URBAN PULSE - 'H' IS FOR HAWTHORNE

A heroin overdose and gunpoint stickup have Southeast merchants feeling
uncharitable toward panhandlers.

Laura is an unlikely poster child for the perceived crime wave on Southeast
Hawthorne Boulevard. A rag-doll panhandler who looks like a lost Manson
family teen-ager, Laura was a daily fixture at the corner of Hawthorne and
Southeast 38th Avenue this winter. From her perch outside the Bank of
America, she'd flash a melancholy smile and sad bright eyes, asking
strangers for money.

Panhandling is nothing new in the bustling Hawthorne District. Nonetheless,
Laura, 23 going on 40, has unnerved local merchants.

Store owners like Greg Klaus, owner of Greg's at 3737 SE Hawthorne Blvd.,
say Laura is part of a new wave of panhandlers that has brought heroin and
crime to a street that is better known for handmade fettuccine and poetry
readings.

Concerns peaked last month after a homeless man died of a heroin overdose
in the bathroom of Starbucks. According to a police report, 46-year-old
John Ellis Whitefoot disappeared into the coffeeshop's bathroom at
approximately 4:45 pm on March 2. Fifteen minutes later Starbucks staffers
found him dead, a needle and cook lid resting on the toilet.

For business owners on the busy shopping strip, the death wasn't so much a
wake-up call as the confirmation of a creeping feeling that all is not
groovy. In November, employees at Oasis Pizza were forced to lie on the
floor at gunpoint during a drug-related robbery. Today rumors of two heroin
deaths at the Daily Grind health-food store are making the rounds of
Hawthorne-area shopkeepers (police deny the deaths). This is all very new
for a neighborhood where crime is generally relegated to the mystery
section of the local Powell's.

Last week a group of Hawthorne shopkeepers met to discuss beefing up
private security. On March 28 they started selling $2 coupons for meals at
the Sisters of the Road Cafe--a low-cost eatery catering to the
homeless--which customers can purchase and give to panhandlers instead of
money. In addition, merchants say, they've contacted the police. Merchants
say that last week, two new bicycle officers arrived and have been more
active about discouraging aggressive panhandling. Police say the new
officers are part of a routine spring patrol.

"The panhandling has become intense in the last two to three months," says
Daniel McDermott, co-owner of Sorel Vintages Ltd. at 3713 SE Hawthorne
Blvd. "It was like someone put word out on the Internet that Hawthorne is a
good place to panhandle."

Julien Sorel, McDermott's business partner, says the store has experienced
a recent "mass of undesirables" and an "increase in shoplifting." He says
he has taken to watching people who come into the store--"checking pupils."

Merchants say they've witnessed Laura doing drug deals on Hawthorne.

"One day I saw the gal get in a nice car with guys in business suits and
then get out one block later," says Klaus. "What's not right about that
picture?"

Laura says she's not dealing drugs. She says she and her boyfriend, Andrew
Phillips, lost their jobs as janitors at OMSI several months ago and have
been living on the street ever since.

Officer John Kuechler of the neighborhood response team says the perception
of drug dealing on Hawthorne is greater than the reality. He says Phillips
has been arrested once for possession of a small amount of cocaine, but the
couple is not dealing. "If you're out there panhandling, you're not dealing
heroin," Kuechler says.

Laura says the shopkeepers' accusations of drug dealing are just an excuse
to get rid of her. If so, they've succeeded. Last week, she and Andrew set
up shop in downtown Portland.

- --Ruth Rowland contributed to this report.