we’re doing it,” said Zarnitz. “But what we won’t be is ignored.”

That was clear Monday evening. More than 500 people crowded into the auditorium at the Armory to press Wilson on his shelter-focused strategy, raising particular concerns about a shelter planned to open down the street later this summer.

“Lies!” shouted one member of the crowd, when Wilson touted data showing a decrease in crime near city shelters. “How many shelters are going to be near the mayor’s house?”

Wilson asked the audience for patience as his plan takes shape and attempts to undo what he characterized as the harms of previous city-led solutions to homelessness, like distributing tents to people living outside.

“We cannot at the same time foster the behavior that we are trying to end on our streets,” said Wilson, who cut short a camping trip near Mt. Hood to attend the Monday event. “We should not be a camping town. We should be a caring town.”

As of May, Multnomah County estimates that roughly 15,500 people are experiencing homelessness in the county. More than 7,000 of those people are considered unsheltered, meaning they are sleeping outside or in a car – not a homeless shelter or other temporary housing. Wilson is just the latest Portland mayor to enter office on a pledge to reduce this ballooning crisis. And he’s the latest to encounter pushback for trying to open new shelters in monied neighborhoods as a solution.

Wilson acknowledged the opposition, but asked the crowd to trust his vision for shelters.

“Until we address this critical first priority, our community will be stuck in quicksand like we are right now, pointing fingers at everybody,” he said. “But nothing gets moved forward and we’ll continue to just spin our wheels without any traction as we see our city in decline.”

The city announced plans last month to turn an industrial building at NW 15th Avenue and NW Northrup Street into an overnight-only homeless shelter able to accommodate 200 people.

It will be the fifth shelter opened since Wilson entered office in January with a mandate to create 1,500 new shelter beds by December.

So far, Wilson has only hit 16% of his goal, opening 250 new shelter beds in two city-run shelters — one downtown and the other in Northeast — and using public dollars to fund 50 additional beds in the privately-run Bybee Lakes Hope Center. But two more shelters, one in far Southeast Portland and the other in Southwest, are set to open next week. That means, if the Northrup shelter opens as planned before the end of the summer, the total number of beds will increase to 630 total — still less than halfway to Wilson’s goal.

While some Pearl District residents say they were cautiously hopeful about Wilson’s plan working, news of the plan involving their neighborhood has given them pause.

“I’m not saying he’s not a good public speaker,” said Karen Abrams, 71, who has lived in the Pearl District for seven years. “I’m not saying his intentions aren’t good. But he’s not living here.”

Abrams said she’s been afraid to walk alone in her neighborhood due to interactions she’s had with people who appear to be in mental distress or using illicit drugs. She doesn’t believe that Wilson and his staff are taking the public safety concerns that overlap with the city’s homeless population seriously.

“It’s disrespectful to us neighbors,” she said.

Abrams also raised concerns about the style of shelter Wilson is using. Like the city’s other new shelters, the Northrup shelter will open each night at 8 p.m. and close at 6 a.m. People can get a bed by standing in line before it opens. If someone stays the night, they can reserve a bed for the following evening. According to Skyler Brocker-Knapp, who oversees the city’s shelter plan, people will be handed a card with information about where to receive social services after leaving the shelter.

“But then what?” Abrams asked. “They’ll just go back into our neighborhood?”

Sharon Meieran, a former Multnomah County commissioner who attended the Monday meeting, has similar worries. Meieran, an emergency medicine doctor, has long advocated for changes to the city and county’s shelter system.

“We’re talking about one piece of a plan in isolation,” said Meieran. “I want to hear a plan for not just where people sleep, but what happens next. How are they being connected to housing? What services will they have during the day? There’s a disconnect.”

Shelter providers and homeless advocates across Portland have raised these same concerns since Wilson first announced his strategy.

Ben Gilbert, another member of the Northwest District Association, said he doesn’t believe Wilson’s shelter plan is the right solution. But he disagreed with his neighbors’ tactics.

“What I’ve been most disappointed by is that these meetings are not about the solution,” said Gilbert. “They’re just about just opposing anything new in the neighborhood that improves the lives of those who are suffering on our streets.”

Many in attendance called for a stronger police response to crack down on drug use and crime in the Pearl District, issues that people believe will worsen once the shelter opens.

It’s a familiar conversation for the Pearl District. In 2013, Pearl District neighbors successfully led a campaign to quash City Hall’s plan to move the Right 2 Dream Too shelter into their neighborhood, citing fears of rising crime. Six years later, a privately-run shelter opened near NW Naito Parkway in the Pearl District. When it was handed over to the city in 2023, neighbors clamored for its closure, alleging it’s been a magnet for crime and trash.

Commander Brian Hughes, who oversees Portland Police Bureaus’s Central Precinct, assured the crowd that his officers will be patrolling the area surrounding the new shelter. But, he added, “my goal and my hope is that we have no involvement at all.”

Hughes acknowledged that some people who live outside use illicit drugs. It’s something his officers have prioritized cracking down on. When Hughes said the city should approach these arrests with “compassion,” the crowd erupted in boos and groans. One man yelled, “No we don’t!”

Zarnitz, with the Northwest District Association, said he’s pleased that the mayor’s homeless plan has spurred healthy debate and discussion in his community. But, he warned, if the city continues to ignore his neighbors’ concerns, he said, he is prepared to turn this into a “political battle.”

“The people putting this plan together are elected officials, and their job is to put together a plan that benefits the community in its totality,” he said. “We’re not seeing that. If that continues, then we’re going to decide to put new people in charge.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/29/portland-mayor-wilson-homelessness-plan-skeptics-neighborhood-forum/