Share Outreach: 360-695-7658, ext. 3303; http://sharevancouver.org/share-outreach
Hough Neighborhood Association: www.cityofvancouver.us/cmo/neighborhood/hough
Searchers swarm area after tip of possible sighting
It really shouldn’t be anybody’s problem — but it’s everybody’s problem.
That was the consensus among about a dozen people who gathered on Tuesday morning to attack the trash that’s regularly strewn along the Mill Plain Boulevard sound wall at the southern edge of the Hough neighborhood.
Whether or not that whole mess properly belongs to nearby men’s shelter Share House, it was a handful of Share House resident-staffers — long-term residents who are training as managers — who came out to meet an equal handful of Hough residents and spend a morning cleaning up this marginal spot. Also joining the crew were a couple of folks who happened to be hanging out in one of the sound wall alcoves — one of the spots that’s become a magnet for litter and bad behavior and a source of bitter neighborhood complaints.
“Some of these guys, this is going to help them feel some ownership of the community,” said Share House case manager Willie Hurst. Hurst said a big cleanup of Esther Short Park recently brought out many folks who are accused of messing that place up — and the outcome was a cleaner park, as well as a group that will probably police itself better now, he said.
And yet, nearby neighbor Nancy Schultz, who organized what she’s calling the Sound Wall Action Team, SWAT, collected plenty of trash on Tuesday that clearly had nothing to do with homeless people. That jibes with what Hough resident Eileen Cowen recently posted on Facebook — that she and Hough Neighborhood Association co-chair Sacha Amundson explored the scene carefully a couple of weeks ago, and found more trash that obviously came from households rather than the homeless.
“We took pictures of no less than eight bags of trash. Two of those bags looked like they belonged to homeless people, and six of the bags were filled with household trash,” Cowen reported.
Share House has had the same experience, spokeswoman Jessica Lightheart said: When residents and staff clean up around their perimeter, they regularly find plenty of junk that’s obviously been dumped there by somebody who then drove away.
‘I don’t like people trashing it’
Meanwhile there was Misty Cotton, 39 and homeless, who was eagerly cleaning up trash on Tuesday morning. Cotton said she used to rent nearby but got thrown out by her landlord about three years ago, after she let homeless friends camp in the backyard; now she’s undergoing drug treatment and getting ready for a subsidized apartment, she said.
“This has been my neighborhood for a long time,” she said. “I don’t like people trashing it.”
City councilwoman and Hough resident Alishia Topper said this whole episode — with complaints resulting in a recent Columbian story and the launch of Hough’s SWAT team — underlines the lack of a place for homeless people to go in downtown Vancouver during the day.
There used to be a couple of trailers in the empty lot across the street from Share House, Topper remembers, that provided day-use showers and lockers, telephones and mailboxes for homeless people — as well as a little daily guidance from case managers. But those were removed due to funding and zoning issues, and that site is now where Lincoln Place, an apartment building for the chronically homeless, is being built.
But Lincoln Place will offer housing only, not a drop-in center for people who don’t live there. Topper said she’s interested in establishing some sort of downtown day center for the homeless — so they don’t spend their time hanging out in places like sound wall alcoves, she said.
More immediately, Topper said the city will meet with the Hough Neighborhood Association soon to review its plan to install new lights over the alcoves. There are lights built into the walls now, she noted, but they regularly get vandalized. Overhead lights are a good solution, she said, but they’ll have to avoid shining into neighbors’ windows, too.
Share Outreach
Lightheart added that local neighbors, businesses and anybody else who feels impacted by homeless people should feel free to call Share Outreach at 360-695-7658, ext. 3303. The Share Outreach team exists to plug homeless people into services, she said — and to solve or avoid the problems that come up when they’re living on the streets.
“It’s not just outreach to the homeless, it’s outreach to anybody who’s affected,” she said. By calling Share Outreach, you can help the team solve problems and build positive relationships with people who need help. “We want to know them, we want them to know us,” she said. “We want businesses and residents to know us, too.”
Or, if you’re interested in joining up with the Hough SWAT team, Schultz said to send a note to the neighborhood association at houghmail@gmail.com. Schultz wants to make these cleanup outings routine — occurring perhaps as often as every week.
That’s what Topper likes best about the Hough SWAT team, she said: It’s local people working toward a local solution. The neighbors asked the city to be a partner, she said, but they didn’t demand that the city step in and fix it for them.
“The city has been great, but we want to have neighbors out here doing this systematically,” said Heidi Owens. “We need more.”
