Sometimes people are thrown into your life for reasons you don’t initially understand. Not even a month ago, I was still trying to figure out my future, and if it included the city of Portland. Even the discount version of the American Dream was becoming further out of reach for me, your typical service economy-employed millennial. But then Tom Watson decided to hasten my decision along by buying the apartment complex I live in – Bayside Village, you’ve probably driven past it on your way to the Trader Joe’s – with the intention of converting it into market-rate apartments.
In his letter to the City Council’s Housing Committee, Watson, the founder of Port Property Management, said he doesn’t want to displace anyone. There shouldn’t be any problems, he says, because Bayside Village is primarily transitional housing, and in a sense this is true. In its current status, though far from perfect, it provides an open door for those transitioning from homelessness, and for college students, for seniors, for recent arrivals coming from Seattle or Rwanda – a door that would be closed when Port Property’s renovations are finished. He expects half of us to move out next summer, and the other half to be gone by the following year. I don’t know if he understands that there are people who have lived here for six years, or that working people’s lives don’t always go according to his plans. Either way, he’s going to need all of us gone in two years.
But ever resourceful and generous, Tom Watson is ready to help us tenants. At the Planning Board meeting on Aug. 13, he said that Port Property has budgeted $100,000 to assist tenants in finding new housing. Divided by 400, that comes out to $250 per tenant, which should cover about one-fourth of your average security deposit. He’s also hired a housing coordinator who is going to work with us to transition to another home, even though, in the same paragraph of the letter to the Housing Committee, he says his goal is to house as many current tenants as possible in the units.
The plot thickens, though. Watson insists that even though he will be effectively be halving the number of units in the building, there will be no loss of housing because he expects most of the one-bedroom apartments to be occupied by couples. So I suppose if we Bayside Village residents want to stay in his newly renovated apartments, we’re all going to have to pair up. I assume, then, that this housing coordinator, whom none of us have met, will also be providing matchmaking services. I guess that smell in the stairwell is actually love in the air. Not only will he be upgrading our quality of housing, he’s also going to be finding us all soulmates. What a guy.
And of course, if these best-laid plans don’t work out, or perhaps the tenants decide to organize and get a little unruly, he’s not going to put everyone out on the street. The Mr. Potters of the 21st century have a much keener eye toward public relations. However, by looking at the experiences of others who live in Port Property buildings, we may glean some insight into his plans for removing the undesirables, from removing the ability to pay rent online to sacking most of the maintenance staff so that current tenants get the hint to start moseying.
I’m not entirely sure how stupid Tom Watson believes the tenants of Bayside Village (or the people of Portland more broadly) to be, but he must have a pretty low opinion of us if he expects us to believe some of the lines he’s feeding us.
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