It has been dark for nearly five hours in this bleak neighborhood, and the usual nighttime clatter of the inner city filters through the fog, ever louder by the hour.
But inside the home of Charles and Sandy Moose, the window blinds are open, and there is no sense of cowering futility. They sit in the living room, admiring the shine of new floor finish on their old house.When Moose moved in last month, a prostitute approached him at nine in the morning and asked if he needed anything. He got a similar question from a group of youths down the street, smoking crack in the schoolyard.
What they did not know was that the new resident of the King neighborhood is the city's chief of police. At age 40, Moose makes $90,000 a year and just earned his doctorate, in urban studies.
He could live atop the fashionable West Hills area, where many of the city's young elite live. But when he was named chief earlier this year, after 18 years on the force, he decided to become a 24-hour role model.
Across the nation, community policing, in which officers get to know the neighborhoods they patrol, is all the rage.
In Portland, the chief has taken it one step further.
"I've been trying to convince people not to retreat, to stay in the city, to use the parks, to take back the streets," he said one night at his home. "Moving here seemed like the best way to walk the talk."