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Last week, WW examined the six-year saga of the Joyce Hotel (“Extended Stay,” Sept. 22, 2021). In 2016, city officials purchased one of the few remaining single-room occupancy hotels in downtown Portland, pledging to preserve its rooms as low-income housing. Six years later, renovations have yet to begin. When work is completed in 2023, the building will offer 66 refurbished studio apartments, after nearly seven years and the expenditure of $25.1 million. That equates to $398,000 per unit, or $1,198 per square foot. Here’s what our readers had to say:
Kurt Chapman, via wweek.com: “The subtext should read, ‘Portland officials had to ensure that the homeless industrial complex got their mammoth share up front.’ How Portland voters keep falling for this crap is beyond most sane folks.”
Paul, via wweek.com: “Foolish beyond any imaginable level of incompetence. $1,198 per square foot? High-end luxury homes can be built for $300 to $600 a square foot. We would be better off just buying out entire neighborhoods in expensive parts of town and giving that to the homeless.”
Masen, via Twitter: “City purchased in 2016, construction scheduled to begin in December 2021, tenants expected to be able to move in January 2023. ‘What’s missing at the city and the county is any sense of urgency’ is the line that sums up this whole article.”
Belynda Shannon, via wweek.com: “This is less an effect of the city’s shortcomings than it is from the total domination of big money over land and housing. If previous ownership of the hotel had maintained and updated it, the cost of renovation would be much less. If historic structures were not usually at the mercy of any developer with enough money and the lust to make more by erecting the crap we now see all over the city, there wouldn’t be any need of the regulations for historic preservation. If the real estate industry’s money didn’t buy political protection, they could be taxed at a level proportionate to their profit and destructiveness and the city could have just paid for the development outright instead of all the financing machinations required to pay obeisance to the rule of Capital. But yeah, let’s just bitch and moan about bureaucrats. And I’m sure that [reporter Nigel] Jaquiss’ former career in finance doesn’t bias his coverage in the least.”
R.O.W.L.F., via wweek.com: “The result of treating housing as an investment commodity rather than a human right.”
Roger Neilson, via wweek.com: “Look at who Portlanders elect to office. In their minds, everyone is entitled to a roof over their head, free use of mass transit, etc. Expect to see tolling on the freeway soon to pay for a cap to reunite a neighborhood which no longer exists. This list could go on for a few paragraphs. Portlanders who object have two options: Vote them out, or move. Washington, Clackamas, Yamhill and Clark [counties] have all seen an influx of people who object to their tax dollars being used for these purposes.”
Nicole Anne Francis, via Facebook: “I lived in the Joyce during the height of my drug addiction and homelessness; next month I celebrate 11 years clean. I am so deeply grateful it’s being saved and it will continue its purpose. I’ve watched all the SROs that saved my life, saved me from assault and the cold slowly disappear. If it takes a hundred years, I’m glad it’s going to be saved and its purpose preserved. We do not know whose life it will save next. Since no one in this comment section has ever spent a single night there, I thought I should chime in.”
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