By Madeleine Voth
When longtime SE Portland resident TJ Browning attended a recent Portland Environment Management Office (PEMO) Problem Solver meeting, she was not there to argue against a single homeless shelter, transportation project or zoning proposal.
Instead, after listening to updates on issues ranging from camping and graffiti to neighborhood infrastructure, Browning posed a broader question increasingly voiced by residents of inner SE: Is there any high-level planning for the quadrant?
For Browning and many others who regularly attend the biweekly meetings, the concern is less about any one city decision than the cumulative effect of many. New homeless shelters, proposed BottleDrop facilities, zoning reforms intended to increase housing density and ongoing public safety concerns all seem to be arriving in the same areas of the city, prompting residents to wonder whether city officials have a coordinated vision for the area’s future.
“I don’t think anybody is looking at the sum of the whole,” Browning said. “Everybody is looking at their own little slice.”
Browning, who has lived in inner SE since the mid-1980s and has long been involved in neighborhood organizations, said her concerns are not about opposing housing or services for people experiencing homelessness but about how those decisions are made. “The livability of SE is really getting tough,” she said. “There are personalities to neighborhoods, and I think that’s being destroyed.”
Those concerns are echoed by longtime neighborhood activist Linda Nettekoven, who has spent nearly three decades involved in Portland neighborhood organizations, including serving as co-chair of Southeast Uplift and participating on numerous citywide planning committees.
For Nettekoven, the issue is not simply where services are located but how they are implemented. “I think the best way to mitigate the issue is through doing things well so that people can see success,” she said.
She pointed to projects such as the Clinton Triangle Temporary Alternative Shelter Site and the WeShine tiny home village near SE Division St. as examples of facilities that have become accepted because they are well managed and maintain strong relationships with neighbors. “A lot of people don’t even know it’s there,” she said of the Division village. “It’s been serving folks well and being a quiet, good neighbor.”
Nettekoven said successful projects depend on responsive government and ongoing communication with nearby residents. When city staff and neighborhood organizations work together, she said, people are often more willing to support new facilities.
At the same time, she acknowledged the difficult balance city leaders face. “It’s that funny catch-22,” she said. “You want to bring the services to where the people are, but then when you do that, you attract more people who are also struggling.”
She cautioned against viewing neighborhood concerns as simple opposition to homeless services. “When there’s a willing partner in the city and there are folks from the neighborhoods who are willing to roll up their sleeves and see what they can do to help, people can see success,” she said.
Still, Nettekoven said some parts of inner SE increasingly feel they are absorbing a growing concentration of shelters and services. In addition to existing facilities, neighborhoods have recently debated new overnight shelters, a proposed BottleDrop redemption center and additional housing development, leading some residents to question whether city agencies evaluate those decisions collectively or primarily on a project-by-project basis.
Historically, she noted, similar debates have played out in the Central Eastside and Old Town, where social services have often clustered because of available land, existing infrastructure and fewer residential neighbors. “There is a long history of trying to figure out what’s fair and what’s effective,” Nettekoven said.
District 3 Councilor Steve Novick said residents are not wrong to question whether a single, coordinated framework guides housing, shelter and service siting decisions across SE Portland, and in response to that, “the short answer is no,” he said.
According to Novick, responsibility is divided among the city, Multnomah County and independent nonprofit organizations, all of which operate different programs and serve different populations. While city and county leaders may attempt to distribute publicly operated facilities across districts, nonprofits are generally free to locate where they can secure properties and where the populations they serve are already concentrated.
That dynamic has historically contributed to a clustering of services in areas such as Downtown and the Central Eastside. “It’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg problem,” Novick said.
For city-run shelters, he emphasized that officials consider factors such as zoning, existing infrastructure and data identifying areas of greatest need. However, City Council’s role is primarily to fund programs and set broader housing policy rather than determine the location of individual shelters. “It’s also helpful to hear from constituents about what they are seeing on the ground,” Novick said.
At the same time, he noted that District 3 consistently experiences one of the city’s highest concentrations of unsheltered camping. “We know this is having an impact on our neighborhoods and our district as a whole,” Novick said.
Balancing neighborhood livability with the need to expand housing and services remains an ongoing challenge, he said. “The reality is that these spaces need to go somewhere.” He added that residents can still shape decisions through testimony, direct communication with council offices and engagement with city agencies as proposals move forward.
For Browning, that explanation is exactly what many residents say they have been waiting to hear. “We all want to help people,” she said. “But somebody has to be looking at the whole picture.”
As Portland continues expanding housing and homelessness services, the question for many residents is no longer whether change will come to inner SE, but who is responsible for ensuring those changes add up to a coherent plan rather than a collection of individual decisions.