At a Concordia Neighborhood Association meeting last month, residents expressed their concerns about crime, squatters and especially abandoned houses. The neighborhood’s January newsletter cited a statistic that Concordia ranks fifth out of Portland’s 95 neighborhoods in 211 calls about foreclosures (see below).

Belinda Clark, co-chair of the association, thinks that the reality could be worse than the statistic suggests.

“A lot of what we hear from the public is, ‘We don’t know who to call,’” Clark says. “There were a lot of people here who were not reporting it because they didn’t think anything would come
from it.”

Officer Wayne Schull of the North Precinct Neighborhood Response Team thinks that Portland’s perception of the problem may be greater than the reality.

“I have not noticed a huge abandoned home crisis,” Schull says. “I also haven’t noticed any increase in abandoned homes being occupied by vagrants or received a lot more calls about such problems lately.”
Clark maintains that the problems related to foreclosed homes are increasing across North and Northeast Portland, even if such problems are not being reported or seen by the regular rounds
of police.

“There’s been a lot of crime in our neighborhood lately, and one street had several break-ins,” she says. “I’m in contact with other neighborhood associations, so I know it’s not unique to us.”

At January’s meeting, Schull assured residents that police would do everything in their power to correct
the issue.

“If people do know that there’s an ongoing problem at a home that has been foreclosed and has become bank-owned, they should absolutely contact the Portland Police and we will send an officer to check out the scene,” he says.

Schull sees high stakes for dealing with foreclosures.

“Being vigilant and watching who comes and goes in the neighborhood is important,” he says. “It often comes down to more than people getting out of the weather, because people will use abandoned homes to conduct illegal activity or sell drugs.”

Property owners can take matters into their own hands, but there are backup options. Schull believes in face-to-face contact, and finds sometimes just going and talking to the property owner makes a big difference.

Foreclosure information is publicly available through any county assessor’s office. “We recommend concerned folks contact the bank to let them know that a yard is overgrown and that the property looks abandoned,” Schull says. “If the bank is not willing to cooperate, sometimes a friendly call from the police will get the ball rolling. There are services banks use to board up buildings and keep watch.”

Being understaffed and overworked, Portland’s Bureau of Development Services will not respond just for an overgrown lawn, Schull adds, but the city will come out for a property that’s been labeled a constant and dangerous nuisance. He finds that sometimes the renter isn’t mowing the lawn and the landowner is out of state, and in those cases, the landowner is grateful to be made aware that there’s a problem.

Schull says the key with foreclosures is the same as with any other type of crime. Predators or suspects mostly target easy subjects, so he always advises people to prevent easy targets for the opportunists by keeping windows locked and greenery trimmed.

Another preventative option is living with roommates. MariRuth Petzing, an Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon specialist working on shared housing outreach through a grant from the city of Portland, likes how shared housing increases the total amount of affordable housing in the neighborhood. She feels it fosters strong neighborhood connections, helping build confidence and a sense of place.

Her program for prescreening and matching applicants has helped arrange thousands of home-sharing possibilities since 1982 for various ages and income levels.

“It’s important to remember that there are some options when you’re foreclosed upon, and shared housing is one of them,” she says. “One of the great things about shared housing is that it’s neighbors helping neighbors rather than just giving people money. Shared housing is a great way for people to augment their income and avoid going into default.”

Learn more about the Ecumenical
Ministries of Oregon housing program
at www.emoregon.org/shared_housing

BDS’s Nuisance: Not enough funding to respond to complaints

In your travels around town since the summer, you may have noticed more vehicles with flat tires sitting in overgrown lawns. So has Ed Marihart, Portland’s Bureau of Development Services senior management analyst, but there’s nothing the city can do about it.

“We’re not responding to a lot of complaints,” says Marihart, who was a neighborhood inspections supervisor before July 1 cuts decimated BDS. “Our civic livability wing had 13.5 [full time equivalent] inspectors originally, but now they’re down to five inspectors. That was a major drop, so we’re having to prioritize in terms of responding.”

BDS officials respond to “level one and two complaints” involving rental properties or safety concerns, but they have to ignore level three: owner-occupied nuisances such as tall grass and weeds or disabled vehicles on private property. According to Marihart, you’re on your own getting your neighbor to clean up.

Vacant properties usually fall into level two, but fire and health concerns can bump up a property to priority one, so garbage filling a house or yard is taken into account.

BDS’s code-enforcement complaint line isn’t answered live anymore, so people have to leave a voicemail. “We used to be able to get out within five days but now it’s more like three weeks,” Marihart says. “We also used to have $300,000 in a nuisance abatement fund, but that fund was cut to $50,000, so we’re only doing the bare minimum.”

Marihart plans to ask City Council for full funding of the program at a special work session Feb. 9. “It’s been frustrating for community members, because they want us to be able to respond,” he says.