New Safe Rest Village set to open at the end of the month in SE Portland

By Connor McCarthy

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    PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — The City of Portland is set to open a new Safe Rest Village at the end of July in its ongoing efforts to try and get people off the streets.

The Reedway Safe Rest Village, located at the end of Southeast Reedway Street, will have 60 units to help house at least 60 unhoused Portlanders.

The site will have showers, bathrooms, a kitchenette, and a common area. Each unit will have air conditioning and the common area will have outdoor heaters in the winter. Commissioner Dan Ryan said continuing to build Safe Rest Villages is important to get people off the streets.

“The whole vision was that we need a better on-ramp from chronic homelessness to stability,” Ryan said.

So far, there are five Safe Rest Villages that house more than 150 people. The opening of the Reedway Safe Rest village will add to that number. The city said since July of last year to March of this year, of the 89 people who left the operating villages, 48 found permanent or temporary shelter.

“We really needed to have this opportunity for them to connect with services,” Ryan said. “As I always say, services first.”

Those who spoke to FOX 12 off-camera said they’re cautiously optimistic about how their new neighbors will mesh with their neighborhood. Some support the chosen location because of its close proximity to public transit for the residents.

Others who live around the Reedway Safe Rest Village have concerns. Pantaleon Nesta has lived in the Lents neighborhood near the site for three decades. He’s concerned about a potential increase in crime, drug use, and drug dealing . Most of his neighbors pushed back previous attempts to build a safe rest village at the end of Reedway Street, but the city ignored their wishes and went ahead anyways according to Nesta.

“They should put it somewhere where it’s more controllable, like where there’s no residential area,” Nesta said. “Why would they have to put it here? If they’re going to do that, then put one somewhere that has more money.”

Last month similar concerns came front and center for neighbors that live around the newly opened Peninsula Park Safe Rest Village in North Portland. Within a week after it opened, neighbors claimed there was an increase in concerning activity in the streets surrounding the sites. Commissioner Ryan said those concerns were addressed.

“That site for years had a lot of drug trade going on and so it was scattered if you will,” Ryan said. “Police and the community system got on it.”

Neighbors in the area are happier with how the Safe Rest Village is being run according to Ryan. Urban Alchemy, the non-profit that runs Peninsula Park and now the Reedway site, said they’ve learned how to better engage with the surrounding community.

“The one thing that became clear is we got to do a better job of navigating for people what happens when you break up long-standing encampments,” Kirkpatrick Tyler, Urban Alchemy’s Chief of Government and Community Affairs, said. “It’s not just about people and stuff. The reason that those encampments are able to blossom is because there are people invested in that encampment in being what it is.”

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