Save the Hazelnut Grove Village

Commissioner Dan Ryan (Joint Office of Homeless Services) and Ted Wheeler (Mayor)

Two tiny red cabins, a house in the foreground and a larger library in the back. The words 'Hazelnut Grove, Tiny Cabin Village' are in the left bottom corner.
Hazelnut Grove, a self-governed tiny cabin village, has provided stable, long-term permanent and transitional housing for dozens of people for more than five years.

But residents of the Hazelnut Grove Village are being threatened with displacement by the city even as the pandemic ravages our community, the Center for Disease Control has encouraged all people to shelter in place, and Multnomah County has enacted and renewed an eviction moratorium.

Self-governed tiny cabin villages provide just one solution to the public health and housing crises. People who are currently sheltering in place in tent and tarp structures, personal pods managed by the city and social service agencies, traditional shelters, RVs and vehicles, and motels should also not be displaced until permanent solutions are provided.

Grounded in their lived experience being unhoused and deep commitment to individual autonomy and collective decision making, residents of Hazelnut Grove have built a thriving, safe, and stable community at the intersection of N. Greeley Ave. and N. Interstate Ave.

While the video below was produced in 2018, not much has changed. The neighborhood association is still pushing for relocation but the city has not produced a viable alternative and residents live in a constant state of unknowing and fear of their homes being demolished.

The campaign to Save Hazelnut Grove is currently endorsed by:
All Rise Media, Gather:Make:Shelter, Ground Score Association, Hygiene4All, Jobs with Justice, Living Earth Portland, Pacific Northwest Family Circle, Portland: Neighbors Welcome, Portland DSA, Portland Tenants United, Rahab's Sisters, Sisters of the Road, St. Johns Safelight Houseless Outreach, Stop the Sweeps PDX, Street Books, Street Roots, Thriving Life Community, Trash for Peace, Sunrise PDX, Village Coalition, and Western Regional Advocacy Project. If your org would like to sign-on in support and help mobilize signatures, please contact us at oregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org.

To: Commissioner Dan Ryan (Joint Office of Homeless Services) and Ted Wheeler (Mayor)
From: [Your Name]

​We, the undersigned, call on the city of Portland to delay any plans to dissolve the Hazelnut Grove Tiny Cabin Village during the Covid pandemic and until the village finds a true home.

Hazelnut Grove has been a stable living place for dozens of formerly houseless people for more than five years. It was founded by unhoused residents of the Greeley green space and downtown Portland. The village gained support from many housed neighbors, churches, and organizations who joined village residents in building the warm tiny cabins in which members live. The city has been providing fencing, port-a-potties and garbage collection.

Hazelnut Grove is a village founded by its residents, not government or social service agencies; residents have welcomed help while maintaining their independence, governing themselves by a community agreement which all residents must agree to uphold.

In 2017, the city bowed to pressure from the Overlook Neighborhood Association to remove Hazelnut Grove from its current location and promised to find a permanent location for the self-governed village. In 2018, Hazelnut Grove was invited to move to St. Johns to a village that would be self-governed and financially managed in partnership with Do Good Multnomah, a social service nonprofit organization. Residents of Hazelnut Grove and Do Good worked to create a memorandum of understanding and policies for the village. By 2019, those agreements disappeared and the promise morphed from Hazelnut Grove relocating as a self-governed village into qualified individual residents being allowed to move into a village managed by a social service agency.

Representatives of the Joint Office of Homeless Services and the office of Homelessness and the Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program acknowledge that this is not what the city promised, they have offered no plans to fulfill this promise. Therefore we believe that the city of Portland is obligated to, at a minimum, let Hazelnut Grove remain at its current location with the current services.

Hazelnut Grove is a valuable asset during a cold winter with disease raging. Currently, a diverse group of 17 members live in the village; they are single and 4 long-term married couples, young and elders, employed and self-employed, disabled, veterans, Indigenous and white. Destroying this asset during the pandemic is cruel and unjust. Hopeful houseless folks turn up at the village frequently, asking if there are open tiny homes they might inhabit.

Leave Hazelnut Grove in place: continue fencing, garbage collection and port-a-potties while residents search for a new site where they can continue living in a self-governed community which has been a model for villages around the country.