Portland’s sweeps leave people with few resources scrambling to navigate a profoundly broken system lacking oversight, accountability and transparency
Bronwyn Carver is a member of Street Roots’ MoJo program. MoJo is composed of vendors interested in journaling life on the streets and writing about issues important to our community.
My campsite and the three neighboring campsites near the Kaiser Permanente campus by Interstate 5 in Portland were posted for a sweep on Sept. 9. I am a houseless woman living on the streets of Portland for the last six years. I am not homeless, as I have a home, just not the walls to delineate such.
Waking up and finding the bright lime green “Illegal Campsite Notice” tacked/stapled to a neighbor’s structure always makes me upset. I was confused and befuddled as to why my camp was being posted after almost two years of being here.
Packing up your belongings (and there can be many the longer you are in one spot) becomes an undertaking of pure will. Aside from packing your life’s treasures, you need to find a new campsite. This is an arduous task in and of itself.
Finding a place not seen from a street or freeway, or obstructing an entrance, being close to a school, etc. The list of places one is not allowed to be is much longer than the list of places one is allowed to be. Once found, you then must move your possessions to your new home, set up, and hope like hell no one steals it while you are going back for another load. This can take hours to days depending on the variables — too many to list here.
On the bright lime green “Illegal Campsite Notice” you find information regarding the amount of time you have to overcome the new challenges. You are typically given between 72 hours and 10 days. There is no set time or date indicating when they will come, other than the three days to 10 days timeline. That is a hell of a lot of leeway. You just do not know when they will be there, so you try to prepare as best as possible.
Getting your stuff together to move shows the removal crew you are trying to vacate. You hear crew leaders say they ‘are not in the business of disrupting lives,’ yet moving in as little time given is the very essence of disruptive. I don’t think it can be helped other than providing a specific date for a sweep. I will say Rapid Response has improved their communication with unhoused Portlanders regarding time frames.
"The list of places one is not allowed to be is much longer than the list of places one is allowed to be." On the notice, the only other information says there is “shelter available through several nonprofit service agencies” and to call 211 for more information. There are, however, no shelter beds most of the time. Many shelters have rules that can be restrictive, raising the barrier for entry and driving away interested parties.
Once on-site, Rapid Response sets about removing trash, belongings and dropping tents.
Personal belongings from tents should be held for 40 days after the initial posting. However, it was noted during the cleanup of the lower camp by one of the unhoused individuals named Leggs that personal belongings were placed in clear, unmarked plastic bags. How is one then supposed to identify their possessions to Rapid Response?
These unmarked clear plastic bags of people’s possessions were placed in the same truck bed as the trash. These trucks then go to the dump. I do not believe that Rapid Response separates out these bags prior to bringing them to the dump. The phone number on the notice is for Rapid Response so a person can retrieve their belongings being held.
Leggs also said Rapid Response first took away wagons and shopping carts used to help us move. Then they took away potentially valuable items, loaded them into a different truck, and left, again not labeling anything about where the items came from. When they dismantled tents, the poles were placed to the side, not rolled up with the tents. Then the tents were placed in the same clear, unmarked bags. Then the food was removed, then blankets, wood and anything else one uses to be comfortable.
I know there is a protocol that needs to be followed before one can get posted. The One Point of Contact Portal is an online reporting system for the general public to log reports of illegal campsites and abandoned vehicles. From there, the Clean Start Program comes to the campsite to assess the situation, offer resources and remove garbage.
The city then reviews the health and safety risks. The camp is either posted for removal or they come to clean up and then watch the camp through several repeated visits.
As an unhoused person, you can also check to see if and when your camp was reported, and what the status is. My camp was not listed at the time of the posting nor for the prior 12 weeks. So with my confusion and curiosity to guide me, I set about to learn who had reported us, and why?
I did not believe we were visited by Clean Start and assessed, let alone offered resources.
There were, however, some white vans visiting the camp over the last three or four months, but they did not identify who they were or what they were doing there. They offered us water and mostly sat in the van. Perhaps they assessed the lower camps’ disarray from the parking lot, which is where the van (and its occupants) spent most of the time.
The obvious answer as to why the camp was posted is the trash pile visible from a Kaiser Permanente parking lot as well as the I-5 freeway. The lower two camps grow and shrink and grow again. Each time, more trash is left behind and it becomes more unsightly, especially after our trash stopped being picked up by the city.
People came and went, but those who left often went without their tent, making it look like there were more residents than there actually were. So right away, we were failing according to the Revised Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program Covid-19 Protocol as of May 24, which emphasizes the need for “CDC-prescribed 12x12 feet of space per individual, providing six feet of separation between tents…”
The existing city criteria to prioritize sweeping an encampment required just a single of the following to be met: Eight or more structures; Blocks someone’s ability to use public sidewalks, paths, transit stations restrooms or building entrances; Scores of 65 or higher on the impact Reduction Program 100 point risk assessment scale; Credible reports of criminal behavior.
Adding to the list as of May 24, according to the city: The presence of untreated sewage being prevalent, leading to increased risks of contracting Shigella or Hepatitis A; Presenting a public health risk to both housed and unhoused community members by the presence of BioHazardous materials (ie: Syringes either empty or with residue present); Any verified reports of violence, arrest or criminal activity; Extreme fire risk as identified by Portland Fire and Rescue; Impede operations at schools or block access for the disabled.
At the lower encampment, they certainly checked several boxes other than the blocking of anyone’s ability to access any of the above-mentioned. They did have two smaller fires as someone set two piles of debris ablaze and one couple were often screaming/fighting with one another in a nearby Kaiser Permanente parking lot.
I didn’t understand why I was posted when I have only three people, including myself, camping in the very far back of the Kaiser Permanente campus, and I cannot be seen from the street or the freeway.
The questions were many, including the “eight or more structures/tents” guideline. Is it per foot, yard, mile? What delineation is used to distinguish between camps? The vague language leaves the interpretation up to whom? The person performing the matrix?
Who reported our campsite if we are not in the portal? When was the camp assessed and what was the score? These questions are the ones I wanted answered.
I started with calling Central City Concern as I thought they sent out the Clean Start crew.
I called the CCC Administration phone number. They told me the city was the complainant. I asked who with the city filed the order for removal?
They referred me to the Community Enhancement Program. In turn, I was told to call Brenda (no last name was given), who also said the city was the complainant. I asked her for more information and she gave me a phone number … the same phone number I had been given several departments ago. Really?
So I called the number for a second time, rephrasing the question. This worked as I was referred to Jay McIntrye of Clean Start. I asked McIntyre when Clean Start went to my camp to perform the assessment and what the score was. McIntrye said he received an email regarding my camp, adding he did not see when his crews came out.
When asked further about the email, he only said it mentioned trash and tents. He gave me the number for three individuals with the city’s Impact Reduction Program: Jonathan Lewis, Katie Lindsay and Lucas Hillier. Hillier and Lewis didn’t answer, but I left voicemails. Lindsay was the only one who answered the phone.
Lindsay said they had been out Sept. 5, Sept. 6 and Sept. 13. She said workers removed 1,200 tons of trash and were unable to remove more because a white van blocked the access gate, which was secured with a lock not belonging to the city. Two people who lived at the site said a cleaning crew entered by cutting the lock and pushing the van out of the way on Sept. 6. The crew then proceeded to remove only bagged trash. The van was moved back by the crew when they left.
I questioned the 1,200 tons figure, and Lindsay said she had pictures. I also have pictures taken the morning of Sept. 13. The same amount of trash remained as the day before and the day before that. Lindsay gave me another dubious number regarding the removal of syringes and before I could question further, Lindsay said she didn’t know what to tell me and promptly hung up.
I did speak with Sarah Angel of Rapid Response on the eve of the Sept. 14 who echoed some information regarding the camp posting.
On the morning of Sept. 13, when Rapid Response came to my tent and “knocked” on my door, I asked to speak with a supervisor. Two men without identification badges showed up to talk with me. Portland police also arrived to join the conversation. When I asked why the police were present, one supervisor replied “they always come when posted” and when I disagreed with the statement, he said “they are the cops, they can do what they want.”
"The talking points the city insists on using to justify sweeps or relieve concerns couldn’t be further from the truth. We are not treated with respect and dignity. We are not given useful information regarding alternative shelters. Our belongings are not always cared for or returned." Regardless of that not being true, there was no need to have the police there. The situation was not escalating, but the presence of them made me uneasy. For another person in the same situation, this could have triggered a bad response.
I asked for the name of the two supervisors who came out. One walked away from me pretending not to hear the question, the other ignored the question and scanned nearby surfaces, saying sweep postings had been removed. I was never given their names, including when I followed up by telephone on Sept. 13.
The talking points the city insists on using to justify sweeps or relieve concerns couldn’t be further from the truth. We are not treated with respect and dignity. We are not given useful information regarding alternative shelters. Our belongings are not always cared for or returned. Some of the employees are, in my opinion, less than respectful as they chide and bully. There are some respectful employees, but I have met very few in my six years on the streets.
In the end, these sweeps are humiliating and disruptive to people’s lives. Two to 10 days given to pack belongings is unreasonable. At the very least, setting a day to expect Rapid Response to show up seems fair to ask for.
Ramping up sweeps after the COVID-19 year seems cruel. The Safe Campsites that are supposed to be erected, are not ready at this point in time. Where are we supposed to go?
I ask you to ponder this:
Recently the Supreme Court rejected a petition to review Martin v. Boise. This upholds a ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court which says that a homeless person sleeping in public can not be criminalized if there are no adequate alternatives and this violates their eighth amendment rights. Oregon is included in this ruling along with eight western states.
In the end, I was considered a separate camp and as such, scored separately. I was then allowed to keep my camp, as well as the two others who camp with me. If the system of sweeps allows for the reversal of being posted one day to being allowed to stay the next, is the system working? How many others before me should have been allowed to stay? How many after will be swept from their camp when they could have been allowed to clean it up, get re-scored and stay?
I and others like me are human, most are experiencing a point in life we would not wish on others. And yet we are treated with such disdain from the public and those “assigned” to help us.
I really don’t need that kind of help.
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