Portland mulls ban on daytime camping amid sharp rise in homelessness

Portland, Oregon, will decide whether to ban homeless camping during daytime hours in most public places

City Council members in Portland will decide Wednesday whether to ban homeless camping during daytime hours in most public places, a move that aims to bring the city into compliance with a new state law and appease the growing number of residents frustrated by a deepening yearslong homelessness crisis.

Portland is among the progressive West Coast cities moving to adopt stricter rules on camping while grappling with intertwined homelessness, housing, mental health and addiction crises. In Portland, homelessness jumped more than 30% between 2019 and 2022, according to federal data.

But while there appears to be an increasing appetite for camping regulations in Oregon's largest city, advocates said the new rules would further burden homeless people and strain nonprofits already working at capacity.

Mayor Ted Wheeler has said his goal is to have enough shelter and housing to eliminate unsanctioned camping in Portland. The City Council previously voted in November to create at least three large, designated campsites where homeless people will be allowed to camp and gradually ban street camping altogether once the sites are operational.

Portland already prohibits camping on city property at all hours. But the measure is rarely enforced and could be found to violate a state law that takes effect July 1. The new law codifies a key 2018 federal court ruling that bars local governments from arresting people for sleeping outside when there isn't enough shelter available, but does allow them to have “objectively reasonable” limits on where, when and how campsites can be set up.

The measure would prohibit camping between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in city parks and near schools, day cares and construction sites and on some sidewalk areas.

Homeless people would have to dismantle their camp every morning and remove their belongings and any litter from the site during the day. People who break the rules would receive a warning for the first two violations. After three violations, people could be fined up to $100 or be sent to jail for up to 30 days.

Andy Mendenhall, CEO and president of Central City Concern, another homeless services nonprofit in downtown Portland, acknowledged that “unsheltered homelessness has reached a point of untenability” in the city. But he added that implementing a measure that essentially displaces people on a daily basis will be hard to implement.

“Both the process of enforcement and the referral of homeless folks to limited regional resources will be a challenge,” Mendenhall said.

In a separate but related development, Portland's City Council also voted Wednesday to approve a settlement in a federal lawsuit brought by people with disabilities who said sprawling homeless encampments prevented them from navigating the city's streets.

The federal class action lawsuit, filed in September, alleged that the city violated the American with Disabilities Act by letting tents to obstruct sidewalks, thus impacting people who use wheelchairs, scooters, canes and walkers.

Under the settlement, the city must prioritize removing tents that block sidewalks and clear at least 500 sidewalk-blocking encampments every year for the next five years. Portland, which did not admit wrongdoing, must also operate a 24-hour hotline for reporting tents blocking sidewalks and create an online reporting portal where people can upload photos.

Additionally, the city must devote at least $8 million in the 2023-2024 fiscal year to making sure the conditions of the settlement are met, and at least $3 million annually for the following four fiscal years. It has also agreed to pay $5,000 to each of the 10 plaintiffs and reasonable attorney fees.

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Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.