Mayor Wheeler is expressing his plans to ban homeless camping on Portland streets. This year alone, Wheeler has issued four emergency declarations to address homelessness issues. Most recently in August, he expanded a declaration that prohibits camping along high-speed corridors such as highways to include key walking routes to K-12 schools.
The current resolution will be introduced in the City Council next week. The plan is to also address the city’s affordable housing crises. There is fear that breaking up camps will leave homeless people to go other places to survive. Some say that the criminal justice and mental health systems are already overwhelmed in Oregon. The abolishing of the homeless camps will be added strain amid a shortage of hospital staff, psychiatric beds and public defenders.
Under the Mayor’s measures, social workers would direct people camping on the street to the city’s designated camping sites. This is a response to the concerns expressed about homeless people. Yet, police could arrest or cite people if they refuse to leave. Those citations could be waived as part of a “services diversion program” that would allow people cited for low-level offenses, such as violating the camping ban, to receive treatment versus incarceration.
The City Council used a measure to declare a state of emergency on homelessness back in 2015. That measure is set to expire in 2025. If passed it could reduce the bureaucratic hurdles surrounding the creation of homeless shelters.
Last month, a federal judge ruled that the Oregon State Hospital must limit the amount of time it can hold patients charged with crimes, in a bid to create space at the overcrowded facility for criminal defendants who need mental health treatment but are housed in jails.
