St. Vincent de Paul to reopen Shelter despite lack of agreement with City of TD
Day center for houseless to operate Tues. - Thurs., 9:30 a.m.- 1:30 p.m.
Food will not be served at the facility
St. Vincent de Paul Board Chair Kathryn Gilligan is all smiles on Wednesday, May 8, while showing off the newly painted and deep cleaned shelter at 315 W. Third Street. The facility is set to reopen on Tuesday despite no formal agreements with the city on the rules of operation. The city paused a public nuisance suit against St. Vincent when it appeared the group was willing collaborate on finding a solution to houseless problems in the neighborhood.
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles, Ore., May 10, 2024 — Volunteers with St. Vincent de Paul are moving ahead with restarting services for the houseless on May 14 at 315 W. Third St., but have scaled back hours and eliminated food services.
It’s the first sign of life at the shelter since it shuttered on Jan. 5 after the nonprofit voluntarily closed after being hit with a public nuisance suit.
The day-use facility will offer shelter, laundry and showers three days a week for four hours — Tuesday - Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Food will not be offered or served at the site.
Some expect the elimination of food services will dial back the number of houseless who have in the past camped out on abutting Pentland Street.
On Wednesday, May 8, the St. Vincent Board held an open house for the day center and invited neighbors and surrounding business owners to see upgrades at the facility.
More than $12,000 worth of improvements have occurred since its closure, including plumbing, interior painting and waxing of the floor. The site smells fresher and the walls sport new sage-green paint. A deep cleaning in the kitchen, bathrooms and shower facilities has also brightened the shelter.
St. Vincent Board Chair Kathryn Gilligan said volunteers will be providing enforcement of the new good neighbor policy they have created, noting the denial of services can be used against people who are unwilling to abide by the rules. Dave Lutgens will manage the site, she said.
But once patrons have left the building and crossed the street, ‘there’s not a whole lot we can do,” she added.
St. Vincent Board good neighbor policy
Click on Image to enlarge. Members of the St. Vincent Board are Bill Marick, Brenda Trapp, Ed Elliot, Debbie Sandoz & Jensie Bryan.
Gilligan said they are still training volunteers and are looking for additional volunteers to assist with in-home services and vouchers for clothing and car fuel.
No Consensus between City and St. Vincent
The reopening comes without the blessing of The City of The Dalles, which has the ability to restart a public nuisance suit that could potentially shutter the facility for up to one year.
However, City Manager Matthew Klebes appears to remain engaged as he attended the open house on Wednesday.
As a result of the City’s public nuisance suit, The Dalles City Council and St. Vincent Board members started a mediation process in March in hopes of finding solutions to address the behavior of the people St. Vincent’s serves.
While the mediation was in process, the City in an act of good faith requested a pause on the civil suit, and Wasco County Circuit Court Judge Marion Weatherford granted it on Jan. 10.
“We had a mediation,” said St. Vincent Chair Gilligan. “We talked things over and did not come to too many conclusions so it is up in the air. We’ll still continue with it. But it is time to reopen.”
The City or St. Vincent both can restart the public nuisance case at any time.
Move to open not unexpected
City Councilor Tim McGlothlin said the move to open was not unexpected.
“I knew it was inevitable,” he said on Friday, May 10. “I would have preferred they would look at other options.”
Former Elk’s Club at 2620, which has a full commercial kitchen, was offered as alternative site for St. Vincent de Paul.
McGlothlin has been working on houseless issues for a decade, and in recent months proffered the idea that St. Vincent move to the former Elk’s Club at 2620 W. 2nd Street to offer its services away from a residential neighborhood.
McGlothlin said the St. Vincent board has been resistant to moving.
“We never wanted to interfere with them providing services to the homeless,” he said. “It is the neighbors being adversely affected. I am concerned for children. There were two fires near Mill Creek last summer.”
McGlothlin said Police Chief Tom Worthy reports that complaints connected to the St. Vincent site have stopped since its closure, and the area is clean.
Bread and Blessings, a meal provider to the houseless, has been operating at Lewis and Clark Festival Park.
“They are still getting fed,” McGlothlin said of the houseless. “They’re just not getting the number of warm meals they got before.”
Food pantries such as the Salvation Army, Wahtonka Food Pantry also provide sustenance to houseless people, he said.
“It’s not like they (houseless) are being deprived.”
Aug. 3, 2022 - The Dalles Aquatic Center rests like an oasis behind the charred remains of the grass and scrub fire that started near Mill Creek.
Littering, Fires, Theft
The St. Vincent de Paul community meals site has been under fire for years as neighbors have complained about public safety and losing their quality of life.
“Three years ago, I testified in front of this body and I shared my family’s experience in this neighborhood,” Rian Beach told Council in September 2023. “I shared daily occurrences of theft, trespassing, fires, littering, fights, yelling, disorderly conduct, harassment, public urination and defecation, illegal parking, destruction of public and private property, and blocking of the sidewalks.”
On Friday, May 10, neighbors to the facility were cautiously optimistic about St. Vincent being able to deliver services without rekindling noise and other problems in the neighborhood.
Kallee Kennedy lives just a few houses away from St. Vincent de Paul’s day center at 315 W. Third Street. She has been at the house since 1973, and she is optimistic that shelter managers can deliver services to the houseless while enforcing rules that maintain the integrity of her neighborhood.
“They need the service,” said Kallee Kennedy, who lives just threee houses west of the St. Vincent building. “But they would come up the alley (outback of her house) and go to the bathroom or leave their garbage. I did not have any break-ins anyone coming on my property.”
Pentland Street was quiet and relatively clean this morning, May 10.
In past months Pentland Street sidewalks have been covered with tarps, sleeping bags, shopping carts and the personal effects of houseless locals. People living in vehicles were also often parked on the street.
The City of The Dalles went as far as to institute clean-up days where city employees used a dump truck to haul items unattended or left on the street to the dump.
In the past four years, neighbors complained about patrons of the St. Vincent facility using drugs openly, urinating, defecating, and littering garbage on private property. Police have also taken calls for sexual assault, assaults, noise complaints, thefts, trespassing and public indecency.
At one point, porta-potties were placed at the site as there are no public bathrooms in The City of The Dalles during nighttime hours. However, the vendors of those bathrooms removed them due to the amount of damage from trash and drug paraphernalia that we being left in them.
In September of 2023, The Dalles Police Chief Worthy said the St. Vincent site had the highest number of calls for police in the entire city - 1,297 in the last year. In the public Nuisance Suite, the complaint alleges 34 crimes associated with St. Vincent patrons.
Neighbors push for Nuisance
”Neighbors want to immediately put the nuisance order in place again,” said Councilor McGlothilin. “That has to be the decision of the city council and management… There has to be a decision on what action is to be taken… and I don’t know what that is at this point. I am inclined to let them ( St. Vincent) try and see and then go back and evaluate it. If it returns to the way it was, I am in favor of enacting a closure.”
Changing Times?
Some contend that the houseless problem in The Dalles ballooned as hard drugs were decriminalized in Oregon after pharmaceutical companies spent 20 years dispensing opioids as painkillers through illegal means.
And then the pandemic hit exasperating mental health services and making it clear that Oregon was lacking beds in state-run mental health care facilities.
However, new laws could bring big changes in months to come.
Drugs
In 2020, Oregon Measure 110 reduced the penalties for drug possession for small amounts of controlled substances including of Fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, oxycodone, heroin, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, and others.
The $100 fine can be dropped with a phone call to a treatment center where the addict can deny treatment.
That has all changed.
Governor Tina Kotek recently signed House Bill 4002 which gives people the choice between being charged or receiving treatment when they are caught carrying drugs like fentanyl and meth. Treatment includes completing a behavioral health screening and participating in a “deflection program” to sidestep fines.
However, criminalization will not go into effect until September 2024. Attorneys are still figuring out what level of punishment will be incurred for the unclassified misdemeanor.
Illegal Camping
Walking near a camp near The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce.
The US Supreme Court recently heard a Grants Pass Case on Anti-Camping Ordinances.
It is expected that the Court will make a ruling in June on the legality of municipalities to make camping in public spaces illegal.
The case examines a Grants Pass law where houseless people faced fines of at least $295, but repeat offenders may be banned from a city park for 30 days. If a person violates that order by camping in a park, they are committing criminal trespass, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,250 fine.
During oral arguments, Justices wrestled with the constitutionality of local laws that ban public camping aimed at addressing homelessness but arguabley violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment..
The dispute involves the constitutionality of laws that punish homeless people with civil citations for camping on public property, such as parks and sidewalks, when they have nowhere else to go.
Thus far, the lower courts have agreed that is is cruel and unusual. A reversal by the Supreme Court, however, would give municipalities greater power in removing houseless people from public places.
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