Michael Stoops

In 1987, Portland Mayor Bud Clark (right) discusses plight of the homeless during a TV special at Jefferson High School. Michael Stoops, thenboard chairman of Burnside Community Council, is in the middle of the photo.

(Randy Rasmussen)

Michael Stoops, a charismatic homeless rights leader who spent years in Portland before embarking on a decades-long career on the national level, died Monday after a long illness. He was 67.

Stoops was director of community organizing for the National Coalition for the Homeless, the Washington D.C.-based advocacy group he co-founded in 1988 and once served as its executive director. The group confirmed his death but declined further comment. According to the group's website, Stoops had been ill since at least June 2015.

"He has touched so many lives in his tireless work on behalf of those experiencing extreme poverty," the coalition wrote in 2015, when according to news reports, he had a stroke. "We have set up a special email account to collect your prayers and words of encouragement for Michael."

Stoops was well known in Portland in the late 1980s, when he worked for the now-defunct Burnside Community Council, which operated the Baloney Joe's shelter on Portland's inner-eastside. But he also left the Rose City amid sexual misconduct allegations that would make national headlines.

Stoops, a Quaker and the son of a wealthy Indiana farm family, moved to Portland in 1976 at the request of his Mennonite Church. According to The Oregonian's archives, he first worked as a counselor for Vietnam War veterans, then started becoming interested in issues of homelessness. He moved into the Butte Hotel in Old Town Chinatown and didn't leave until he left Portland about a decade later.

Profiles in The Oregonian described him as a rebellious and impertinent force whose dedication to the issues of homelessness made him a great fundraiser and a powerful speaker.

In 1986 and 1987, he became a national figure when he camped in Washington, D.C. alongside fellow advocate Mitch Snyder during the winter, a protest that drew widespread attention to the cause. The protest stretched for five months.

Congress eventually passed the Stuart McKinney grant program to pay for homeless services, a program that resulted in millions for Portland agencies.

In 1989, Gretchen Kafoury, then a county commissioner, praised Stoops and Snyder for their protest. They "put their lives on the line to be out there and be visible during that nasty, nasty winter," she said at the time. "Our community is greatly enriched by that."

Shortly after that protest, Stoops left Portland in 1988 under a cloud of scandal following a Willamette Week story that alleged he'd had sex with underage boys who were clients at Baloney Joe's.

He denied any wrongdoing and never faced any criminal charges, but left his job and Portland after the allegations.

An investigation by Portland attorney Don Marmaduke, commissioned by the Burnside nonprofit, determined the allegations were "more probable than not."

"To the extent he satisfies his sexual needs with those who are disadvantaged in comparison to him, or who place special trust in him, it is exploitive," Marmaduke wrote.

The Rev. Chuck Currie, one of Stoops' former colleagues with the Burnside council who also worked on the national coalition board, penned a remembrance in the Portland Tribune.

"Michael Stoops was a flawed human being," Currie said. "Like former President Bill Clinton or former Portland Mayor Sam Adams, Michael faltered in his personal life. It is not unfair to judge people by their mistakes, but it is also worth taking into account the totality of their lives."

Curie said that Stoops went on to create new protections that allowed homeless people to vote without addresses and encouraged a national network of street newspapers.



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen