The newly revamped and recodified version of Portland’s Parks Exclusions ordinance got its first hearing before City Council Nov. 29, with a repeated emphasis that the majority of the policy stays exactly the same as before.
And that’s the problem.
During the hearing, much was made of the two new provisions — prohibiting smoking in Pioneer Courthouse Square, and banning sex offenders from public pools and playground areas. But the core of the ordinance remains the real issue for advocates for people experiencing homelessness; a problem that must be rectified by a public dialogue between the city, legal advocates and the homeless themselves.
As written, the ordinance makes people experiencing homelessness targets for discrimination in one of the few spaces left available to them; the city’s public parks. Unlike the city’s prostitution and drug exclusion ordinances, which have been rewritten to require actual citations for prohibited behavior before issuing an exclusion, the parks ordinance allows officers to exclude at will for a wide swath of behaviors, from sleeping on a bench to tossing birdseed on the ground. The offenses are punishable with 30-, 90- and 120-day exclusions.
Attorneys with the Oregon Law Center see the people herded out of the parks every day, kicked out for minor infractions for months at a time. They see the impact it has on people who have committed no real criminal offense, but who are banished from yet another public place, adding to their isolation and vulnerability. And despite a pledge by the city to review exactly who was affected by the ordinance, only scant information has surfaced. One month’s worth of data, from two years ago, shows nearly half of the 239 people cited were declared homeless or assumed homeless. Add on the number of people whose housing status was unknown and you tip the majority of excluded people — excluded most commonly for drinking alcohol or camping.
Plain and simple, the law criminalizes people on the streets, and until the city comes through with ongoing analysis of who is impacted by these rules, it can’t say "no harm, no foul" against concerns that the homeless are paying a higher price. Nor can it continue to tout the success of the 10-year Plan to End Homelessness if it insists on penalizing people for the same condition it professes compassion and understanding.
With the sit-lie ordinance, the city put the ordinance on hold and has convened a large workgroup to look at the larger issues and find solutions, not more laws. An equal assessment needs to be made of the parks exclusion ordinance, its history of use and its future. The city needs to evaluate whether the punishment fits the crime, and who the real criminals are in the first place, and why. Failing that, the Oregon Law Center needs to take this ordinance to court and force action.
The next hearing on the ordinance is scheduled for Jan. 11. That’s the time when the council will have the opportunity to go forward or settle in with the status quo. Before it decides, the City Council needs to hear from the people on the other side of this ordinance, the ones trying to survive outside, in someplace safe, quiet and public — someplace like a park.
