By Tom Henderson • Staff Writer • 

Parking places, living spaces

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Comments

tagup

I'm glad to see that some stable parking areas are being developed, I think that will go a long way to ease the problem...

that said...the statement by Ms. Letter that she wishes someone would provide trash bins and portable toilets to her location on Dustin Court illustrates how little responsibility she is taking for her own situation. If these people (and I know I am generalizing here) want to be respected, they need to clean up after themselves instead of expecting someone else to do it for them... Trash & human waste have been a recurring complaint with the homeless group, and frankly there's no reason for it..... be a good neighbor and have some pride in your living situation no matter where it is.....

Jim

I think the aftermath of this situation will be interesting. Who in their right mind would allow a junk vehicle and garbage thrown everywhere on their property? If I was a neighbor to any of this I would file a lawsuit for the devaluation of my property. Those squatters on Dustin Ct are making a mockery of our city government. Have you seen the trash that has blown into the field across from Dustin Ct? If these people contributed to the community I might feel different. They are laughing at the City while they’re trying to get a free ride. They all need to get a job like the rest of normal people.

Trafik

Thanks for the laugh, Jim. “Who in their right mind would allow a junk vehicle and garbage thrown everywhere on their property?” That’s priceless.

Since you just described probably a third of the population here, I guess I’ll assume “junk” and “garbage" take on decidedly different meanings to different people.

I live in a dignified old house in what purports to be a halfway-decent part of McMinnville. My neighbors think it’s just fine, thank you very much, to park a half dozen filthy, dilapidated and inoperable automobiles on their property. Add broken appliances, plastic flowers, torn tarpaulins, rusting auto parts and bags of God-knows-what — for all practical purposes, I live across the street from a homeless encampment. Except for that one pesky detail: the homeowners themselves have allowed junk vehicles and garbage thrown everywhere on their property. That wonderful spirit of Oregon independence dictates they can do as they like. After all, it’s their land — no one should be able to tell them what to do with it.

Yes, the city has codes. But they’re not particularly interested in enforcing them when more pressing matters are at hand.

(Confidential to those of you who hate to be told what to do: this is exactly why homeowners’ associations exist.)

Nick

@Jim
Even if they had a job, and some of them do, chances are they still couldn't afford an apartment in McMinnville. The average minimum monthly salary to rent here is around $2.5K. I'm not seeing many jobs in Mac paying that amount.

Jim

Trafik 20 years ago there wasn’t 2% of the houses in this town that looked like what you are describing. I live in the country with few neighbors so I don’t fight the eye sores that you describe. It’s time the City put the effort into enforcing their own codes with the amount of these properties that are around town instead of worrying about how many tourists they can put on Third Street.
Nick you have to live with in your means. If you can’t afford rent here find some where you can. North Dakota is begging for rough necks in the oil fields. They pay well,will feed you and house you. There are options if you want to live a normal life. Life gives us options.

Nick

@Jim,
If it was that easy everyone would do it. Roughnecks usually have some experience of working in oil fields and when they want an apprentice they'll start young apprentices. It is far from a job anyone can do, most of the folks that experience housing issues are there due to disability or illness.

Mudstump

I'm going all in with what Trafik said.

I grew up pretty much middle-class. We didn't have disposable income. My father worked for the railroad his entire life. Our house was always neat, painted and well-maintained. My mother always had pretty flowers planted and my father kept a beautiful lawn. We lived within our means. My father painted the house and poured his own driveway and retaining walls. I learned a lot from him. Having a decent home doesn't cost much....you just have to have discipline and get off your butt and do the work.

Trafik

I’ve lived in McMinnville for 20 years, Jim, and the junk houses were here back then, too. From the mildew build-up on some of them, I’d estimate they’ve been here way longer than that, frankly.

Oregon is a gorgeous place but I sometimes think certain native Oregonians are blind to some of their own behaviors simply because they’ve never known anything else.

The mildew-streaked single-wide trailers set up in the middle of fields and surrounded by junk automobiles, burn barrels, broken appliances and piles of trash are so commonplace I sometimes think of them as “Oregon homesteads.” Likewise, the dirty ranch-style homes similarly surrounded by rusting hulks of cars, broken furniture and faded plastic toys in waist-high chokes of weeds can be found all across the county. And I believe many locals accept overhead utilities simply because that’s where they’ve always been — perhaps the obnoxious ugliness of overhead utilities isn’t so obvious unless you’ve lived in places where utilities are properly buried.

You’d think a government courting tourism might take a closer look at the aggregate aesthetics of the entire community instead of hyper-focusing on a cluster of homeless folks, but no. At least the city of McMinnville is starting to clean up the awful forest of backlit, plastic signs lining our streets — that gives me hope they’ll look further afield eventually. But then again, the people who see nothing wrong with storing junk and trash in their front yards believe the signs and utilities are fine just like they are, so maybe not.

Mudstump is right. Anyone can take care of their possessions and their space. Dignity is not solely the province of the so-called upper classes.

Mudstump

Nick - “The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”
― Bob Moawad

Jim

Trafik you seem to be a pretty intelligent person by what you write. Seems like you didn’t spend a lot of time on your due diligence before you moved here. Oregon is a beautiful place no doubt about it. If you have ever dealt with the utility company’s in this state you would know why everything is over head. I’ve lived in Mcminnville since 1970 and I will tell you again we have grown way to fast as a city. The signs,garbage buildup,the dump in the wrong spot and so on can all be attributed to the fact that the city and county got away from our Ag based community and have tried to turn it into a Napa Valley clone while not paying attention to details. We need to back track a little and clean up the town of garbage and derelict’s before we issue any more building permits for anything but industry that has living wage jobs.

rtistic1

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160997127060425&id=828860424
This was the mess left by the homeless on my street this week

rtistic1

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160997127060425&id=828860424
This was the mess left by the homeless on my street this week

Lulu

Derelict's Be Gone!

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