Portland’s Monument Square in Crisis: Business Owners, Residents Demand City Action on Homelessness and Rampant Drug Use

Portland residents and business owners are speaking out and asking the City Council for help to address what they say are unsafe and obstructive conditions in Monument Square caused by the presence of homeless people and drug users.

A letter to Portland Mayor Mark Dion from David Turin, the owner of David’s Restaurant in Monument Square, was read during the public comment portion at the City Council’s Monday meeting.

“Monument Square has become an unsafe place to work or visit, and has become a hostile and expensive environment in which to operate a restaurant,” Turin wrote.

[RELATED: Restorative Justice: Homeless Man, Previously Charged with Portland Machete and Knife Attacks, Arrested Again for Assault, Burglary…]

Turin, who was not himself present at the meeting but had his letter read for the Council by a friend on his behalf, wrote that his employees have had their cars broken into six times in the last month, and have seen over a hundred instances both of littering and open drug use in front of his restaurant.

“Dining guests and staff are frequently abused and sometimes threatened,” Turin wrote. “We have had our front windows smashed twice in two years.”

“The square has long been a desirable destination for strolling, sitting outside, shopping, doing business and dining — now it looks like an encampment of some kind,” he wrote.

[RELATED: Portland Homeless Man Charged with Alleged Assault for Brick, Knife Attack…]

Turin said that the homelessness issue in the square is an “existential crisis and threat” to his business and other businesses in the area. “Please help us,” he ends his letter.

Ari Gerson, owner of Longfellow Books near Monument Square, also spoke on the issue of homelessness and public safety in the area during the Monday City Council meeting.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen a sharp increase in drug use, aggressive panhandling, and confrontational behavior right outside our front doors,” Gerson told the Council.

“We’ve found needles and drug paraphernalia in the planters and the sidewalk cracks,” Gerson said. “There are people passed out, clearly in distress, and sometimes frightening episodes of shouting or violence that scares off customers, staff and even myself at times.”

[RELATED: Longtime Bayside Resident Says She was Victim of Brutal Mugging, Warns Women not to Walk Alone in Neighborhood…]

Several Monument Square neighborhood residents also spoke at the meeting and voiced similar concerns to the business owners.

“I have become frightened in my own neighborhood to go outside my own door, and to face the things that we are facing at this point,” one female resident said.

“Almost everyday when I leave my house I have to knock on my door, because someone is using in front of my door,” another woman said. “I’ve come home often to defecation or urine on the ground outside of my house.”

“When you call the police, they come, but it’s hard to offer any help,” she said.

“When I go home, or try to leave, and I have to wake somebody up or move them to get in or out of my front door, that’s not very comfortable,” another woman said.

Several of the speakers called for increased police presence and intervention in the Monument Square area, as well as for the city to direct more resources into shelters and support services for the homeless.