Remember Monday, when Portland shattered rain records, and manhole covers were popping off like pogs to unleash torrents of sewage into unsuspecting streets, and people had to be rescued by raft?
That selfsame day, city contractors responsible for moving homeless campers off of city land marched through the elements to a messy camp near where the Springwater Corridor trail crosses SE 82nd—very close to where Johnson Creek was jumping its banks and sweeping some campers' belongings away.
As they do, the Pacific Patrol Services (PPS) employees put notices on some of the tents at the camp, informing the denizens that they'd be forced out in two days and that anything they left behind would be either tossed or saved for a month (if deemed a valuable). The PPS workers also taped a notice to a fence, and attached one to a tree. And then they left.
The problem? PPS didn't bother to protect or sheathe its notices in any way. They were pieces of paper, left out in the worst December rainstorm Portland's ever seen. So of course they didn't last. Here are some pics taken by PPS immediately after placing the notices.
Small wonder, then, that the camp's residents say they were caught off guard when a Multnomah County inmate crew showed up yesterday to clean house.
"It was just computer paper," says Trena Sutton, who advocates for the homeless people who frequently camp near the Springwater. "You couldn’t tell what it was. When you tried to pick it up, it just fell apart."
The sweep was ordered by Portland Parks and Recreation, which controls much of the area around the trail. And to be fair, the vastly underprotected notices weren't the only warning campers got, according to the city. Jen Clodius, spokeswoman for the city's Office of Management and Finance, says rangers stopped by on December 1 to warn campers of the impending posting.
But that verbal warning isn't required under law. The postings are. After settling a lawsuit from homeless campers in 2012, the city developed a policy mandating postings and at least 24 hours' notice before a camp is swept. The policy recommends contractors like PPS snap photos of the notices to prove they were posted. But it doesn't say anything about making sure the papers don't disintegrate in the rain.
"I don't think anyone had a clue that there was going to be as much rain as there was," Clodius says.
Advocates like Sutton sent up a cry about Monday's sloppy notices, and it seems to have worked. Yesterday's sweep is resulting in changes in how Portland handles homeless camp cleanups.
Josh Alpert, chief of staff to Mayor Charlie Hales, says he's sending out a new directive to city bureaus today: "Barring emergency, cleanups can't happen in bad weather," he says. "Even in better weather, clean-up sweeps have to be approved by our office."
And here's an email sent out this afternoon by Willam Warren, a facilities services specialist at the city:
Per the Mayor’s Office, all coordinated campsite cleanups (including scopes of work, postings, and cleanups) are suspended during this period of stormy weather and flooding. Exceptions will be made for emergency situations.
This suspension reflects the Mayor’s direction not to displace our houseless campers until the City can offer an indoor alternative.
The order shows the confusion that can surround homeless camps in the city. Some cleanup efforts come through the Portland Police Bureau, Alpert says. Some come from other bureaus, who arrange with the Office of Management Finance to send out work crews.
After the mayor's office declared a housing state of emergency in September, Alpert told the Mercury that sweeps had been largely discontinued. That wasn't the case, hence the new rule that all cleanups come through Hales' office.
"Tell us why, first," Alpert says. "I'm furious that people are following the rules without thinking."
It's sort of fitting the snafu would occur this week, when Hales is hosting the mayors of Seattle, Eugene, San Francisco, and Los Angeles for a symposium on how to combat homelessness (and fight climate change). There's a big press conference planned this afternoon. And this morning, US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro spoke with reporters at Portland City Hall about federal efforts to curb homelessness, which lately have largely centered on getting homeless veterans into housing.
Castro said "there's no magic bullet," and "it's about maximizing resources." Nothing all that interesting.
The situation out on the Springwater yesterday is more-concrete—at least it seems to have led to smarter policy. That won't be a great deal of comfort to the people who lost their stuff.
"Since Johnson Creek decided to rise up and bite them and take their stuff, they've lost so much anyway," Sutton says. "This is insult to injury. They hit them really hard in the bad weather."
