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Community leaders seek Weed and Seed for Hazelwood, Montavilla

Federal program would focus crime prevention, revitalization efforts

LEE PERLMAN
The MID-COUNTY MEMO

(from left) Jason Goodwill, general manager of Courtyard at Russellville independent retirement facility, Arlene Kimura, Hazelwood Neighbor-hood Association chairwoman and Shirley Holmes, Hazelwood Neighborhood Association secretary gather at the recent Weed and Seed formation meeting held last month at Courtyard at Russellville.
MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN
The residents of the Hazelwood and Montavilla neighborhoods are hoping for a little weed and seed, and it has nothing to do with their local greenery.

The federal Weed and Seed program is a concentrated effort to deal with issues of crime and urban blight in selected communities, and create conditions that will keep them from coming back. Toward this effort the program contributes $175,000 in its first year, $200,000 to $225,000 in each subsequent year.

Such a program has been operating for several years in the Brentwood-Darlington and Lents neighborhoods of outer Southeast Portland, and has produced good effect. Now community leaders think that Hazelwood and Montavilla are good candidates - for reasons that are nothing to be cheerful about.

The problems
As gentrification has occurred in Portland’s inner city neighborhoods, people who couldn’t afford to keep up with the trend have migrated to East Portland in general, and the Hazelwood and Montavilla neighborhoods in particular. As a report by Lents-Brentwood-Darlington program coordinator Sharon White indicates, 13.9 percent of Montavilla residents and 15.7 percent of Hazelwood residents live below the poverty line, compared to 12.94 percent for the city as a whole. Single women parents make up approximately 13 percent of households in both communities compared to about 10 percent for the city. Among people over 25, 7.60 of Montavillans and 8.51 percent of those in Hazelwood have a ninth grade education or less, compared to 5.19 for the city.

The area has become more ethnically diverse in recent years. Current statistics show that 7.81 percent of residents in the two neighborhoods are of Hispanic origin, and nearly 10 percent are Asian, compared to 6.81 and 6.25, respectively, in the rest of Multnomah County. Some 23 percent speak a language other than

English, compared to 17 percent for the rest of the city. Such people bring resources and vitality to an area, but challenges too. Non-English speaking children present special challenges to local schools. While home ownership rates for whites and Asians in Portland have increased in recent years, those for Hispanics have dropped, which is one reason why they have gravitated to this area. Housing in the target area is relatively cheap - and poor. Only 39 percent of residents in a recent survey rated area housing as “good” or “very good” compared to 76 percent for the city as a whole.

There is another concern with some new residents The area is the source of 20 percent of the city’s total prostitution arrests, and a high percentage of gun-related assaults, domestic violence incidents and, especially, illegal drug activity, particularly methamphetamine.

Resources available
On the plus side, in the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association and Montavilla Community Association, the area has two active and concerned volunteer groups. Not by accident, they are parts of different area coalitions - the Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program and the East Portland Neighborhood Office - both of whose resources could be tapped for Weed and Seed activities. So could the Gateway urban renewal program, whose objectives would seem to fit with Weed and Seed. There are social service programs operating here or available to do so such as the Boys and Girls Club, Human Solutions, the Immigrant and Refugee Community of Oregon, Metropolitan Family Services, Portland Impact, Volunteers of America, El Programa Hispano and the Binsmead School SUN School program. There is Project Safe Neighborhoods, a collaborative effort to deal with gun violence, and the Mid-County Caring Community, another collaborative effort.

To this, Weed and Seed organizers would like to add a Community Court. Modeled after similar programs in inner Northeast and downtown Portland, the court would hear people pleading guilty to misdemeanor offenses such as vandalism and graffiti offenses and other non-violent misconduct in a community setting. Their sentences, in most cases, would be to perform community service in the area the offense occurred.

What would Weed and Seed bring?
“We’re looking for assistance with our crime and livability problems,” the Montavilla Community Association’s Kimberly McClain told the Memo. “These are issues that are a little too large for one neighborhood to deal with on its own. In Montavilla, burglaries and property crimes are a big one for us.”

“My initial feeling is that it would help us,” Hazelwood Chairwoman Arlene Kimura says. “If you attack the problem in just one neighborhood, it just pushes it around. I-205 is seen as a barrier and a boundary, but people cross it all the time.” In Hazelwood, she sees an initial focus on car prowls in places such as the Gateway Transit Center, shopping centers and certain schools. “We want to concentrate on something that will give us visible results,” she says.

First, of course, they must secure the grant. An application was submitted in October. By early next year the neighborhoods will know if they have been recognized as a Weed and Seed target area. If they are, the next step would be obtaining a budget appropriation later in the spring. If all goes well, the program could be operating by next October.
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