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A nonprofit established by Pearl District neighborhood leaders to address “safety and livability” concerns announced yesterday it had received a pair of $75,000 checks from local business leaders.
One check was from Tim Boyle, CEO of Columbia Sportswear, and his wife. The other was from Ray Davis, the retired CEO of Umpqua Bank. The announcement was made in a press release from the Northwest Community Conservancy, which has now raised more than $500,000 to fund a contract with Echelon Protective Services and a religious nonprofit created by its founder.
Boyle has a history of donating lavishly to private sector efforts to address Portland’s homelessness crisis. He donated more than $3 million to help build a new shelter in the Pearl District in 2019.
His latest donation will go to a new effort by Pearl District leaders to provide what they call “safety and livability support,” this time using security guards from Echelon Protective Services and its new religious nonprofit, which its founder, Alex Stone, says is developing relationships with people on the street in the hopes of eventually moving them into shelters.
The initiative is also be funded by a bevy of much smaller checks from Pearl District residents. Condo buildings’ homeowners associations have been voting to assess additional fees from residents, which are channeled to the Northwest Community Conservancy.
The selling point is that a nonprofit can address problems that private security guards, who are limited to operating on private property, can’t.
“Beyond the NWCC and its nonprofit structure, there are no known alternatives for the Waterfront Pearl to provide additional safety and livability support beyond the common areas of the Waterfront Pearl,” reads a flyer submitted last month to homeowners in the Waterfront Pearl, a Pearl District condo building, in advance of a vote to increase HOA dues by $14.80 per 1,000 square feet a month.