The inevitable lawsuit over Mayor Charlie Hales’ new homeless camping rules landed today, and it’s coming from all the folks you expected—and more!
In a suit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, the Portland Business Alliance, Overlook Neighborhood Association, Central Eastside Industrial Council, and others have asked a judge to end to Hales’ new policies, which allow campers to erect tents overnight on some “remnant” parcels, sleep overnight on the sidewalk in small groups, and live in organized camps attached to nonprofit organizations (none of which have sprung up under the policy).
In a city with thousands more homeless people than there are corresponding social services resources, those groups—calling themselves “Safe and Livable Portland” and hiring a PR outfit to shine up their effort—say Hales approach is “misguided” and “irrational.” They’d like a judge to issue an injunction.
“Although the Mayor purported to base his Camping Policy on a shortage of affordable housing in the City,” the suit says, “the policy is an irrational response that does nothing to create affordable housing and runs contrary to the recommendations of civic groups on how to alleviate the City’s housing affordability issues.”
The filing argues Hales has run afoul of a state law that reads: “Campgrounds established for providing transitional housing accommodations shall not be allowed on more than two parcels in a municipality.” And the business groups say that the mayor’s exceeded the authority extended to him by the housing state of emergency City Council enacted last year, and that he can’t enact the rules by himself. (Even if that last bit is true, Hales could find a majority of city commissioners to go with him. Both Amanda Fritz and Steve Novick recently told the Mercury they agree with the move.)
Camping-Suit (PDF)
Camping-Suit (Text)
It’s hard to overstate the importance this suit could have as Portland tries to find its way on homelessness. The policies Hales enacted in February, for many homeless advocates, represented a nuanced response in a city that’s historically criminalized and pushed around homeless people, while offering no alternative.
Hales and his chief of staff, Josh Alpert, instead have said that a better approach is to allow limited camping until the city builds enough housing and establishes enough shelter to give people sleeping on the streets an option. As I’ve argued, that’s a more rational stance than City Hall’s taken on this issue in decades—but it hasn’t always been apparent in the last two months that Hales has been cracking down in ways his office said it would, even as it relaxed the camping rules.
Most of the groups who filed the lawsuit today—beyond those listed above, they include the food cart pod Cartlandia, the Building Owners and Managers Association of Oregon, the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, and the PBA-affiliated Clean and Safe District—have clashed publicly lately with the city on homelessness.
The PBA seems to be in a constant rhetorical battle with the mayor’s office over the issue, and it’s partner organization Clean and Safe was recently shamed into removing a downtown billboard urging people not to give to panhandlers. The Central Eastside Industrial Council, made up of businesses in a neighborhood with a lot of camping activity, is currently trying to stop the city from moving the well-liked homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too into its midst. Cartlandia, on SE 82nd, has been affected by problematic activity that’s increased on the Springwater Corridor. The Overlook Neighborhood Association is furious about the Hazelnut Grove camp on North Greeley, and voted unanimously just last night to join in on the lawsuit, according to board member Chris Trejbal (who’s also the interim research and advocacy director at the City Club of Portland).
“We don’t see that solution coming out of City Hall,” Trejbal told me. “What we do see is the city allowing camping to occur without any sort of regulation and in places that are unsafe and unhealthy… I think the filing suggests we want the city to come up with a place for people to go.”
In fact, there is movement occurring on homelessness well beyond Hales’ policy change. Anyone who says it’s City Hall’s only response to the problem is lying or not paying attention. Hundreds of shelter beds have sprung up since the housing emergency was declared, and the city’s poured millions into a new plan aimed at drastically reducing homelessness (many details here). The Portland Housing Bureau, which is largely responsible for creating affordable housing, will likely see a massive increase in its budget this year.
That’s not to say the city’s response has been perfect in the slightest—or even that it will work. High-profile incidents like a recent shooting and a fire at a homeless camp earlier this month are easy things for naysayers to seize on as proof the city’s going downhill.
The mayor’s office declined comment, saying it doesn’t talk about pending litigation.
I’ve lived downtown guys, there are tents and obviously drug-addicted or seasonal homeless in all kinds of places there weren’t even two years ago. Nobody who lives in the city is denying that, if they are they’re pushing a narrative. It’s f**king obvious, they weren’t there, now they are there.
I’m not offering any cure here, but whatever the city is doing is not helping. Portland is a destination town – check the interviews Vice did with the seasonal folks a couple years ago, they said straight up that they know it’s a great place to come and shoot dope in the Summer as they are left alone, pretty much on prime real estate.
The city is going to shit in this regard and if you don’t agree you’re either naiive, bullshitting, or don’t life down here.
Where can I sign on, this should be a class action lawsuit.
Part of the problem is religious wacko pastors handing out camping gear and telling junkies that they are victims and never part of the problem. If you don’t wash the feet of beggars and do complain about the vandalism, you are labelled an ungodly uncompassionate person. That, and tons of free food ,has actually attracted people from out-of-state. It is a lie that all those crust punks are from Forest Grove. They are coming from other states & staying because of free tents and no law enforcement.
I am close to moving my small office from SE Portland to Gresham or Milwaukie. Why? Because I can’t work with the off-beat junkie drummers, and out-of-tune homeless buskers. It is torture to listen to people play instruments badly for hours under my office window,
Thanks Hales! Thanks Pastor of faux-charity “Home Forward.” Your bronze age ideas of charity suck big time.
I have been working downtown for several years, and I think things are BETTER now than they have been. Admittedly we are getting warm earlier in the year, but the number of human feces I am stepping over has dwindled to almost zero.
The number of homeless I see has dropped, and the number of people getting the help they need seems to have gone UP.
I talk with friends that work in the homeless community and do social work and they all think things are getting better, but again…still early.
If they get away with it I’ll sue the PBA for being the ones to prompt mayor Hales to initiate the street sweeps and herd human beings like rats – a thing which had the immediate consequences of violence, degeneracy, and literally murder. The PBA is murderers. They just do not have the spine to do so with their own hands.
They are just mad because since that time (2013) Hales has questioned his loyalty to their entitled and power hungry little group and he heas tried to see the other side, albeit unsuccessfully (the camping thing is inherently flawed and the policies demonstrate they don’t know what they are dealing with). Still, at least the guy showed he is not their puppet. Go ahead and cry PBA. Nobody cares, and your not getting a dime.
If you want to camp in areas where you don’t affect businesses fine, but I am not going to support your refusal to work.
Instead of enacting illegal code, how about some simple, good old fashioned, selective non enforcement? Just make camping a low priority.
I think the lawsuit might have less teeth if the city had enacted the bullet points under the section “Organized, City Sanctioned Camping” — a code of conduct monitored and enforced by a city-selected Camp Host, presumably as part of having “a clear expectation of what will and will not be allowed by the City.” The Springwater Corridor Camp, as far as I know, has no such city liaison and no such code of conduct.
A reasonable proportion of the homeless have mental problems and addiction problems and leaving them unsupervised, much less untreated, will perpetuate trouble.
Two Parcels for camping? I nominate the Westmoreland Golf Course and Berkeley Park