If you feed them, they will come. And stay. And get wasted, urinate, litter, fight, vandalize the place and intimidate people going to the farmers market, or a concert, or the kid-friendly fountain for some good clean fun.
That’s Daniel Mitchell’s bird’s-eye view of homeless people in Esther Short Park from his condo in the Parkview building at VancouverCenter, where he lives with his girlfriend and their dogs. He also operates an engineering business near the northwest corner of the park, and he’s looking to open Sporting Systems, an upscale firearms shop, in the same area.
“I’ve got the park bracketed,” he said. “We walk a lot, we ride our bikes. We take some walks pretty late at night. We see it all.”
Mitchell has lived downtown for 15 years. He watched closely while the city transformed a badly blighted spot through new construction, landscaping and lots of new programming and activities. Esther Short Park was named one of 10 Great Public Spaces by the American Planning Association in 2013.
So nothing makes Mitchell madder than damning reviews on Internet sites like Trip Advisor:
“The bad news is you will have to fight the homeless off to sit on (benches). I have seen more than 40 at a time. I would stay away from this park at all costs.”
“This is a beautiful park …(T)hat being said, it’s pretty much a haven of vagrants the times we have been there.”
“Last time we were there, there was a bum washing his clothes in the fountain where kids were playing in the water.”
And nothing makes Mitchell sadder than criticizing the charitable, well-meaning volunteers who feed the needy here on evenings and weekends. Their hearts are absolutely in the right place, he said. But their actions couldn’t be in a more wrong place.
What they’re really doing is feeding the park’s perennial problems, Mitchell said, by drawing more transients here instead of connecting them with existing nearby services — including a couple of busy food pantries and Share House’s thrice-daily hot meals.
“We appreciate (the volunteers’) hearts and good will but object to the manner in which they’re doing it,” Mitchell posted on his Facebook page, “Keeping Esther Short Park Clean.” “Twenty volunteers serving two hours at Share House would make a huge difference. But in Esther Short Park, they’re making a huge mess, then packing up and leaving it behind, along with the negative behaviors.”
Gerald Bartlett, president of the Parkview Homeowner Association, said by email that many condo owners “now regret their purchase because of the deterioration of the neighborhood.” He said a group feeding folks monthly at Turtle Place, adjacent to the park, has led to people camping in the basement garage and urinating and defecating on exterior walls and even inside the elevator. There are allegations of vandalism and car theft, too.
“The neighborhood is made worse, not better, by misguided civic groups,” Bartlett said. “We are especially concerned about the criminally vagrant component … and the collateral damage they cause.”
People feeding people
Feeding hungry people doesn’t draw anyone new to Esther Short Park, volunteers say. “The homeless were there first … we came to them,” organizer Lori Blanchard said on the Facebook page of “Free Hot Soup (Vancouver).” Co-organizer Shelly Gaylor said both she and Blanchard already do volunteer at Share House and at the seasonal Winter Hospitality Overflow spillover shelter — which is why they decided to reach out even farther.
“We thought, there’s a need to help the extreme homeless who don’t make it into the shelters,” said Gaylor, who added that volunteerism has been her full-time pursuit since she was laid off from Hewlett-Packard a few years ago. This Free Hot Soup (Vancouver) effort, copied from a similar project in Portland, now is about 10 weeks old, she said.
“We usually make four to six gallons of soup” and dozens of sandwiches, Gaylor said. They distribute clothing and toiletries and other essentials, too. “Everybody we feed, they’re so thankful. They’re amazed that we’re just people feeding people.”
Vancouver police have embraced the group, she added. “We thought we were in trouble, one week. Two police cars drove right up to us and they got out and asked, what are you doing? They looked around, they came back and said, ‘You guys are amazing, keep it up.’ “
The Hot Soup crew insist that they diligently clean up the park when they’re done. But Mitchell and Bartlett insist that the park is reliably trashed when they’re done, and the “Keeping Esther Short Park Clean” page teems with what appears to be photographic evidence.
“Yes, the residual effect is often very discouraging,” said Lee Rafferty, executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association. “The litter and waste does create a hardship. I know nobody intends that.”
Last week, after The Columbian asked, the Hot Soup Facebook discussion was all about backlash: “What I am hearing from colleagues that work and live by the park is mainly this — they had been OK when it was food given to the people,” one member posted. “When it started to look like a free rummage sale is when it became too much. They also do not like all the trash that is not being picked up.”
“The people that live there hate us,” wrote organizer Blanchard.
Task force
Last year, the city formed an Esther Short Task Force. It’s getting rave reviews from Mitchell and Paula Person, who lives at Esther Short Commons and chairs the local neighborhood association, because it is getting all the players — elected officials, park managers, social service agencies, Vancouver’s Downtown Association — focusing on this problem.
But Person added that she’s learned a lot about what police can and can’t do. “We can’t arrest our way out of this situation,” she said.
Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said police must exercise discretion. “People have constitutional rights to be on public property,” she said, whether it’s sidewalks or the Esther Short Park stage. And, arresting transients or legally excluding them from the park “doesn’t help them get the services they need and doesn’t get their trash picked up,” she said. “We’re trying to do something positive.”
Mitchell loves talking about the time when he watched one Vancouver police officer make transients clean up all their rubbish — or face citations for littering.
Meanwhile, all reported, outreach to local distributor Craig Stein Beverage resulted in two downtown convenience stores ridding their shelves of fortified alcohol — cheap booze designed to get you hammered fast. And the city has been convinced to install new park benches with center arm rests, which will prevent people from using them like beds.
Feeding frenzy
Some consider this frenzy over feeding a blip. Rafferty, who’s been on the downtown scene for decades, said homelessness was present in Esther Short Park far longer than the Hot Soup crew. “This is an issue that didn’t start yesterday,” she said.
“I do not believe that (these volunteers) compound problems,” said Share Executive Director Diane McWithey. Homeless people favor public parks whether anybody is feeding them or not, she said. But, she added: “I do not encourage these ‘outreach missions.’ We encourage them to come to Share House and become involved there.”
Julie Hannan, Vancouver’s parks director, agrees. She’s hoping food giveaways don’t start conflicting with permitted park programming as the weather warms up.
“If we had to get into some enforcement, we would,” Hannan said. “That’s not our first choice but there are people who get permits and reserve the facility.” She’d much rather see volunteers go help at Share House, she said.
“It’s a great idea, but the results are not so desirable,” said Rafferty. “Not every great idea winds up being a lasting solution.”
