And now to our big story.
When it comes to the crisis of homelessness,
the spotlight is often on Portland,
and for good reason.
But some of you have asked us about the
homeless in other parts of the state,
and we've heard you, our Tim Gordon,
went to Seaside and found there
is a significant problem there.
Looking out over the Oregon coast at Seaside,
you can see why people like to live here,
but most can't. There is a severe
lack of affordable housing even for
the people who want to get jobs here.
We don't have enough homes.
Of course, many people like to
visit seaside depends on tourism.
It is also grappling with
homelessness in the community,
sometimes right out on the beach.
That must be a real balance.
Trying to you know, deal with
a population that needs help,
but yet also not hurt the economy.
It's really looking after people
who are houseless or homeless,
but also caring for people who
are residents who have homes
here and are often impacted.
We talked with Mayor Jay Barber
and City Councilor Tito Montero.
Montero is leading Seasides
effort to make things better after
city leaders made homelessness.
A priority in 2021
we started off with what
are the needs of all these
different groups of people?
What are the needs of city workers?
What are the needs of the
people who own houses here?
What are the needs of the
people who are homeless?
Since last May there have been a
half dozen community forums which
helped form some key strategies.
Some are already working here involving
more collaboration with residents,
businesses, nonprofits and police.
I think what happens in a larger city.
Is the bureaucracy is so big it's difficult
to have those kind of ground level kind of?
How can we solve this together?
And that's really what we're working toward.
In some ways, homelessness looks
different here than in Portland.
There are more small camps on the
outskirts of seaside like this
one off of Hwy 101 S of town,
but don't let that fool you.
County is has the highest number
of homeless individuals per capita
in rural Oregon. So we do have an
issue. Viviana Matthews is executive
director of Clatsop Community Action,
which spends most of its time helping
keep people from being houseless.
But this helping hands warming shelter
opened in January is part of the
strategy to help the unsheltered next
to the plan is to have this space
become a navigation and Resource
Center in the non winter months.
Sheryl Paul is one of the nonprofits 2
new homeless liaisons making connections
sometimes. This is a
little as a pair of socks.
But ultimately, getting to know them,
taking care of small needs
with the goal in mind to work
towards finding housing,
and then the steps it
takes to get to housing.
To be clear, not all homelessness
is hidden in the woods,
just north of downtown Seaside.
There is a lot full of camping,
and to the frustration of nearby
residents it's been going on for awhile.
It was about a year and a half ago.
That counselor Montero says.
Homeless folks in Old RV's
started parking and living long
term along the Kanakam drive.
Well, that was not allowed.
No camping and no overnight parking
signs went up and some of those
folks ended up moving over into a
city owned lot across the street.
Despite this being one of the
neatest vehicle camps I've seen,
city leaders know it cannot last forever.
But one of the challenges for this
small city is finding a place for
a sanctioned car park like this.
We have so little land that we need
to be working with private land owners
and that is one of the things we're
in some discussions with some private
land owners hoping to get some land
to be used for managed car parks.
In the meantime, Seasides police
chief has added homeless liaison
to the duties of the Community
service officer and the city is
reworking its camping ordinance.
The goal is to give police clearer
rules for moving people on.
While offering alternatives for
where to go, Chief David Ham
says that's an important start.
The problem for seaside,
I think in some of our residents in
the community who are complaining
about this is the fact that we haven't
really had any concrete policy
and ordinances that are in effect
that we feel that we can act on.
There are certainly differences
from small cities to large.
Seaside is finding that
out as it finds its way.
Through its homeless crisis
sounds like a lot of progress.
Given that you just kind of picked
this up less than a year ago.
I mean, that's a lot of work,
but you know the wheels of government
move slowly and we're never going to
be fast enough for a lot of people,
so we're trying to solve this
with the kinds of resources
and time that we have.
But it is a challenge.
We are not going to solve it,
but we will be able to help.
Make things better.
That's our plan.
Tim Gordon joins us now.
Tim a big question. How many homeless
are out there? You know, Pat,
we really don't know how it's
been the last couple of years,
the pandemic, how that's affected
the homelessness at the coast.
A new survey was done recently,
but we're waiting on those numbers.
We do know that the last point in time
count in 2019 had Clatsop County with
the highest rate of homelessness in
the state with 894 people homeless,
which is 22.7 per thousand.
Of course, Clatsop County includes
seaside but also Astoria and Warrenton.
Now compare that.
To Multnomah County,
at the time with 4015 homeless
or 4.9 people per thousand.
And with rural counties.
Overall the rate is 5.3 per thousand,
so you can see there that
Clatsop County really has had a
big problem for quite a while.
And I know you were out there on the ground.
Did you get a chance to talk to any
of the homeless and what they tell
you? You know the short answer
to that is unfortunately no,
not directly in our time out there.
We were not able to connect with
anybody who was homeless at
wanted to talk to us about it.
As we said in our story,
a lot of folks are kind of
spread out in the woods.
Harder to reach.
Our best shot was at this RV car park
and kind of the unofficial mayor there.
Guy named Richard wasn't home.
We were hoping that we could speak with him.
Apparently there's a big spaghetti
dinner every Sunday night for everybody,
so maybe not getting supplies for that.
We'll go back for dinner and we hope
we could do that story in the future
and talk to him. Thank you Tim.
Always excellent reporting.
We appreciate it.