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Many Plans Made But Houseless Remain Unhoused

A number of plans whose supposed purpose is to house houseless people have sprung up from members of the Portland City Council. These have ranged from Safe Rest Village Sites to gulags staffed by members of the National Guard. The houseless people, however, remain houseless. Though most "cleanups," as the City calls them, are conducted by private agencies, Portland Police are frequently used to protect the workers and sometimes arrest houseless people on site. The heartless sweeps continue including one near the Moda Center so those attending the NCAA "March Madness" basketball tournament would not have their entertainment sullied by having to look at those who have no other place to live (KGW-8TV, March 15).

The plan proposed by Commissioner Dan Ryan to establish at least six Safe Rest Village Sites was supposed to be in place by the end of 2021, but none have opened yet. These were to provide outdoor shelters, not tents, and people would have access to hygiene resources and various services. Perhaps the most bizarre plan was proposed by former Mayor Sam Adams, currently senior advisor to Mayor Ted Wheeler: to force up to 3000 houseless people into three large shelters on either city owned property or private property obtained through eminent domain, patrolled by unarmed Oregon National Guardspeople. Adams suggested the shelters be implemented through executive and emergency powers. Fortunately, concern by advocates for the houseless community has put a stop to this proposal (Oregonian, February 12).

Meanwhile, the sweeps continue with people still having their personal property, frequently clothing and bedding, seized and presumably discarded. On January 30, the Oregonian reported that when camps are swept, the inhabitants are rarely offered other shelter or resources. The reporters spoke to people who'd been subjected to sweeps. The O's subsequent "correction" stated "The City of Portland dismissed the findings of a survey of homeless individuals... primarily because it included only individuals still living outdoors and not those who had secured temporary housing" (Oregonian, February 4). We leave it to the reader to speculate on the speciousness of this statement.

In response to the various solutions by Council members including removing tents from freeways, not allowing camping within 500 feet of the proposed safe rest villages, and prohibiting camping along streets, a group of organizations came together and issued their own proposals. One idea was to have property owners with empty apartments commit at least one to be used as affordable housing and accept vouchers or rental assistance. (Oregonian, March 20).

It is likely many of these emergency actions and proposed mega-camps are the City's way to come into compliance with a federal court ruling that says houseless people cannot be moved if there is nowhere for them to go. Meanwhile, there are still many whose housing consists of tents on the streets.

City Continues Allowing Business to Pay for Four Officers

In mid-March, City Council considered an ordinance to extend the contract with Downtown Clean and Safe (C&S), affiliated with the Portland Business Alliance, which lets the City collect "fees" from the downtown area to pay for four Portland Police officers whose priority is to respond to C&S private security (PPR #85). Public pushback at the first hearing forced the issue to be delayed until April 13. A community listening session was publicized and held a few days earlier, unlike one in early March where nobody showed up. The original plan was to keep the system in place as-is for two years, then transition the C&S officers to be paid for by public tax money over two more years. At the second hearing, an amendment from Commissioner Carmen Rubio reduced the final transition to just one year, ending in 2025 rather than 2026. While the process led to a public discussion of how inappropriate it is for private entities to fund police, the outcome is pretty much to keep the status quo and then make the public pay for downtown business to receive special treatment.

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May, 2022
Also in PPR #86

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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