It’s great an attorney downtown can activate the city and get results, but us poor schmucks east of 205 have this recamping phenomena happening on a continuum and have to wade through the process individually of reporting and…. Waiting for our sites to reach a level that determines intervention. It becomes a full time job and even streets designated as safe routes to school are not a priority. Many of us can see the circular movement of these homeless and their tents and vehicles as they move from location to location which are all identified as recamping sites. Trespassing on ODOT property is the norm and yet the signs installed stating no trespass don’t allow for any consequences. A joke really and all the while the garbage, night time noise, open drug use and dealing, destruction to public property continues and we as a neighborhood are left to tolerate having our livability affected in addition to being held to following rules and ordinances simply because we have the ability to pay. The city encourages this double standard by continuing to feed the homeless industrial complex as it maintains its partnerships with hundreds of ngos by passing along our tax dollars with little to show for it. I’m convinced that the Portland landscape will never appear even remotely free of this mess. Just wait til California starts sending their homeless up here as they prepare to host the 2028 Olympics in LA.
It's good to hear we're reaching readers across the city.
Is there any way to use this example from the West Side to make your case for better service where you are? You have three City Council members who should be helping you. I hate to see an injustice addressed in one locale taken as creating injustice elsewhere. That zero-sum game leads nowhere.
Alan I hate to sound negative but I fear there is no real help for SE Portland. One of our friends lives right along the MUP in SE and when he requests help from the police they just drive through the neighborhood not even stopping to address the situation at hand. These are Anarchist and drug dealers living in this area. Another friend has issues with aggressive dogs and is told to contact Animal Control. I'm sure you have seen some of the stories out there about these dogs living in homeless camps mauling people. Our three City Council members are focused on other issues. One is focused on sidewalks and paved street, one is focused on modifying a noise ordinance for a bar in the Albina neighborhood and another is focused on social housing. Plus two are advocating for cutting the police budget. Homeless campsites are not even on their radar. It's up to the neighbors to advocate, report, go to meetings and constantly stay on top of them and continue reporting. Then wait 10 days and once they are cleared they can move right back in because they won't address them for another 30 days because they don't match their matrix. It's all a game the city plays. 😫
Well said. I live SE and heard gunshots last night--two episodes. And I'm glad you mentioned the Anarchists, who I imagine see all forms of the disorder as a revolutionary tool.
Hoity toity neighborhoods in SE absolutely do get unspoken protection from vagrancy. The Reed College Place in the Eastmoreland neighborhood never suffers encampment despite how flat and transit accessible it is.
Unfortunately Portlanders keep electing the same kind of leaders… if we elect status quo people nothing will change. The two exceptions have been Rene Gonzalez and Nathan Vasquez. Until we get more pragmatics like them in office it’s not gonna get better I’m afraid.
I think we need an empathetic response. Don't swat the bees, put honey in wealthy liberals' own enclave. Allocate some funds to make the TriMet 51 run late into the night and every 15 minutes, and encourage handouts at the Council Crest Park. To prevent selective enforcement of fare by NIMBY pressure, we just need to re-allocate the budget cut from the DA to granting free ride on #51 to anyone who claims to be homeless. That bus stops within yelling distance of a swanky pompous house that JVP calls home. This will help spread homelessness into JVP neighborhood in no time.
That part of downtown is neglected. It's also the fault of programs like PBOT's Parking Enforcement Division for strategically focusing problems by using "officers' discretion" to arbitrarily adjust the application of law.
If they consistently enforced meter payments and posted sign against every vehicle, a whole lot more vagrancy vehicles will migrate over to unregulated parking, such as SW Hills, Irvington and Laurelhurst. This is because Central Eastside, Lloyd, downtown all have meters or posted duration limits. It's obvious why they're not enforcing meter payment or Zone N/G permits on vagrancy vehicles. That's because they don't want them migrating over to Irvington, Ladds', Alameda and like.
I've seen PBOT parking citations photo that show people sleeping in the car while parked in Clean & Safe ESD territory within the downtown core. Yet there are plenty of vehicles, like the maroon meth tweaker van by Gretchen Kafoury, the silver plateless Dodge pickup truck that's been parking by the needle exchange that do not face enforcement even though they often park for days at a time. While technically still "downtown" this part falls outside of Clean & Safe.
I think the lack of enforcement is to ensure client base is maintained for the various homeless industrial complex while aggressively enforcing it near posh tourist spots downtown in order to keep vagrancy along the margins of downtown.
There's a stark dichotomy between the intensity of parking enforcement between SW 13th by Outside In vs SW Broadway by The Benson Hotel.
Good for Aaron Bass for activating the city and getting a response from Outside In. I am sure there are many people like me who would be happy to advocate for stopping camping in the streets.
Why are taxpayers funding this enabling nonprofit? They enable the cruelty of street camping so they continue to get their taxpayer cash. It’s time to cut them off.
Wow this article is disgustingly misinformed. Have y'all tried interviewing any of the DISABLED HOMELESS TRANS YOUTH that are impacted by the sweeps? Isn't journalism supposed to be unbiased? Why are you only interviewing wealthy people with access to power and privilege?
Folks keep coming back to OI because THEY DON'T HAVE HOMES. And when they FINALLY are housed its across town from their appointments, takes 2 hours via bus to get to and often isn't even accessible to those with mobility devices.
The people "interfering" are community members that have more heart than any of u sad sacks in the comments could imagine. They show up and ask what is needed. That varies depending on who is there. It's called solidarity, and I encourage everyone to try it. It's what ACTUALLY helps. Not rapid Response.
What is it like to hate people because they're poor? What causes you to look down on other human beings?
OI doesn't "enable" anything except for the violent cycle of poverty and sweeps. Their staff watch these kids have their things broken and thrown away multiple times a week and they do nothing. They watch kids in wheelchairs with no place else to go, and an appointment at OI in 2 hours, be displaced and brutalized by police.
If you want to blame someone, blame landlords, property owners and city officials. The hoarding of wealth and the refusal to fund SUSTAINABLE programs is what causes homelessness. There are empty homes in Portland, just sitting there. It's disgusting.
How many “disabled , homeless, trans youth” are there”impacted by homeless sweeps”? Inquiring minds want to know! And why should these hypothetical disabled, homeless, trans youth be allowed to circumvent and ignore following the basic rules of community living that everyone else has to follow? Like not spreading garbage and graffiti all over their neighborhood?
Hey Allan, fence contractors were already there installing fence in the ODOT easement across from Outside In on May 8th. I'm not surprised to see aristocracy is still very much around when the city would go the extra mile to appease the rich people with influence. No other explanation why they're acting on a concern so quickly.
It’s great an attorney downtown can activate the city and get results, but us poor schmucks east of 205 have this recamping phenomena happening on a continuum and have to wade through the process individually of reporting and…. Waiting for our sites to reach a level that determines intervention. It becomes a full time job and even streets designated as safe routes to school are not a priority. Many of us can see the circular movement of these homeless and their tents and vehicles as they move from location to location which are all identified as recamping sites. Trespassing on ODOT property is the norm and yet the signs installed stating no trespass don’t allow for any consequences. A joke really and all the while the garbage, night time noise, open drug use and dealing, destruction to public property continues and we as a neighborhood are left to tolerate having our livability affected in addition to being held to following rules and ordinances simply because we have the ability to pay. The city encourages this double standard by continuing to feed the homeless industrial complex as it maintains its partnerships with hundreds of ngos by passing along our tax dollars with little to show for it. I’m convinced that the Portland landscape will never appear even remotely free of this mess. Just wait til California starts sending their homeless up here as they prepare to host the 2028 Olympics in LA.
It's good to hear we're reaching readers across the city.
Is there any way to use this example from the West Side to make your case for better service where you are? You have three City Council members who should be helping you. I hate to see an injustice addressed in one locale taken as creating injustice elsewhere. That zero-sum game leads nowhere.
Alan I hate to sound negative but I fear there is no real help for SE Portland. One of our friends lives right along the MUP in SE and when he requests help from the police they just drive through the neighborhood not even stopping to address the situation at hand. These are Anarchist and drug dealers living in this area. Another friend has issues with aggressive dogs and is told to contact Animal Control. I'm sure you have seen some of the stories out there about these dogs living in homeless camps mauling people. Our three City Council members are focused on other issues. One is focused on sidewalks and paved street, one is focused on modifying a noise ordinance for a bar in the Albina neighborhood and another is focused on social housing. Plus two are advocating for cutting the police budget. Homeless campsites are not even on their radar. It's up to the neighbors to advocate, report, go to meetings and constantly stay on top of them and continue reporting. Then wait 10 days and once they are cleared they can move right back in because they won't address them for another 30 days because they don't match their matrix. It's all a game the city plays. 😫
Well said. I live SE and heard gunshots last night--two episodes. And I'm glad you mentioned the Anarchists, who I imagine see all forms of the disorder as a revolutionary tool.
Hoity toity neighborhoods in SE absolutely do get unspoken protection from vagrancy. The Reed College Place in the Eastmoreland neighborhood never suffers encampment despite how flat and transit accessible it is.
Unfortunately Portlanders keep electing the same kind of leaders… if we elect status quo people nothing will change. The two exceptions have been Rene Gonzalez and Nathan Vasquez. Until we get more pragmatics like them in office it’s not gonna get better I’m afraid.
Did you see the interview with Nathan Vasquez? He is so pissed that JVP is cutting his budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg8pXedrgws
Yep. Unfortunately we elected two JVP lackeys (Singleton and Moyer) who are going to back her budget unless people raise hell… which they won’t.
I think we need an empathetic response. Don't swat the bees, put honey in wealthy liberals' own enclave. Allocate some funds to make the TriMet 51 run late into the night and every 15 minutes, and encourage handouts at the Council Crest Park. To prevent selective enforcement of fare by NIMBY pressure, we just need to re-allocate the budget cut from the DA to granting free ride on #51 to anyone who claims to be homeless. That bus stops within yelling distance of a swanky pompous house that JVP calls home. This will help spread homelessness into JVP neighborhood in no time.
Excellent idea....😃😁
Well stated! 😉
That part of downtown is neglected. It's also the fault of programs like PBOT's Parking Enforcement Division for strategically focusing problems by using "officers' discretion" to arbitrarily adjust the application of law.
If they consistently enforced meter payments and posted sign against every vehicle, a whole lot more vagrancy vehicles will migrate over to unregulated parking, such as SW Hills, Irvington and Laurelhurst. This is because Central Eastside, Lloyd, downtown all have meters or posted duration limits. It's obvious why they're not enforcing meter payment or Zone N/G permits on vagrancy vehicles. That's because they don't want them migrating over to Irvington, Ladds', Alameda and like.
I've seen PBOT parking citations photo that show people sleeping in the car while parked in Clean & Safe ESD territory within the downtown core. Yet there are plenty of vehicles, like the maroon meth tweaker van by Gretchen Kafoury, the silver plateless Dodge pickup truck that's been parking by the needle exchange that do not face enforcement even though they often park for days at a time. While technically still "downtown" this part falls outside of Clean & Safe.
I think the lack of enforcement is to ensure client base is maintained for the various homeless industrial complex while aggressively enforcing it near posh tourist spots downtown in order to keep vagrancy along the margins of downtown.
There's a stark dichotomy between the intensity of parking enforcement between SW 13th by Outside In vs SW Broadway by The Benson Hotel.
Good for Aaron Bass for activating the city and getting a response from Outside In. I am sure there are many people like me who would be happy to advocate for stopping camping in the streets.
Why are taxpayers funding this enabling nonprofit? They enable the cruelty of street camping so they continue to get their taxpayer cash. It’s time to cut them off.
Thank you for writing this article.
Wow this article is disgustingly misinformed. Have y'all tried interviewing any of the DISABLED HOMELESS TRANS YOUTH that are impacted by the sweeps? Isn't journalism supposed to be unbiased? Why are you only interviewing wealthy people with access to power and privilege?
Folks keep coming back to OI because THEY DON'T HAVE HOMES. And when they FINALLY are housed its across town from their appointments, takes 2 hours via bus to get to and often isn't even accessible to those with mobility devices.
The people "interfering" are community members that have more heart than any of u sad sacks in the comments could imagine. They show up and ask what is needed. That varies depending on who is there. It's called solidarity, and I encourage everyone to try it. It's what ACTUALLY helps. Not rapid Response.
What is it like to hate people because they're poor? What causes you to look down on other human beings?
OI doesn't "enable" anything except for the violent cycle of poverty and sweeps. Their staff watch these kids have their things broken and thrown away multiple times a week and they do nothing. They watch kids in wheelchairs with no place else to go, and an appointment at OI in 2 hours, be displaced and brutalized by police.
If you want to blame someone, blame landlords, property owners and city officials. The hoarding of wealth and the refusal to fund SUSTAINABLE programs is what causes homelessness. There are empty homes in Portland, just sitting there. It's disgusting.
Y'all truly have no humanity.
Where is the humanity for those that adhere to our social contract?
How many “disabled , homeless, trans youth” are there”impacted by homeless sweeps”? Inquiring minds want to know! And why should these hypothetical disabled, homeless, trans youth be allowed to circumvent and ignore following the basic rules of community living that everyone else has to follow? Like not spreading garbage and graffiti all over their neighborhood?
Maybe y’all could enlighten the rest of us!
Hey Allan, fence contractors were already there installing fence in the ODOT easement across from Outside In on May 8th. I'm not surprised to see aristocracy is still very much around when the city would go the extra mile to appease the rich people with influence. No other explanation why they're acting on a concern so quickly.
Camps that return within 10 days of posting can be removed promptly. According to the OMF-IRP Communications:
"If a camp returns within 10 days, the spokesperson says it will be cleaned up. If it’s longer than that, they will cite it again." a statement issued by the Impact Reduction Program in January 2023. https://www.koin.com/news/portland/new-portland-program-tracks-homelessness-across-city/
Update:
A 311 agent said it's not from the date of removal, but from the date of posting. Post updated for accuracy.