Itâs not often that Portlandâs police union and advocates for Portlandâs homeless community agree.
But thereâs an unavoidable similarity between the demands of the Portland Police Association (PPA)âunderscored in a lengthy Facebook post penned Monday by PPAâs combustible president Daryl Turnerâand the call to action of a Change.org petition being circulated by local proponents for affordable housing. Both groups agree that police officers shouldnât be the first responders to calls regarding homeless individuals, and both agree that Mayor Ted Wheelerâs response to new data on homelessness-related arrests is misguided.
Both the PPAâs Facebook post and the online petition follow a jaw-dropping investigation published in the Oregonian on June 27. Reporters found that 52 percent of all Portland arrests in 2017 were of people who were experiencing homelessness. Only 3 percent of the cityâs population fits that description.
This jarringly disproportionate finding sparked outrage in Portlandâs homeless advocacy circles and civil rights organizations, prompting Wheeler to announce an investigation into the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) to determine if officers are unfairly profiling Portlandâs houseless population.
âThe real question here is, âIs there some sort of profiling or implicit bias?ââ Wheeler told the Oregonian last week. âFrom my perspective, thatâs the crux of the situation.â
Is it, though? Are officers responsible for arresting a high number of homeless people, or is it the responsibility of Wheelerâwho serves as Portlandâs police commissionerâto reevaluate the number of crimes that a houseless person can be charged with?
âThe mass arrests of people on the streets arenât a reflection of the integrity of police officers,â says Israel Bayer, a longtime advocate for Portlandâs houseless and the former executive director of Street Roots. âItâs about creating smart public policy that isnât driven by neighborhood complaints.â
PPAâs Turner seems to agree. In his Facebook post, Turner writes heâs âincensedâ that Wheeler is blaming systemic city issues on inferred officer bias. âItâs a recipe for failure to put the burden of the homelessness solution on the Police Bureauâs shoulders,â Turner writes.
Turner believes the problem can be solved with more PPB officers. Thatâs where the similarities between PPAâs demands and homeless advocatesâ activism begin to disappear.
âWhen people call for more police, theyâre really calling for more people to solve the problem, because the current people arenât cutting it,â says Elliott Young, a Lewis & Clark history professor who helped organize the popular online petition that calls on the city to decriminalize homelessness.
The petition, which has gathered more than 2,000 signatures, asks Wheeler to slash police officer positions and use the funds to increase access to affordable housing, mental health care, and addiction services.
Wheeler isnât necessarily opposed to that idea. In a May meeting with police accountability advocates, the mayor said that in cases of mental health crises, âhaving police officers be the safety net shouldnât make anybody comfortable.â Wheeler didnât specifically address Portlandâs homeless population, but in his remarks, he showed genuine concern over fundamental flaws in PPBâs current mandate.
Wheeler added, âWe have to completely change the paradigm around policing here in this community to be more reflective of the kinds of needs that are increasingly important.â
If heâs looking for a signal to start changing that paradigm, the combined outcry from the PPA and homeless advocates is it.