This study will be a look at housing for Portland's Burnside population with special emphasis on the Foster hotel public housing project. Before housing or any other aspect of Burnside can be intelligently discussed, it is important to have a realistic historical and contemporary understanding of the Burnside community. The second chapter of this study is designed to provide that understanding. The third chapter surveys the ways that other American cities have dealt with their skid row communities. Cities roughly the same size as Portland were chosen. Their efforts will be compared to Portland's plans for and actions toward its Burnside area -- the subject of Chapter IV. In this chapter, a critical analysis of the social policy recommendations made by the Human Resources Bureau for the downtown urban renewal area is offered as this is the official public social policy for the area. The next chapter of this study presents a survey done of the roster hotel to determine whether or not it is meeting the needs of the community. When the roster was initially planned, certain promises were made about who would be housed there and how it would serve Burnside. The questionnaire given to the Foster residents was designed to see if those promises were kept and to gauge the overall satisfaction the residents have with the hotel. It is hoped that with the background material provided in the first chapter of this study, a context will be established within which the reader can understand housing as it relates to this community.

This dissertation deals both with the theory and practice of community policing in the United States and elsewhere while focusing on a specific community policing project in Portland, Oregon. It discusses the history of police work in America, as well as that of the Portland Police Bureau. It also explicates the various meanings of "community policing," along with the problems and issues that have surfaced as the community policing movement has evolved. The research reported here was based on a project conducted by the Portland Police Bureau and numerous supporting agencies. The project was inaugurated in May 1990 with the following goals: improve quality of life of the residents, reduce the fear of crime, and reduce the levels of actual crime. Iris Court is a public housing complex owned and operated by the Housing Authority of Portland. It was recommended as a demonstration site for community policing because of past and ongoing problems of crime in and around it. The Portland City Council had mandated that community policing become the policing style in Portland, and the demonstration project was intended to test various community policing strategies. The tenants were surveyed prior to the implementation of the community policing strategies. The Metro-Life Enhancement Team was formed, an action plan was developed, most of the action plan items were implemented, and the tenants were resurveyed one year later. The evaluation of the project was conducted to assess whether community policing had a measurable effect on public safety. The dependent variables were quality of life, fear of crime, and actual crime. Various community policing strategies would be judged to have been successful if reported crime declined, the fear of crime was reduced, and the quality of life improved. The data show that the project was at least moderately successful. Reported crime declined, fear of crime was reduced, and there were indications that the quality of life was improved. The most striking finding was a 55% decrease in reported crime during the study period. This study suggests that community policing strategies of partnership, empowerment, problem solving, accountability, and service orientation can be successful.

Guild's Lake Courts was built as temporary worker housing for the steel and shipyard industries during World War II. The massive housing development in Northwest Portland consisted of 2,432 units of housing, five community buildings, five childcare centers, a grade school and a fire station. Guild's Lake Courts was the eighth largest housing project built at that time in the United States. The peak population in January 1945 was approximately 10,000 individuals. Archival research, face-to-face oral histories, and resident reunions were used to explore the social, architectural and political history of Guild's Lake Courts. The lens for understanding how the community operated is dominantly for the social history that of a childhood homefront experience. Four wartime themes emerged in this study: 1) that Portland's focus on prejudice dimmed during the war years, 2) that the community was a confluence of humanity, 3) that the design of the site and the housing was shaped by a convergence of New Deal innovations in design construction technologies and electrification and 4) that there was a willingness to sacrifice creature comforts during the war years. Guild's Lake Courts as a residential community under went three rapid evolutions prior to its demolition in 1951, a wartime housing operation 1942-1945, affordable housing 1945-1948, and a haven for Vanport Refugees June 1948-1950. Guild's Lake Courts history has been overlooked but it offers insights into the possible fate of the residents of Vanport City had the community not been flooded in 1948. The story of Guild's Lake Courts is a counterpoint story to Vanport City the largest of the three defense housing projects in Oregon that admitted African-Americans during the war years.