PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland police have started targeting city blocks around the Multnomah County Central Library in Southwest Portland, periodically arresting drug dealers. It’s what police are calling the new "fentanyl hot spot."
Downtown Portland's fentanyl hub used to be five blocks away near a Safeway and Plaid Pantry. Before that, it was around a vacant building at Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street.
Jordan McCormick, who is homeless and addicted to fentanyl, doesn’t have to go far to find his fix. When he needs fentanyl, he knows just where to go.
On Monday morning, he sat across the street from the Central Library on Southwest 10th Avenue and Taylor Street. "I'm here every single day … it just finds me, I guess, in a way," McCormick said of the drug.
"It's accessible. It's in a good spot by the transit, all the things that would make anywhere else in Portland a hot spot for drugs," said Portland police officer David Baer of the new location.
Late last week, Portland police arrested nine people around the library and the North Park blocks. Seven of them were dealers, they said.
"I've literally been standing there, they jump out the cars, roll up on their bikes, grab my bag, 'Oh, do you have a gun on you?'" McCormick said.
On Friday, Portland police, along with Oregon state troopers, seized over $2,000 in cash, along with about 173 grams of powdered fentanyl, another 110 grams of pills and 35 grams of cocaine. But McCormick said that the crackdown doesn't make it harder for him to get his drugs.
"Of course not. No, let's be honest — no, not at all," he said.
"It's out of control," said Sierra, who manages a store across the street from the library. "The library is a big resource for the houseless community, where they have a place to go to the bathroom, where they have shelter … People are just using this as a segue to deal drugs, to camp out and be strung out."
The surrounding businesses meet up once a week to talk about safety.
"It's just a real toxic problem in our city … There's constantly people asking, 'Do you smoke clear, blues or fentanyl?'" said Phoenix, who works at Murder Ink.
"I worry it reflects poorly when customers come by, and they just want to come drop off their computer with us and they have to be around that," said Bailey Moore, who works at Bolt Computer Services.
Last week, some of the business owners asked police for a stronger presence.
"We're on board with trying to do as much as we possibly can to support them; we understand how hard it is for them to run a business in downtown Portland," Baer said.
"We're not going to arrest ourselves out of the fentanyl emergency and we're not going to Narcan our way out of the fentanyl emergency," said Chris Voss, Multnomah County's incident commander for the ongoing 90-day fentanyl state of emergency. "We're trying to make this a safer and better place for everybody, all of downtown."
Voss said they are looking to improve lighting around the Central Library to disturb dealers, as well as sending outreach teams to connect with users.
"The library is one place, and we recognize that if we focus every single thing at the library those activities may sort of move, so we have to think of this as a county-wide problem," Voss said.
In response to a request for comment, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler's office said he supports the efforts of the fentanyl emergency unified command to address the issues, "including treatment and outreach, place-based crime prevention efforts, and law enforcement. This collaboration is vital to creating the meaningful and sustainable change the community needs."
Multnomah County Library issued a similar statement on behalf of trust in the emergency team:
"Public libraries are a vital shared community asset. As open public spaces, libraries experience the effects of persistent issues that are present in the broader community, including substance use, behavioral health issues and homelessness.
"Multnomah County Library is a stakeholder in and supports the collective efforts under the 90-Day Fentanyl Emergency. The library will cooperate with this effort and other work to improve safety in areas surrounding public libraries. The library defers further comment to the leaders of that work."
But thus far, users like McCormick aren't impressed with the response.
"They think they're ahead of us, but really, we're two steps ahead of them always," McCormick said.