Southtown Community Concerns & Recommendations for Serving Houseless Communities and the Housing Crisis in Corvallis

Southtown Corvallis neighborhood solutions and recommendations for serving houseless communities and the housing crisis in Corvallis.

Organized by Southtown citizens / Living Southtown for City Council, Mayor, City Manager and Department Directors, HOPE Committee, Service Providers, ODOT, and interested citizens and organizations

Motivation: In recent years and prior community discussions, the Southtown community has not been well involved or engaged in planning efforts around serving the homeless community, yet our neighborhoods have been increasingly used and identified as sites for solutions from service providers and City-wide initiatives. Following a neighborhood survey and virtual meeting in January 2021 organized by Councilors Maughan and Lytle with over 125 respondents and attendees, a work group was created to dig deeper into detailed solutions to address the question: how can our South Corvallis neighborhoods be most effective in providing solutions for the homeless community?

Key Southtown Corvallis concerns that came through our survey and discussion:

• Southtown Corvallis has not been well involved in prior discussions and forums around solutions for homelessness - Many residents feel our community voice and concerns have been discounted and dismissed, while City initiatives, interim solutions, and service providers have targeted and become more established in certain and sensitive areas of our community (e.g., BMX Park, ODOT riverfront lands, Unity Shelter, and the Housing First Budget Inn).

• Southtown Corvallis has carried a disproportionate load from impacts of homelessness and encampments, both before and during the pandemic - South Corvallis has dealt with loss of park space, commuter conflicts, trash, crime, and blight from unmanaged camps, shelter users, and the concentration of these communities in specific areas, such as the BMX park and Highway 99 corridor.

• Camping and trash build-up in riparian/floodplain areas is dangerous for everyone - Southtown Corvallis includes the City's lowest elevation floodplain and delta area, and is surrounded by the Willamette and Marys Rivers, the Mill Race, and extensive wetlands. Camps and trash in these areas are more likely to be inundated, unseen, and create safety/fire risks and environmental problems.

• Impacts from the homeless community and service providers in the Highway 99/Marys River bottleneck area have created increasing stress, dangers, and confusion for campers/shelter users, drivers, bikers, walkers, and area businesses. This critical corridor is our primary connection to downtown Corvallis and key services. The concentration of unmanaged camps in this area, and the City-authorized 'managed camp' in the BMX Park and Unity Shelter has exacerbated these already overwhelming problems.

• The present concentration of service providers, managed, and unmanaged camps in Hwy 99 bottleneck and Willamette-Marys-Mill Race confluence is at odds with several community plans and visions, including the community supported Urban Renewal District (2019) created to address issues of blight, safety, and economic uplift, the South Corvallis Area Refinement plan (1999) that idenitified the Mary-Willamette confluence as a high potential for community access and development, the Mixed Use Transitional zone (1999) designed to transition specific properties in this area to less intensive uses, and the Willamette River Greenway (State Planning Goal 15 - 1976) created to revitilize and protect the Willamette River corridor.

In our constructive examination of common solutions to serving homelessness, and the survey responses from South Corvallis community, we identified key solutions that are well suited to what South Corvallis offers:

• Affordable and low-income housing – South Corvallis offers some of Corvallis' most affordable homes and apartments, and has some of the City's most extensive buildable residentially zoned property. In the face of rising housing costs, we should continue to protect affordability in our neighborhoods along with dedicated low-income housing options, as prioritized in our Urban Renewal District.

• Carefully located housing/support services - South Corvallis is home to projects and developments for numerous service providers, including the interim location for the Unity Men's Cold Weather Shelter, Housing First-Budget Inn, DEVNW, CARDV, and can likely accommodate more, provided they do not add stress/safety issues to riparian areas, the Highway 99-Marys River Bottleneck area, parks and pathways, or jeopardize the potential for high priority areas for redevelopment within the Urban Renewal District.

• Semi-permanent housing/shelter options like microshelters, ADUs, and vehicle camping are more effective and less impactful than unmanaged or managed camping situations, and would work well in many Southtown neighborhoods that have available on-street parking capacity and larger residential lots.

• An equitable City-wide response to extreme situations of homelessness that demand managed or unmanaged camps and managed vehicle camping lots must be shared with other City neighborhoods. In Southtown, these solutions should avoid commuter trails, Hwy 99 corridor, and riparian areas, and would be ideally situated in open/visible/serviceable areas (e.g., parking lots, vacant lots, City lands).

We call on our City leadership and stakeholders to recognize our concerns and recommendations, and incorporate these into corrective and constructive actions in the present responses and future plans to serve houseless communities in Corvallis. 

Work group participants:

Jeremy Monroe, Katy Blye, Owen McMurtrey, Amy Becker, Jennifer Cassidy, Cindee Lolik, Rebecka Weinsteiger (moderator), with involvement and support from Councilors Maughan (Ward 2) and Lytle (Ward 3)