The beds sagged. The windows rattled, and the walls stayed sticky. But for 90 people, the Joyce Hotel was home.

Most had spent years at the Southwest 11th Avenue motel, forking over $40 a night to claim their little slice of downtown.

Then, last weekend, the Internet and cable television both went dark. A clerk collected keys.

After decades of housing some of the city's poorest, the Old Joyce had closed down.

The building's owner, who turned down multiple offers to save one of downtown's last remaining single-room occupancy hotels, was coy about its uncertain fate. He evicted the tenants in the middle of a citywide housing emergency.

"I already miss it," said Arnold Drake World, a 54-year-old artist who lived at the Joyce for three years. "Just the thought of leaving is terrible."

Poor people have been staying at the Joyce since at least 1965, when the owners advertised furnished rooms for $32 a month. The 104-year-old building was another cheap lodge, the Hotel Treves, before that.

Occasionally, travelers booked a night at the Joyce. Men newly released from prison stopped by on their way to freedom. But mostly the hotel attracted longtime transients too picky to stay in shelters or on the streets.

"Most of us that do have any pride left, we're not trying to go to a Mission Gospel or anything like that," World said. "Because let's talk about lice, ticks, fleas and everything else that comes with those free scenarios."

The other guests, most of them men, shared that sense of dignity. They liked their bathrooms clean, their hallways free of drama.

Sometimes a drunk upset the balance, tumbling down the stairs or picking a fight with a lifer. And several people died inside, either from overdrinking, overdosing or once, in 2010, strangulation. A man fell to his death in 1991 while trying to rappel from a hotel window using a standard-issue bedsheet. That same year, one guest stabbed another in the heart.

But most learned to co-exist. They took turns using two washing machines and one microwave. They showered in shifts and shared beers when life turned dark.

The rooms were spare, but residents often personalized the cinder block walls. One resident left behind a Fleetwood Mac poster. Others stashed hot plates on the radiators and turned chests of drawers into food prep stations.

Cigarettes and a meal rest on a television set inside Fred Williams's room at the Joyce Hotel, February 10, 2016. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Those who paid an extra dollar each night secured a loaner TV.

"I've got 71 channels of cable right here," Harold Gammon said. The 69-year-old Vietnam veteran lived on the streets for 17 years before checking in two years ago. "I kick back and watch my movies and thank my stars my ass is still alive."

The Joyce was more expensive than a regular apartment. Even with a weekly discount, tenants paid more than $1,000 a month to occupy the modest rooms. But the owners accepted anyone with an ID -- prison-issued included -- and they let guests stay, even as their IOUs swelled to hundreds of dollars.

"Most of us aren't in this position because we're the best ants in the forest," World said. "Hotels work really well for people who work on a day-to-day basis because you can put your finances together in a more short-term duration."

The location was ideal. Almost every soup kitchen and social service organization is within walking distance. Fred Meyer, Safeway and Target are all nearby. Powell's is practically across the street.

In the 1970s, single-residency-occupancy hotels like the Joyce crowded downtown. Many closed as once seedy downtown neighborhoods turned posh.

Joyce residents had long feared their home was next. In the last decade, The Ace Hotel, Kenny & Zuke's and the Living Room Theaters opened on the block. Then, Southwest Stark Street's gritty gay bars became boutiques that sell $300 boots and shirts.

Still, when the 90-day eviction notices showed up in December, taped to urinals, a few residents said they went into a tailspin.

Harold Gammon, 69, a former resident of the Joyce Hotel, shows off his shoe collection. February 19, 2016 Beth Nakamura/Staff

Portland housing officials snapped to action.

"All the providers, the county, the city were scrambling, trying to figure out what was going to happen to a lot of vulnerable people," said Sharon Fitzgerald, assistant director of supportive housing for Central City Concern. "This is really last resort housing for many of them."

David Tacke, the president of the property management company that runs the Joyce, said he tried to buy the building two years ago. Tacke planned to remodel the hotel, adding an elevator and kitchenettes, but retain its tenants. Building owner Dan Zilka agreed, Tacke said, so he hired engineers and architects to begin the work. Zilka told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he had not wanted to sell then.

The city's housing bureau also looked into buying the building this spring, a spokeswoman said, for $5 million. Zilka paid $1.9 million in 1999.

But Zilka decided in April not to sell to the city.

That gave Central City Concern three weeks to secure housing for the 45 people who hadn't yet found another place.

It couldn't have come at a harder time, she said: Last fall, with demand for apartments sending rents surging, the Portland City Council declared a housing emergency.

"It's hard for anybody to come up with $3,000 to move into an apartment, let alone find a place with the housing market we're in," Fitzgerald said.

The view from Harold Gammon's room inside the Joyce Hotel. February 19, 2016 Beth Nakamura/Staff

Using a $170,000 rent assistance grant from the Portland Housing Bureau, Central City Concern paid for the remaining tenants to stay through April. The nonprofit helped many find apartments and paid their deposits and first month's rent.

World's new Northeast 42nd Avenue house is nicer than the Joyce. But it's four miles from the little haunts he calls home. For three years, he has woken up every morning at 4:30, showered, then walked to Starbucks. He passed afternoons at a table in Powell's, folding paper towels into flower sculptures, working for donations until he earned enough for another night at the Joyce.

Last Saturday, April 30, World's shoulders slumped when a front desk clerk told him the day had come.

"We don't get the key to our new place until tomorrow," he said while other tenants pulled garbage bags of stuff through the lobby. "What am I supposed to do tonight?"

By noon, 25 people remained in their rooms. Tacke, the manager, helped some pack and drove others to the homes Central City Concern workers had found for them.

A clerk told Tacke that a woman on the second floor had suffered panic attacks about the move the night before and had yet to leave. She kept her wheelchair in the lobby, the clerk said, and crawled up a flight of stairs to return to her room each night.

"I can crawl down," she called from her room.

Tacke refused to let her leave that way. He called a technician, and together, they carried the woman out of the hotel.

"We got you," Tacke whispered to her. "We got you."

They set her down in a red minivan parked on Southwest 11th Avenue. Tacke didn't have the address for her new home, a hotel on the eastside. But he started the ignition and drove toward where he thought it might be, somewhere unknown.

-- Casey Parks

cparks@oregonian.com

503-221-8271;