Credit: Thomas Teal
Volunteers set up the Village of Hope in a city-owned natural area in Northeast Portland on Sunday.
Volunteers set up the Village of Hope in a city-owned natural area in Northeast Portland on Sunday. Thomas Teal

As threatened, Portland police and park rangers swooped in at roughly 7 am this morning to clear out the Village of Hope, the new homeless encampment that sprung up last weekend near Northeast Airport Way and Mason, organizers say.

Advocates Jamie Partridge, Lisa Lake, and others say about a dozen police and parks rangers used yellow tape to rope off access and gave residents and supporters mere minutes to leave, threatening arrest.

Platforms holding tents, along with other structures, were deconstructed by Rapid Response Bioclean, a city subcontractor that often works in the area, they said.

“They effectively out-maneuvered us this morning,” Partridge told the Mercury, noting that there were about eight people in the village when police showed up earlier than expected—an hour before dozens of village supporters were planning to arrive.

The city has been promising action against the small, organized camp ever since it arose in a Northeast Portland natural area on Sunday morning. The Big Four Corners Natural Area is owned by Portland Parks and Recreation (though zoned for industrial use), and contains the waters of the Columbia River Slough, along with lots of wildlife.

Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office released a statement Monday calling the new village “unacceptable” and saying the office would “work with the Parks Bureau to quickly address this situation.”

Now five unhoused persons are working with advocates to find new places to go, Lake said, declining to offer specifics.

“I don’t know where I’m going to go,” said John “Thumper” Boggs, one of the five houseless residents and a manager at the nascent village. He’s not sure when or how he’ll be able to reclaim his possessions.

“I barely got a bicycle out of there,” Thumper said. “We’re being persecuted, dude. We don’t have a house. That’s why we’re being persecuted. If we were Indian we would be the untouchables.”

The city’s swift crackdown differs from how City Hall has treated similar incursions in the past. When Lake and others took over a piece of land owned by the Portland Development Commission in 2016 in order to set up a camp for domestic violence victims, then-Mayor Charlie Hales chose to negotiate rather than bring in police. Hales’ office promised Lake and other advocates promised they could have another piece of city-owned land if they vacated the PDC plot. The advocates agreed, but the city never produced the promised property.

Lake said this morning she was angry, but not surprised by the city’s actions.

“I feel angry that the city’s not looking at alternatives that are sustainable, scalable, repllicable. I’m angry that our people are still suffering, and that the city’s still wielding their power every time a solution’s brought to them,” she said.

Lake and others who were present said legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild were refused access to move behind officers’ yellow tape to witness the sweep. “I approached [police] and said, ‘We need a legal observer in there,’ and they said, ‘Get back behind the line or you’ll be arrested,'” Lake said. “Not okay.”

National Lawyers Guild attorney Cathy Highet referred the Mercury to another NLG member who could not immediately be reached. Mat dos Santos, legal director at the ACLU of Oregon, said his organization is working on a response to this morning’s sweep.

“We have been in close contact with the organizers for the Village of Hope and have deep concerns about the city’s handling of this issue,” dos Santos said. “Those concerns are both legal and ethical, as we believe the city has taken an approach that was both not required and potentially very problematic.”

Ree Campbell, of advocacy group Boots on the Ground, says campers aren’t going to be dissuaded by this morning’s sweep.

“We are going to regroup probably around 3 o’clock for the next round of fuckery,” Campbell said. “[Mayor] Ted [Wheeler]’s in a rage and we just think this is fun.”

Partridge wouldn’t be specific, but indicated more actions are on the way.

“It’s a community that isn’t going away, and it has a spirit and it’s organized and resilient and it will bounce back.”

12 replies on “In An Early-Morning Crackdown, the City Swept the New Village of Hope Today”

  2. I would like these homeless advocates, the sympathetic media (looking at you, Mercury) and/or extreme left-wingers to just be honest and say it: You are in favor of forcing those who work to pay for those who choose not to.

    Not can’t work. Not unable to work. CHOOSE not to work.

    Because that’s what at least one of these campers is doing: CHOOSING to be homeless.

    The Mercury interviewed him in one of their stories on this camp and the guy said he was choosing to be homeless. How many others at this camp were also choosing to be homeless? I brought up the 4 out of 5 Hazelnut Grove residents who were interviewed by OPB who also said they were choosing to be homeless.

    SO…

    I would like the homeless advocates, the sympathetic media and/or extreme left-wingers to quit beating around the bush, quit talking about “having a heart,” quit talking about how ALL homeless people are in their situation because “rent is too high,” and just come right out and say it: You want those who work to pay for those who CHOOSE not to.

    I would still disagree with you, but at least you’d be honest… for once.

  3. This is fantastic to hear! If only such swift action was taken against the Bundy gang, or anyone else that tramples our public spaces for their own selfish interest.

    Nature is important, and increasingly declining. Four Corners has the richness of wildlife that it does partially due to its isolation and lack of human activity, and partially due to the hard work of replanting and revitalizing a sensitive ecosystem, paid by our tax dollars. What seems to an uncritical Merc writer as “some shrubs and small branches” (removed by the squatters) is part of a bigger ecosystem. Those spots which they cleared are now ready for invasive species to take over if not replanted. It would be great, should something like this happen again, if you could please research the environmental impact of the actions to present an objective picture. This is not a zero sum game.

  5. I agree that “Nature is important, and increasingly declining.”. I think that site maybe was not ideal but the idea of working with houseless to be caretakers of nature as the street roots article explains is worth exploring.

  6. From the Street Roots article: “First, they hauled away bag upon bag of garbage.” – Left by the very people who have been illegally camping in that area for at least two years.

    “This group of people experiencing homelessness” – Except for the one dude we know who is choosing to be homeless. How many others in this camp were also making homelessness a lifestyle choice?

    And let us not forget the “hundreds of latrine holes” left by the people illegally camping in that area.

    I might be in favor of another city-sanctioned camp if these advocates would quit saying that EVERYONE there is there through no fault of their own due to high rent or other such nonsense. Those who are CHOOSING to be homeless and taking up resources for those truly in need should be excluded from city-sanctioned camps.

    There also should be stronger oversight at these camps once they’re established and the watchful eye of the media has turned elsewhere. Where are the numbers regarding people who have transitioned out of homelessness from camps such as Dignity Village or Hazelnut Grove?

    I’m against these extreme homeless advocates taking over our public lands, just like I was against the Bundy Clan doing the same.

  7. “working with houseless to be caretakers of nature”

    Come on, dude. These camps end up massively trashing their surroundings. And among the various demographics of homeless, you have a small subset who are homeless due to being priced out – they are the ones willing to work, and why make them spend their energy cleaning up after the other homeless rather than working to regain employment and housing?

    The other three major subsets of homeless are: disabled (physically and mentally) – they don’t have the capacity to act as caregivers for the environment, hell, they can’t even care for themselves; the drug addicts, and they both don’t give a shit and are the ones leaving needles and other trash everywhere; and finally the homeless by choice who have evidenced by their attitude that they simply don’t care about following the rules of society – again, good luck getting that latter group to be responsible stewards.

    That is a pipe dream idea based on a completely unrealistic view of the type of people in the homeless demographic – the ones responsible and work-oriented enough to be stewards are the ones we should be assisting the most in finding jobs and housing, not making them clean up the mess left by the people we should be sweeping or putting in assisted living or supportive housing situations (the disabled).

  8. “If we had been Indian we would be the untouchables?” Seriously, the fucking homeless are white supremacist pieces of shit, too? AmeriKKKa needs to WAKE THE FUCK UP. There is no WHITE PEOPLE VS. EVERYONE ELSE. There is only THE OBSCENELY WEALTHY ABUSING THEIR POLITICAL POWER IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY VS. THE REST OF US.

    Where exactly do the homeless people go when these camps are raided and destroyed?
    When will this country learn that the only way to end homelessness is to give the homeless a place to live?

    How bad will it have to get before humanity gets it? Or is just going to take humanity ending for it to finally be over? Either way, it’s coming sooner rather than later – we either wake and take care of each other or we die in a horrific horror show for which we only have ourselves to blame.

    I am thoroughly over every fucking human being the face of this earth. Oh and I’ll save all the trolls the trouble, don’t bother telling me to kill myself.

  10. Caretakers? Environmental stewards? You saw what the campers did to the Springwater Corridor, right? They turned it into a Mad Max re-enactment village. They did not care that the Springwater was one of the few green amenities in SE Portland, that it was created with millions of dollars from all of us, that it was planted by the loving work of volunteer schoolchildren. Nah! The children were taught that nasties can do whatever they want. The Springwater Corridor is for sittin’ and shittin’. Thanks for the quote from the Friend of the Houseless about the gleeful fuckery they’re up to. The theater is the point, they’re not really helping anybody, and I pity the people who really need help. These advocates are not your friends, houseless people. They’re fuckwits, feckless wannabes who — by the way — do not want to live near an encampment, either.

  11. @Christina Rae: Yes, your anger is very apparent in most of your comments.

    I have a question that I know you probably won’t answer…oh, you’ll probably yell, change the subject or go off on another unhinged rant. Nonetheless, let’s give it a shot…

    Yes or no: Are you in favor of forcing those who work to pay for those who choose not to? One of the campers interviewed at this camp stated that he was choosing to be homeless.

    I wonder how many others at this camp, or just in general, are choosing to be homeless?

    So again: When it comes to those who CHOOSE to be homeless, are you in favor of taxpayers funding that lifestyle choice?

  12. I don’t know, Douglas_Banter. I voted in favor of the money to build affordable housing, but I haven’t read about any real efforts to get on with the building. I don’t think that the houseless activists have any real plans, either, beyond cavorting before Wheeler and talking among themselves. Responding to the comment from the campers about wishing to be Native Americans so that they’d be “untouchable,” I suggest a field trip to the site of what used to be Celillo Falls — the people to whom that site was sacred for thousands of years were promised housing in exchange for Bonneville Power’s takeover of that sacred site. Go and look at the “housing” that was put nearby for them. Go and look. Then come on back and cry me a river. If we tried, we could help some of these people who really do need help, but Portland’s Friends of the Houseless is not about that. They know EVERYTHING, but they accomplish NOTHING. So weird.

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