As the Portland City Council prepared to vote Thursday on a landmark policy that would ban street camping and allow the city to force people experiencing homelessness into city-run campsites, various interest groups scrambled to elevate voices that either support or decry the proposal.
In total, 64% of Portland voters said they think “local governments should prioritize funding more shelters and designated camping areas as a first step toward permanent housing. It’s inhumane and dangerous to allow people to camp on streets and sidewalks,” according a poll commissioned by the Portland Business Alliance released Wednesday.
In contrast, 26% of Portland voters said “even if it takes longer to move people off the streets, local governments should prioritize permanent housing. It is inhumane to force people to live where they do not want to and the only true solution to homelessness is to build more housing.”
Citywide, 75% said they support police or other city officials forcing people who are camping on the streets to move to a shelter or designated camping site.
Unhoused people who spoke at a forum on the proposal Tuesday and experts who’ve spoken out since it was released say it would be harmful and counterproductive to force street campers into large city-run camps.
The poll of 400 city voters, conducted over the past week, was commissioned to gauge interest in resolutions to address homelessness put forth last week by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Dan Ryan. Their five-plank plan would ban unsanctioned street camping, establish large-scale city-run camp sites, push the city to more aggressively create new affordable housing, create a diversion program that would wipe low-level offenses from people’s records if they agree to addiction or mental health treatment, create more work opportunities and formally request more funding from the state, county and other partners.
Debate over those wide-ranging proposals has chiefly focused on the proposals to ban camping and force people into city-run sites. While the large group camps would offer bathrooms, showers, caseworkers and security, they would not offer any additional protection from severe weather. Instead, people would be asked to pitch their tent in a designated site that would corral hundreds of people together in close quarters. The camping ban would be phased in starting in May 2024, city documents indicate.
Many advocates for the unhoused question how quickly the city could build the group camping sites, given that city officials just opened the second of six promised safe rest villages, years after their creation was first promised. The villages are clusters of up to 60 tiny homes that offer people a place to live temporarily.
A coalition of homeless service providers hosted a listening forum Tuesday at Blanchet House in Old Town to allow people with lived experience and people who provide services to homeless individuals to share their opinions of the proposals. Wheeler and Ryan, who both attended, were invited to listen but not speak.
Kerry Robison, who has lived in a tent with her husband for the past three years, said they have continued to work with various nonprofits to obtain housing. She said she fears a camping ban would trigger trauma and feels that forcing people into a designated site strips people of their own power.
“I have a part-time job and my husband is on disability, but we can’t find (subsidized) housing,” she said. “We steer clear from shelters because we have dogs, we both have health concerns and PTSD … With the camping ban, the one space we have carved out to sleep will now be illegal … No one deserves to feel less than anyone else. Don’t make policy that criminalizes us just for living outside.”
Guillermo Rawsi, who previously lived in a tiny home village with 30 people, said even the small collection of people led to a pile up of trash and many mental health crises among residents. He fears that a site that puts hundreds of people together would spur even more mental health emergencies.
Phoenix Oaks, a trans man said while he is housed now, said he fears what people who are transitioning might experience at the camps. He said he constantly experienced harassment and bullying when staying in women’s shelters prior to his transition and, after he transitioned, he felt even less safe at men’s shelters.
“My concern with camps is that trans and nonbinary people will feel very unsafe there,” he said. “Criminalizing us because we don’t want to live in a hostile unsafe environment is not the answer.”
Another man named James who was previously homeless said that, prior to being housed, he lived in a constant state of despair and depression that impacted his actions. He believes the sites would cause tremendous impacts to people’s behavioral health.
The general population in Portland is frustrated with what they see and experience when they leave their homes and is pushing the city for radical change.
In total, 79% of Portlanders said they support the city’s proposal to enforce camping bans in public areas, according to the business alliance poll. In total, 82% said they support the city creating authorized camping areas that have bathrooms, water, hygiene services, social service workers and security. While Portlanders have said in the past they supported city-run outdoor shelters such as safe rest villages when it came time to create them in specific neighborhoods, many neighbors opposed that, which slowed the opening the tiny home clusters.
Of those polled in the past week, 78% said “local governments should require those camping on city sidewalks, streets and public areas to sleep only in shelters or authorized camp areas” while 14% said “local governments should allow people to live on public streets and sidewalks if they don’t want to move.”
Jon Isaacs, the Portland Business Alliance’s vice president of government affairs said the organization’s goal was to provide perspective on where the broader community stood on the proposals following last week’s public testimony that stretched seven hours. Most people who spoke during that session largely opposed the camping ban and forced moves into city-run sites.
Nicole Hayden reports on homelessness for The Oregonian/OregonLive. She can be reached at nhayden@oregonian.com or on Twitter @Nicole_A_Hayden.
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