From the Overlook bluff, I looked down at Hazelnut Grove, nestled among evergreen trees and brush. Then I took in the larger view — the arcing Fremont Bridge, Portland’s skyline, the railroads, North Greeley Avenue.
I considered, too, the larger view of what brought us to this brink where the mayor’s office declared plans to “decommission” the catawampus little village:
All the villagers who have moved in and moved on during the last 5 1/2 years. The weekly general assemblies held by villagers. Their code of conduct. The pallets lugged in by Grimm film crews to lift tents from the mud before tiny houses were built. The villagers who participated in a neighborhood association that tried to have them banned. The other neighbors who supported them, hauling in gravel and goodwill. The previous mayor, Charlie Hales, who supported them. The current mayor, Ted Wheeler, who declared plans to move them early his first term, and who, at the beginning of his second term, is preparing to see that plan through. The mayor’s staff who worked with villagers on a new site in a new neighborhood — one that, after multiple tries, is on church land and aided by a nonprofit that will administer it. The villagers who want to move there and the villagers who want to stay. The pandemic and planning for zoning changes that could make way for camps and villages described awkwardly by government officials as “alternative shelters.” The question of whether that could include Hazelnut Grove.
It is a tragically flawed decision to evict people from better conditions than those of people living and dying on the streets. Yes, the city has followed through on its promise to create and offer St. Johns Village, but the fact that people want to stay — and that clearly more people need spaces to open up — raises the question: Why not change course and strive for a net gain, so more people who sleep on sidewalks today can move into either Hazelnut Grove or St. Johns Village?
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The city has given various reasons why Hazelnut Grove must move — fire safety, bike trail access and landslide probability — reasons that, once excavated, only thinly hold-up. Take fire safety. A memo dated Jan. 6 by then-Fire Marshal A.J. Jackson declares that though “the current location of Hazelnut Grove is far from ideal, the community has been very responsive to the safety recommendations provided by our Fire Inspectors.”
Jackson went on to describe how a good working relationship with the villagers is safer than creating a vacuum. “Should the village be relocated,” she wrote, “our primary concern is that the area becomes occupied by a community that is far less amenable to our input. Unmonitored use of open flames in the area could increase the risk of an uncontrolled fire.”
I’ve witnessed trucks pull up for maintenance while bikes whisk by, unencumbered. Current villagers have worked with supporters to do soil testing (pending) and landslide records. They are seeking the documents and the knowledge.
While the city puts forth these arguments, there are other issues at stake, including the persistently aggressive actions of the Overlook Neighborhood Association and efforts by the city to convert the self-governing community on city land to one managed by a nonprofit that carries its own liability.
Yet the demise of Hazelnut Grove need not be inevitable. The City Council that is in place is not the City Council that was there when Mayor Wheeler began the process of moving villagers. Ultimately, the decision should not be driven by narrow adherence to bureaucratic processes. We need leadership that’s willing to change that decision based on the larger humanitarian crisis.
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I contacted Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty because she oversees two key bureaus according to the city’s arguments — Portland Fire and Rescue and Portland Bureau of Transportation.
“In my heart I know that however complicated the situation is, I am morally unsettled with forcibly moving people from their community at Hazelnut Grove,” Hardesty told me, emphasizing her commitment to working with the entire Council — and, in particular, Dan Ryan, because he is the commissioner in charge of both the Housing Bureau and the Joint Office of Homeless Services. Ryan, she said, “has an open heart to these issues that will listen to those with lived experience.” Dan Ryan is planning on meeting with some villagers from Hazelnut Grove this week to learn more.
As additionally hopeful news, Commissioner Carmen Rubio said she remains open to considering paths other than demolishing Hazelnut Grove.
Should members of this council band together and take collective action, there’s the possibility of a new outcome.
Meanwhile, some Hazelnut Grove villagers are taking collective action: they joined with the Oregon Poor People’s Campaign to launch Save the Hazelnut Grove, gathering more than 5,800 signatures in support. When villagers and their supporters brought that petition to City Hall on the rainy first day of February, they delivered it in a tiny house.
Constructed from a banker’s box, the tiny house was red, with a little dog stenciled on the side, depicting the hope of a home. While the region strives to have enough housing, we are far from it. And survival itself just needs to be better — and in the case of Hazelnut Grove, a lot better, where shelter takes the shape of a home.
As Peter Parks, a housed neighbor who has lived in the neighborhood for 27 years and supports Hazelnut Grove, told me, “Why mess with it when it works?”