Portland councilors may vote on shelter moratorium in Bayside

The City Council on Monday is being asked to enact an emergency moratorium on new shelters in the Portland’s Bayside neighborhood, which has long been home to a cluster of social services used by people throughout the state and region struggling with homelessness and other issues.

City Councilor Tae Chong, who leads the council’s health and human services committee, said the 180-day moratorium, unveiled last month, is not meant to block any specific shelter proposal. Instead, he said it’s intended to give city officials additional time to finalize a new annual licensing program for all emergency shelter operators, including the city, which operates a family shelter and a shelter for single adults in the neighborhood.

Chong stressed that the moratorium is limited in size and scope.

“It’s only for Bayside and it’s only for new shelters,” he said. “We’re not closing anything down. It’s not restricting anything in any other part of town. It’s only for new shelters in Bayside until the licensing gets passed.”

However, Mark Swann, executive director of the nonprofit social services provider Preble Street, said he thinks the moratorium is aimed at his organization, since Preble Street is the only organization to open a new shelter in the city over the last 25 years. He noted that Preble Street operated only 64 shelter beds, all of which were in Portland, prior to the pandemic, but now manages 300 shelter beds at temporary shelters, such as hotels, throughout the state.

The moratorium comes four months after the city approved Preble Street’s new 40-bed shelter at 5 Portland St. The shelter, which is currently under development and is expected to open sometime this summer, replaces its resource center, which included a day shelter.

Swann said Preble Street contemplated relocating and expanding some services in Bayside two years ago, but those plans are now up in the air because of lessons learned during the pandemic, including the need for social distancing. The original plan would have consolidated teen services, by adding the teen shelter at 38 Preble St. to the Teen Center on Cumberland Avenue, and then converting the former teen shelter into a small shelter for women.

“While it is true that we had put a plan together to open a new women’s shelter there, we are now not at all sure that is the best use of that space at this time,” Swann said. “In any event, with all (that’s) going on right now, it is definitely not something we would be pursuing within the next year.”

Preble Street is also working on opening a healing center for victims of human trafficking at 55 Portland St., but that facility will consist of caseworker offices, group rooms and the like and will not have any overnight uses.

Swann said the moratorium is unnecessary.

“I sure don’t see any rush on shelter development by other nonprofits, given how brutal the process is to open and run a shelter, how woefully inadequate the funding is, how challenging the work is for staff, and the demonizing of both the shelter providers and the intended clients,” he said.

With the support of some area residents, city officials have been trying to break up the cluster of social services in Bayside, which is undergoing rapid redevelopment.

Officials argue that having so many people accessing services in one area presents a risk to clients, who become easy targets for traffickers and other bad actors.

That strategy was one of the reasons the council chose a city-owned parcel on Riverside Street, which is near Westbrook, as the site of a new 200-bed homeless services center. Plans for that center include beds instead of floor mats, a health clinic, soup kitchen and on-site services to help people struggling with unemployment, substance use disorders, mental health issues and other obstacles that prevent them from accessing stable housing.

The proposed moratorium was approved in a 3-0 health and human services committee vote on Tuesday, with a recommendation that it be approved as an emergency, so it can take effect immediately. As an emergency proposal, at least seven of the nine council members would have to vote in support for the moratorium to pass.

The accompanying resolution notes that Bayside currently has more than 500 emergency shelter beds and accounts for 20 percent of police calls and 10 percent of EMS calls, despite having only 5 percent of the city’s population and 1 percent of the land area. The resolution alludes to Preble Street’s new shelter by noting that an “additional 40-bed emergency shelter received conditional use approval in the Bayside neighborhood, and is expected to begin operating in the near future.”

The resolution highlights concerns over the concentration of social services in the neighborhood.

“The City of Portland’s homeless population has higher rates than the general public of individuals with lower socioeconomic status, individuals who are racial minorities, and individuals who suffer from substance use disorder and other mental health disorders, leading to a concentration of vulnerable individuals in the Bayside neighborhood,” the resolution states.

“The current City of Portland Code of Ordinances is inadequate to protect the Bayside neighborhood from the further concentration of emergency shelters in that neighborhood, potentially creating further serious harm from emergency shelter development in that area,” it continues. “The current City of Portland Code of Ordinances is also inadequate to prevent the potential overburdening of police, fire, and other City services from concentrating additional homeless shelter services in the Bayside neighborhood.”

Mayor Kate Snyder said she’s unsure whether there will be support on the council to waive the second reading and enact the moratorium as an emergency. If there isn’t, the council would likely vote on the moratorium at its next meeting, where passage would require only five votes.

“It’s really up to the council to decide if we have two reads on this item,” she said.