3 Pools, 3 Neighborhoods, 2 Outcomes

Portland, Oregon talks about equity and inclusion, but clearly those values are not extended to poorer communities in North Portland. See how city resources are sourced to already privileged communities by examining what has happened to public access to swimming in three Portland neighborhoods.

As a mom of three living in St Johns, I am struggling to get my children into the limited 1 class per session swim lessons through the city. The recent threat of Pier Pool being closed is yet another hurdle for North Portland residents to fight to keep their community flourishing. … I am so incredibly disheartened. Our ability as parents to create a safe and enriching childhood for our kids seems impossible as of late. Public officials are failing the communities in North Portland. I want to live in a city where the officials listen and act with our best interests in mind, not the easy answer.“

Kathleen, mother of 3 in St. Johns

2014 Parks Replacement Bond

In 2014 voters approved a Parks Replacement Bond to repair and maintain infrastructure in Portland’s aging Parks facilities.

While several indoor and outdoor Portland pools were identified as needing maintenance, only three received funds. In this article we will explore what happened to two of the pools that did not receive replacement bond funds and compare them with one that did.

Three Pools

Columbia Pool

Columbia Pool, located in North Portland’s Portsmouth neighborhood, was a destination pool and heavily used year-around. Portsmouth is the poorest neighborhood in the City of Portland with the highest poverty rate and lowest median household income. Columbia Pool did not receive funds from the Parks Replacement Bond.

Built in 1927, Columbia is the oldest of the three pools being compared.

In 1975 the need for a year-around pool in the Portsmouth neighborhood was considered so great that the existing Columbia Pool was covered. The pool became a favorite of water aerobics classes, swim team practices, and high school swim meets. It offered swim lessons, a swim team all year, and winter-time exercise for lap swimmers. Swimmers from NW Portland and downtown came to this pool as well as those living in North Portland.

Columbia pool was closed in 2020 because it was not maintained.

Pier Pool

Pier Pool is located in St. Johns, a struggling and diverse neighborhood just north of and adjacent to Portsmouth. This pool did not receive funds from the Parks Replacement Bond.

The twinship of Pier Pool and Grant Outdoor Pool goes back to World War II and the Henry J. Kaiser shipyard north of Terminal 4 in St. Johns. In addition to the hundreds of Liberty ships, Kaiser also produced Victory ships using mass production and assembly line techniques. Production was sped up by pre-assembling sections of each ship and then welding them together. According to the National Park Service website, by 1944 the average time to build a ship was 42 days.

While some of these ships were lost in the war, many survived to return for disassembly and reuse. Both Grant Outdoor Pool and Pier Pool received World War II Victory Ship ballast pumps to pump and circulate the water in their pools.

Pier Pool is truly a community pool with parents waiting on the deck while their children take swim lessons or participate in swim team, local adults enjoying lap swimming, and youth swimming and playing. On the free swim days children line up around the block to get into Pier Pool.

Pier Pool was closed in June 2024 because it was not maintained.

Grant Outdoor Pool

Grant Outdoor Pool is located more centrally in Portland, in the Grant Park Neighborhood. The 2014 Replacement Bond funded an overhaul of Grant Outdoor Pool’s mechanical systems. The project ensured that residents continued to have access to what Portland Parks described as, “this fun and invigorating community pool.” Improvements included replacement of major mechanical systems; plumbing, pumps, motors, pipes, chemical controllers, sanitation systems, gutters, deck drains, and filters. Many ADA improvements were also made, including repair of cross slope issues and installation of two new pool lifts with straps.

Like Pier Pool, Grant Outdoor Pool was originally powered with a vintage Victory ship pump. However, it has the good fortune of being located in the affluent Grant Park neighborhood. In 2016 Grant Outdoor Pool enjoyed a renovation and remains open because it was maintained.

Additionally, due to what Parks described as difficulty in finding a contractor, Grant Outdoor Pool did not open for the summer 2016 season until July 25th. (Watch the KGW TV news video about the opening.) To “make up for lost time” it remained open through the end of September that year.

In 2016 Portland Parks saw the value of making up for lost swim lessons and kept an outdoor pool in an affluent neighborhood open an additional month. Today, in 2024, access to swim lessons does not carry the same importance, at least not in poorer neighborhoods.

Three Neighborhoods

All statistics in this section are taken from Portland Civic Life Mapping and compare the neighborhoods where Pier Pool, Columbia Pool, and Grant Pool are located (St. Johns, Portsmouth, and Grant Park respectively) by childhood population, income, property values, health, and race.

St. Johns and Portsmouth each have more than twice the number of children than in the Grant Park neighborhood.

Portsmouth, the neighborhood where the first pool was closed, is the poorest and most diverse of the three neighborhoods. It rivals the adjoining neighborhood of St. Johns, where the second pool was closed, for numbers of children at the ages Portland Parks directs its swim lessons. Portsmouth has more Black residents. St. Johns has more Hispanic/Latino residents. By comparison, Grant Park has few of either and shockingly fewer children than Portsmouth or St. Johns. The statistics show that Grant Park is a wealthy neighborhood.

Two Outcomes

Portland talks about equity and inclusion, but clearly those values are not extended to the communities of St. Johns and Portsmouth. As we demonstrate here, city resources are clearly sourced to already privileged communities, such as Grant Park. This leaves all youth and community members in St. Johns, Portsmouth, and most of North Portland without access to pools as summer cooling centers, without the opportunity to learn how to swim, and without the opportunity for aquatic recreation.

We are calling on the City of Portland and the community to advocate for the maintenance of our existing pool systems, something we have had to do historically in North Portland. It is not equitable nor just to disproportionately maintain these indispensable community resources in more affluent neighborhoods while abandoning them in the poorest.

Crucial Climate Infrastructure

Like air conditioners, pools allow people the opportunity to cool down in our increasingly hot summers. In addition to evaluating the inequality in funding for public pools in the City of Portland, we feel that Portland should also look to examples, such as New York City, where climate change is sited as a direct reason for a capital investment to improve and build public pools.

The Atlantic recently ran an article describing pools as crucial climate infrastructure.

Investing in swimming pools is “one of those very tangible, real, and just-under-our- nose [solutions] that seem all too obvious,” says Shandas. Americans would miss a significant opportunity to deal with extreme heat if we fail to recognize and protect the enormous value of our existing public infrastructure. Much of the climate and conservation movement recognizes the importance of natural and wild spaces for our health and resilience against climate change. Our urban spaces deserve that same respect.“

Excerpt from The Atlantic, “The Decline of America’s Public Pools” (August 12, 2024). Vivek Shandas is the founder of the Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab at Portland State University.

Portland seems aware that access to water can make life more bearable in our hot summers. Working with Human Access Project,
Portland Parks opened a swim space on the Willamette River directly under the St. Johns Bridge. This is now the only available swimming opportunity on the North Portland peninsula. It does not include a lifeguard or swimming lessons.

Access to the Willamette River is an enhancement to the community recreation of North Portland, but it cannot replace municipal pools and their important contributions to swimming instruction and recreation. As the Human Access website states, “Beach suitable for beginner to intermediate swimmers and children with close supervision… Because of the depth of water at the adjacent dock, the dock is only recommended for advanced swimmers.” 

It will be a shame when erasing access to swim instruction and safe swimming locations results in increased drownings for our most disadvantaged communities. But that is the trade off the City of Portland is willing to make.

*Note from statistics table, row 4, column 4: Anecdotal evidence indicates and these statistics suggest that parents may “move” to an address in the Grant Park neighborhood temporarily when their children are applying to enter Grant High School and then “move” back after they have been admitted.