Turmoil spreads on Sisters’ sidewalk

Street clashes increase, but cafe knows homeless have nowhere else to go

By peter korn

The Portland Tribune, Oct 2, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (10 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Drug dealers and fights are becoming more common outside Sisters of the Road Cafe on Northwest Sixth Avenue. However, Sisters of the Road officials don’t want police to enforce the sit-lie ordinance in front of the cafe because they know the homeless have few alternative places to spend their time.

Monica Beemer has learned to spot the subtle differences that tell her trouble may be brewing at Sisters of the Road cafe in Old Town, just north of downtown.

And for the last few months, it has been brewing, Beemer and others say.

The nonprofit cafe that serves low-priced meals to a predominantly homeless population has seen a summer of unrest that has included tense confrontations and fights, says Beemer, Sisters’ executive director.

Howard Weiner, a longtime supporter of Sisters of the Road who runs Cal Skate Skateboards – across the street and two doors down from the cafe – says increasing numbers of people hanging around on the sidewalk in front of Sisters is costing him business.

The crowds have started to drift toward his store, Weiner says, even blocking his doorway on occasion.

The problem appears to be that Sisters has become known as a place where street people can hang out, a place where the city’s controversial sidewalk obstruction ordinance, otherwise known as the sit-lie ordinance, is not enforced, according to Beemer and her neighbors.

Area residents have complained of the gathering crowds, and urine puddles left on the sidewalk, according to Alexander Mace, chairman of the Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association.

Beemer acknowledges the problem and says she sympathizes with her neighbors. She just isn’t sure what to do about it.

Patrick Nolen, community organizer at Sisters, says he has heard police officers tell homeless people they can sit outside Sisters, but not on the other side of Northwest Sixth Avenue.

Mike Reese, commander of the Portland police bureau’s central precinct, says police are aware of an increase in the number of people hanging around outside Sisters of the Road, but not of increased criminal activity there.

Police bureau statistics show that police have been called to the area within 250 feet of Sisters 168 times in the first six months of 2008, an increase over the 132 times they were called during the first six months of 2007. And the number of incidents serious enough to generate a police report has more than tripled, according to Reese.

He says the police have not been citing people for violating the sit-lie ordinance in front of the cafe because the bureau generally enforces the law only in response to complaints, and none have come from Sisters or its neighbors.

In fact, Beemer says, Sisters of the Road officials don’t want police enforcing sit-lie in front of the cafe. Unless there are adequate daytime facilities for the homeless, Beemer says, enforcing the ordinance makes no sense. The homeless, she says, would simply have to find another place to spend their time.

Beemer is familiar with most of the cafe’s customers. In fact, she’s familiar with a large percentage of Old Town’s homeless. But a number of the growing crowd, she says, are unfamiliar faces blending in with the regulars. Some of them are dealing drugs, she says. And when that starts to happen, confrontations ensue, and sometimes fights break out.

Three or four times a week fights or near-fights have occurred, Beemer says. One ended with one customer pulling a knife on another.

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