Portland's Joyce Hotel, considered the housing of last resort, is closing March 30
The Joyce Hotel, one of downtown’s last rental havens for Portland’s homeless, has given notice to its residents to vacate the premises by March 30.
The mass eviction order was posted by Precision Property Management Corp. on Dec. 31, giving residents 90 days to evacuate the location because the hotel was permanently closing. The low-barrier, low-cost hotel, located at Southwest 11th Avenue and Stark Street, is one of the last of its kind in Portland’s increasingly trendy West End.
“It is with deep regret we inform you that Precision Property Management will be closing the Joyce Hotel operation on March 30, 2016, at 3 p.m. After decades of operating the Joyce, our lease has been terminated and the building is reportedly being sold.”
The notice said the management company had been unsuccessful in its attempts to negotiate a continued agreement with the owners.
It is unclear what lies ahead for the building. Reached by phone, the owner of the building, Dan Zilka with DZ Real Estate, refused to talk to Street Roots as of press time.
The Joyce has 69 individual rooms and 10 beds in hostel-style rooms. An ID, a $5 deposit and $40 will get you a single room for the night. Shared hostel beds start at $19. Residents also rent by the week for $214. Despite its being a hotel, some residents have lived there for many years as their primary dwelling.
New customers are being told they can stay at the hotel for only up to six days in a row.
Coated with more than a century of inner city grit, the Joyce has been a last resort for the down and out. For social service agencies, hospitals and the police, the Joyce has been a go-to site when they needed an immediate, safe and temporary housing option for someone experiencing homelessness.
“I just don’t know what people are going to do,” said Debby, the manager at the Joyce. She declined to give her last name for print but said she was employed by Precision Property Management along with her brother, front desk clerk Dan Dent. Debby said the management company had wanted to continue operating the Joyce but was told in December they were no longer needed.
Debby’s role as manager means she’s also part social worker and part rules enforcer, which is appealing to service agencies looking to shelter a client. She said she’s been there for about 15 years and is known to keep people in order – and work with those who are struggling to make ends meet.
“We understand that people come here because they have a criminal record, financial problems or evictions,” Debby said. “Everybody’s situation is different.”
Edde Armijo is the Joyce’s chief of maintenance and a former resident in 2003 and 2004 while he was in between housing. If it wasn’t for the Joyce, he said, “I would be living in my car because there was no place to go.”
Armijo described the Joyce as a stepping stone.
“We are transition housing,” he said. “They come here and some get a job and move up. Some of them move down. Some of them stay.”
Debby said the longest stay she remembered was 13 years.
Few options for SROs
The Joyce’s closure leaves a void in the city core for weekly, low-cost housing rates, often referred to as single-resident occupancy hotels, or SROs.
“Old SROs like the Joyce definitely aren’t ideal housing. But they do offer an option to people who don’t have a lot of choices, especially in this housing market,” said Marc Jolin, director of the regional housing collaboration A Home for Everyone and former director of the housing agency JOIN. “If the Joyce closes, it will only make the housing crisis for very low-income people in our community that much worse.”
“There are so few easily accessible housing options downtown; the Joyce is one of those options,” said Bobby Weinstock with Northwest Pilot Project, which has referred clients to the Joyce for housing. “It’s not the greatest housing option, but it’s certainly better than a night on the streets, and for some people, certainly better than a night at a mass shelter.”
Debby said she is particularly concerned about residents with mental health issues after March 30.
“I just know it’s going to be a tremendous hardship on a lot of people,” Debby said.
“They either need family or they need us,” said Armijo.
During our conversation at the Joyce, one regular customer bargained for a few extra days to collect the money he owed for his room. He had only $35, and his payday changed, so he wouldn’t have the full rent until Thursday. Debby let him slide. Others stopped by and dropped off their keys for the day before heading out.
“Looks like we’re getting sunshine,” one said. “You never know, though. It changes so quickly.”
Another man entered the small lobby, asking for a room for the night.
“I spent the past five nights in the shelter,” he said. “Got about four hours of sleep a night. I need to get some rest.”
Exacerbating the crisis
Portland, along with other West Coast cities and the state of Hawaii, have declared housing emergencies to address skyrocketing rental prices, low vacancy rates and rising homelessness. This past fall, the Community Alliance of Tenants, declared a renter state of emergency in the Portland metro area. One of the major tipping points was the rash of no-cause evictions – in several cases clearing out entire buildings that were once considered affordable housing in order to attract higher-priced renters.
“These opportunities for affordable housing are really critical right now,” said Justin Buri, executive director with CAT. “And it’s adding to the crisis for low-income renters and residents. There simply are no more places to live.”
“This has been happening throughout the city, said Javier Mena, assistant housing director with the Portland Housing Bureau, “not just in terms of very vulnerable population like we have here, but also elderly population and others who don’t have the means to stay in those areas.”
While the Joyce caters to extremely low-income residents, it is not part of the city’s portfolio of low-income housing.
“It’s unfortunate,” Mena said. “If it was in our portfolio, this would not be happening. We would have a regulatory agreement, which would have kept those units affordable.”
The residents of the Joyce received 90 days’ notice to vacate the property, in accordance with new rules adopted by City Council adopted in October to protect tenants. But unlike government-sponsored projects, there is no automatic assistance for relocating the residents.
Multnomah County spokesman David Austin said there are some residents who work with the county’s Aging, Disability and Veterans Services Division on issues around benefits, and the county is exploring how the closing might affect those who stay at the Joyce.
“Multnomah County and A Home for Everyone are aware of the issues around the possibility that the Joyce may close,” Austin said. “It’s a low-barrier housing opportunity for a number of vulnerable people, and we’re concerned about what might happen, and we’re having dialogue about how to help.”
Portland’s housing commissioner, Dan Saltzman, told Street Roots that the Joyce has been an important asset as temporary housing for the city’s most vulnerable and low-income residents.
“It is unfortunate Portland is continuing to experience, amidst our city’s growth, a disturbing decrease in our affordable housing infrastructure,” Saltzman said.
Housing of last resort
Matthew Deschaine spent two years as a hospital outreach worker for Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. Now a clinical social worker with Legacy, Deschaine said he visited the Joyce weekly, and often daily, to check up on homeless patients after they were discharged from the hospital.
“It’s one of the only places that we’re able to have a long-term relationship and contract with, due to the personality needs and the chaos that accompanies a lot of our patients who stayed there. It served a really valuable purpose when there was no place else for people to go other than the street. At a reasonable rate, we were able to put them up at the Joyce, build a plan – and for me as an outreach worker, to have a point of contact as opposed to them disappearing on the street.”
Deschaine said the extra time to rest could be critical not only for the health of a patient, but also to provide shelter while more stable housing options become available.
“A door that you can lock, in a room that can be your own, is often what stands between a good night’s sleep and everything else,” Deschaine said.
Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare has also tapped the Joyce as a housing of last resort for its clients.
“Our clientele get vouchers because it’s an affordable alternative,” said Samantha Ridderbusch with Cascadia.
The longer it takes to find affordable housing, even for people receiving assistance, the longer people stay in interim sites like the Joyce. Debby, the manager, said they have been full or near-full in recent months.
Sean Hubert is the chief housing and employment officer for Central City Concern, which places about 100 clients each month in temporary, private housing units, including the Joyce. As part of the wider dynamic, Hubert said, places like the Joyce are one component in getting people off the streets and into permanent stability, and they’re becoming increasingly scarce.
“The big picture is that in any given year we’re moving about 400 people out of our existing affordable-housing portfolio,” Hubert said. “If we can move 400 people out, that means we can take 400 people in.”
The loss of SROs like the Joyce are indicative of the decline in very low-barrier, very low-cost housing that has spurred on decades of rising homelessness, Hubert said. Hubert said he would like to see the city broker a deal to preserve the Joyce as an affordable-housing option for low-income Portlanders.
There are other low-cost hotels outside Portland’s central city, including several along the Interstate corridor. But they aren’t as cheap as the Joyce, and they are miles away from the city’s social service hub, including meal programs, health care clinics and recovery programs.
The proximity to other services is key, Deschaine said, particularly when the terms of people’s housing and assistance are often tied to people connecting with services.
“It’s a place that the typical person heading over to a boutique in the Pearl or going to Powells would wrinkle their nose at, but in a city where there are literally no options or just a handful of options to get off the street without full rates at a hotel, it was basically a Hail Mary for us.”
Building’s management
DZ Real Estate purchased the building in 1999. Since then, the surrounding area has gone under a significant revitalization, with attractions such as Kenny and Zukes, Ace Hotel and Living Room Theaters appealing to a new audience. In 2014, Zilka closed the iconic Fish Grotto restaurant, which occupied the first floor of the same building as the Joyce. The building was built in 1912.
Precision Property Management is based in Las Vegas, Nev., but manages several properties in Oregon and Washington.
Brian D. Weathers of Longview, Wash., is listed as the officer for the corporation, but Street Roots was unable to reach him by press time.
The management company has a colorful legal background. Brian Weathers is the son of Tom and Kathy Weathers, who for years were the lessee of record for the Joyce and the nearby Kent Hotel under the company name 911 Management. In 2005, the Weathers were convicted of tax evasion for failing to pay federal taxes on income from the Joyce and other properties they managed. According to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Washington, the Weathers hid their assets and income in shell corporations. During that time, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on trips and material possessions, including a plane.
During that investigation, Weathers claimed independence from the United States and that federal laws carried no authority over him or his family. He declared himself “Sovereign without subjects, a foreign nation who rules autonomously and is not subject to any entity or jurisdiction anywhere.”
It was estimated that the Weatherses owed more than $1.6 million in back taxes. The couple were sentenced to five years in prison.
Joanne Zuhl is the managing editor of Street Roots.
