Elizabeth (Part 1)

“Tell your friends,” said Elizabeth, owner of the Checkered Flag Tavern on SE 82^nd Avenue, to me and my friend. “Tell your friends about it and get more people in here.”

We all stood inside the joint on a Tuesday before noon and Elizabeth had just told the extraordinary story of how she and her husband Jason had bought and renovated the place during the pandemic, turning a former biker bar full of old man anger and grievances into a welcoming place for all people. The Checkered Flag also hosts an annual drag show that raises money for LGBTQ non profits.

We said we would certainly share the word about this great dive bar and its structural and philosophical transformation. Elizabeth, in her late 30s, also shared her personal story: she was in recovery, had grown up in the area, graduated from a nearby high school, and called life she observed on 82^nd Avenue right out front her bar as “spicy.”

The bar story was fantastic, but even more incredible was something else Elizabeth is trying to doing with the property that deserves promoting and high praise and is nothing like anything I've heard in connection to Oregon's homeless crisis.

Or perhaps it is very much like what is going on everywhere and we simply don't hear about it or take notice. Quiet positive work is often like that.

When Elizabeth purchased the Checkered Flag, the deal came with 10 small studio apartments onsite. The complex must have originally been a motor court from the 40s and 50s and was later converted to housing in the 70s or 80s.

It is dilapidated. The units are tiny. The front yard is concrete. The complex is a football throw away from one of the most inhospitable and dangerous roadways in Oregon.

Nevertheless, the studios are housing for destitute people on the verge of being homeless and that's what matters.

Elizabeth inherited a challenging roster of tenants and had no previous experience as a landlord, let alone the demographic that occupied the studios. Thus, she became a bar owner and bartender who unwittingly took up social service work (primarily with the elderly) on the side because they were living on the property and needed her help and no one else was doing it. So what began with owning a dive bar, launched her into ad hoc work helping the homeless in the area obtain housing or keeping those housed in her complex from losing their homes and dying on the streets.

And she loved doing it.

I got all this from Elizabeth, while drinking my IPA, and was not taking notes, so I hope it's mostly right.

Her work began with a Mr. George, an elderly man who was an alcoholic, semi homeless, and a regular at the tavern. Elizabeth invited him into one of the studios and he eventually died, but didn't die on the streets.

Most of the units were occupied but they suffered from hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred maintenance and Elizabeth had a bar to run and make a living.

Not too long ago, water pipes burst in several of the unoccupied units and Elizabeth lost four of the apartments.

She wanted to remodel but didn't have the money—yet. There was no doubt she would raise it somehow.