[MarkDaMan]

Portland developers try to ease homeless crisis that they helped create
Updated on July 24, 2017 at 10:33 AM Posted on July 23, 2017 at 7:00 AM
By Molly Harbarger mharbarger@oregonian.com
The Oregonian/OregonLive

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/i...kes_bigge.html

Developer Tom Cody lost all the ground-floor retail tenants of his building on the Northwest Park Blocks and he thinks he knows why.

Customers avoided the tents, tarps and backpacks that filled the leafy corridor north of Burnside. In turn, his tenants looked for shops without dozens of people sleeping or hanging out in front at all hours of the day.

It's not the first time Cody saw his business jeopardized by the city's 4,000-and-growing homeless population.

His firm has developed 33 projects, some up to $300 million – some in neighborhoods where tensions with the homeless population run high. He opposed a preliminary plan for a homeless shelter campus near another one of his Northwest Portland properties, a 300,000-square-foot creative office development.

But now he's part of a business-led movement to do more than complain to City Hall or file lawsuits. He and two other high-profile real estate families have donated empty buildings they own for use as temporary shelter space.

So far, Cody, Brad and Jonathan Malsin and Jordan Menashe have collectively hosted five shelters in their buildings – with possibly more planned. City and county officials are trying to harness the momentum to create a permanent network of business owners who can carry some of the burden of the city's homeless crisis.

Cody and the others readily acknowledge that they need to protect their investments and are getting pressure from city and county leaders to alleviate an affordable housing crisis created by the hot market that they have fanned.

"It's having a very adverse effect on us personally and the city, and that's why we're so committed to working with the Joint Office of Homeless Services," Cody said.

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