To the editor:
I want to publicly thank the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners for purchasing a building in Lincoln City for a winter homeless shelter.
I’m asking the public to consider donating a house in south Lincoln County so that we can do transitional housing. Our work is to assist people to regain employment, locate housing, and reconnect with family.
This project, called Shalom House, will have simple rules. The residents will work to save money to get into housing. They will have chores and meetings to fairly assign work to all the residents.
In 1992, my colleagues and I co-founded Arcata House in Arcata, Calif. We incorporated as a 501(c) 3 non-profit, secured a $100,000 Community Development Block grant and bought our first house.
The transitional housing model can benefit many persons who are housing challenged. We cannot help everyone. The harsh drugs like meth and heroin often keep people in a negative spiral. Getting clean of these drugs requires a person to go through detox and rehab. We cannot do that with Shalom House.
I appeal to the people of Waldport and Yachats to support our project, join an advisory board, and meet with city councils and other elected officials. Please contact me at 458-277-8810 or wolverinewaldport@gmail.com or P.O. Box 2002 Waldport, Ore. 97394
- David Peltier/Waldport
I am dead set against any attempt to comfort or bring in more homeless to this area and I’ll tell you why. I have lived in this area and have volunteered my services to the community. Sadly, my first hand experience is the local homeless are bums. I’m not aware of any of them being productive. Several have loitered the area for 6 – 10 years. They steal from local businesses and litter and defecate in our wooded areas. Also, there are no services available here. I for one will not tolerate my town looking like Portland. I wish I knew what the solution was. I truly do, but it’s not here.
Lincoln City and Newport are great locations for this. They have the services and support. Waldport and Yachats, not so much. NIMBY could apply for many residents, and many reasons.
My wife and I have donated to various causes helping those in need over the years. We are supporters of our local food banks, as well as charities designed to help those who are in need to clothing and shelter. That said, we both feel that although this proposal is a compassionate one, that it is also misguided and will only increase the problems currently being experienced by the residents of Waldport and Yachats.
Coastal communities have aways experienced a high transient population and as a result often experience higher crime rates, drug use, and blight caused by littering and human waste. The proposal put forth by Mr. Peltier will only serve to potentially make these problems worse in that housing of this sort will only increase the population of homeless into an area where housing and jobs are already in short supply.
Although a house for the purpose of providing homes for homeless seems on the surface to be a solution to the problem, the following needs to be considered: Waldport and Yachats are small communities without the services available in larger communities. In addition, Waldport and Yachats are in an area with a lack of housing as vacation rentals have reduced the amount of housing available and have pushed up the cost of rentals when they are available. Jobs in the area are for the most part in the service industry and often to not pay wages that are high enough to afford the price of current rental prices. And so just how will a proposal to house people in transitory housing be of any good when there is nowhere for people to go with limited options for long term housing, jobs, and infrastructure needed to make this a success?
We feel that any help being offered should be directed towards those who are already working in the area and are struggling to find and keep the housing they have. We need to take care of our food service workers, our hotel staff, shop employees and others who work so hard to make the communities of Yachats and Waldport the vibrant places that they are.
I don’t have all of the answers, but it seems to me that more long term housing and less short term housing might be a place to start and that the proposal stated in this article although well meaning will only serve to make the problem worse as it will potentially bring more people to the area making the job and housing crunch even worse than it already is.
My understanding is that the new shelter in Lincoln City will serve the same purpose of the one in Newport–designed to help the unhoused get shelter from the elements during the winter season, and provide other resources, guidance while there. In fact, the Newport Warming Shelter and Resource Center just closed for the next few seasons (They might open in the Fall; I’m not sure).
I also want to suggest that your suggestion, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, is important and very much what I understand is going on in other parts of the county. Lincoln County is developing affordable housing for the workforce, while also making efforts to help the unhoused. I know that County Commissioner Claire has done a lot for both matters. I learned this from here: https://www.voteclairehall.com/clairehallpriorities I have talked to community members and they tell me that the funds that Commissioner Hall negotiated for from the state were for the 2 Transitional Dwellings already in place (Newport and Lincoln City). I’m not sure that there if funding for one in South County.
One more thing, Homelessness is at epidemic proportions in Oregon and all across the USA. If you read some of what Commissioner Hall has to say about it, you will notice that the demographics of those who are unhoused have changed significantly. While some homeless people migrate to the coast, a lot of them were born and raised here or are being raised here. Some are dealing with addiction, but many are not. Many are working. Every county in America is dealing with this.