John Louie leaned over and pinched tiny bits of broken glass between the prongs of his trash grabber and placed it gently into a bag at his side. It was a clear morning at Pioneer Square in downtown Portland, just a few blocks from The Benson hotel, where he works as a server.
“After over 50 years here, this is the worst I’ve seen it,” Louie said. “Who wants to stay downtown in this mess?”
It had been nearly six months since Louie was back at work because of the struggles hotels have faced during the coronavirus pandemic. And, he said, crimes committed amidst the nightly protests and the inaction of city leaders have only made things worse.
“I’m doing my job,” he said. “(City leaders) need to do theirs. As a citizen, I don’t go downtown anymore. We’re doing our job to make the city better, but the next day, it’s just more of the same.”
Louie was one of more than 500 volunteers who gathered in downtown around the Benson and other hotels to pick up trash as part of the Hospitality with Heart event Thursday morning. The event, organized by the Portland Business Alliance, Portland Lodging Alliance and SOLVE, meant to send a message that the business district is a safe and clean place to visit despite the ongoing protests and the pandemic.
Donning brightly colored jackets and shirts, volunteers picked up about 3,290 pounds of trash from more than 181 blocks across the downtown area, including Lownsdale and Chapman Squares, the main gathering area for many of the nightly protests in downtown.
Downtown business owners and neighborhood groups have expressed concerns for weeks about the conditions of the central city. On top of Portland’s ongoing homelessness crisis, the coronavirus and clashes between protesters and police have fomented deep discontent downtown.
One major employer temporarily relocated employees from downtown to the suburbs and suggested that workers only return when things improve after the pandemic. Other businesses have remained closed since the pandemic first hit Oregon in March or shut their doors for a second time due to the protests.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks with media ahead of a cleanup event downtown hosted by SOLVE, Portland Business Alliance and Portland Lodging Alliance on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. Sean Meagher/Staff
Among those in attendance Thursday was Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who said he wants to see improvements in the way the city holds repeat-offenders accountable amid nightly protests.
“It doesn’t sit well by me that the police make an arrest, somebody is processed in the jail, and then they are right back on the streets,” Wheeler said. “You have to hold people accountable for criminal acts ... They’re doing a lot of damage and a lot of harm to people in this community, and if you let them get away with the small stuff, that can lead to further escalation. That should be concerning to all of us.”
After weeks of mounting pressure from frustrated local businesses and groups, Wheeler last week rushed to put together meetings with groups – like the Portland Business Alliance – to discuss plans for reviving downtown.
For Kris Carico, the CEO of SOLVE, a statewide non-profit that has led several downtown cleanups since June, Thursday’s event was not in response to the protest. Rather, she said, it was an effort to bring Portlanders together in a space that had remained largely vacant and uncared for throughout the pandemic.
“It makes me proud to be a Portlander and an Oregonian,” she said.
For Geri Berg, a retired pediatric social worker and volunteer, the national narrative about Portland as a violent city is a “distraction” that doesn’t represent the city she knows.
She looked down at the trash she had picked up and shrugged.
“We can’t even fill our buckets.”
-- Bryce Dole; bdole@oregonian.com; 541-660-9844; @DoleBryce
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