The clock started ticking Nov. 1.
That’s the day the city of Portland planned to enforce its law banning people living outdoors from setting up encampments as part of Mayor Keith Wilson’s goal of ending unsheltered homelessness in the city by Dec. 1. Wilson had paused the ban in February while the city developed more of the overnight shelters and day centers at the core of the mayor’s plan to move Portlanders off the streets.
Despite the increase in available shelter beds, many have gone unused, raising familiar questions about the viability of the mayor’s plan. There are also questions about what enforcement will mean as Wilson tries to walk the line between enforcing the ban while avoiding the criminalization of homelessness more broadly.
Wilson said in a video announcing the new policy that the city “can’t arrest our way out of homelessness,” and that no one will be arrested just for camping. Police can now cite someone for setting up temporary homes on public property if they refuse to go to a city-sanctioned shelter or for camps that block pedestrians, dump trash or set fires. The camping-ban ordinance allows for fines up to $100 or seven days in jail or both.
Local law enforcement officials have signaled they’re not eager to put people behind bars for violating the ordinance, and Wilson said he hopes to use the court system to connect people to services. But those who work with people who are homeless in Portland say they remain concerned the new policy won’t meet its goal.
Instead, they say, it’s likely to make life harder for people living outside.
A more humane option?
Laura Golino de Lovato, the executive director of Northwest Pilot Project, a nonprofit that helps connect low-income seniors to housing and other supports, said her clients worry about being cited and that few could afford the $100 fine.
“There’s a lack of clarity from the mayor’s office,” she said. “It’s causing a lot of pain among our clients who are still outside.”
She said the policy doesn’t account for the complexities of her clients’ lives. For instance, she said, police might tell someone they find in the morning sleeping outside to leave for a shelter that is not open until that evening. She said that person might use a walker or a wheelchair and have to figure out how to move all their belongings to a shelter, which may be a congregate setting with rows of beds that require guests to leave at 6 or 7 a.m.
The city has added more than 1,000 additional shelter beds, many in congregate settings, and runs a facility where people can store their belongings during the day. But many of the new overnight shelters are “first come, first served,” which Golino de Lovato said means guests can’t establish a spot where they can leave their belongings.
“This overnight-only shelter plan does not in fact end unsheltered homelessness,” she said. “It gets a person sheltered for one night and then they have to move on.”
Wilson and supporters of the ban have argued that emergency shelters are a more humane option for people sleeping outside, where they may face violence and other dangers.
“Emergency shelters are safe, welcoming environments, while living on the streets is too often deadly,” Cody Bowman, the mayor’s spokesperson, said in an email.
The city shelters are located on major transit lines and are operated by teams experienced in working with vulnerable populations, Bowman said. Anyone who stays automatically gets a reservation for the following night, and no one leaves without a directory of resources, he added.
Street Roots was able to confirm that at least most of the city’s overnight shelters allow guests to reserve a bed for the following night. The shelters are mostly clustered in the city center or inner Southeast Portland, with one located east of Interstate 205 and another in North Portland.
The NW Glisan Oasis Day Center and the city’s day storage facility are both located in central Portland near Union Station. The JOIN Dayspace is located a block away from Northeast 82nd Avenue near the MAX line.
Those working with homeless people have a different view than Wilson. Shelters can be “traumatic experiences” for people living outside, according to Cory Elia, outreach coordinator for informal recycling and waste-picking group Ground Score Association.
Speaking to Street Roots just days after the ban took effect, Elia said he had not heard of anyone being cited. But he said there had been an increase in camp sweeps in the last week.
“We are hoping (Wilson) will reconsider his approach,” he added.
However, Wilson reiterated the importance of sweeps in his plan to end unsheltered homelessness in a newsletter his office sent out Sunday. Wilson raised concerns about a budget amendment proposed by Councilor Angelita Morillo that would cut about $4 million from the city’s Impact Reduction Program, which is used to sweep encampments.
The program has removed 12.4 million pounds of “hazardous garbage from Portland streets and public spaces last fiscal year alone,” Wilson wrote. That would mean the program would see a service reduction of up to 75% for the rest of the city’s fiscal year, which ends in June 2026.
“This would be devastating for every neighborhood as upwards of 4,000,000 lbs. of biohazard materials could be left uncollected,” wrote Wilson.
Morillo shot back with a post on Bluesky, writing that Wilson mischaracterized her amendment.
“Mayor Wilson could’ve called me to clarify and ask questions before blasting us in a newsletter, but of course he has to find a scapegoat when he doesn’t magically end homelessness on 12/1 by warehousing people,” Morillo wrote.
‘It just doesn’t feel efficient or strategic’
Wilson’s ban on unsheltered people living in public comes as the area continues to see an increase in the number of homeless people living here.
The most recent point-in-time count, a federally required census of homeless populations in communities around the country, found a total of 12,034 people in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties who experienced homelessness as of January 2025. That’s an increase of 61% from the last count in 2023, with Multnomah County accounting for 87% of the most recent count.
Multnomah County data shows that people are becoming homeless faster than they are entering stable housing.
There are about 3,600 shelter beds in Multnomah County, including the new shelters. Most shelter beds run by the county are filled on any given night, according to county data.
But many of the new city-run shelter beds created under Wilson’s plan have often remained empty.
Speaking to the Metro Council last month, Portland Solutions Director Skyler Brocker-Knapp said the average occupancy rate of the city’s shelter beds was about 50% to 60%.
She made the remarks in response to a question from Metro Councilor Ashton Simpson, who asked about the city’s plans to encourage more people to use the shelters. Simpson said that even if the city moves ahead with its plans to create 1,500 shelter beds, about 750 would remain empty under the current vacancy rate.
“It just doesn’t feel efficient or strategic to be building up where there’s so much more capacity than we’re using while still pushing to open more and more and more,” Metro Councilor Christine Lewis said.
Brocker-Knapp responded that she expected higher occupancy as the weather turns cold. She said her team was looking at occupancy percentages each night so it can adjust for surges in demand or reduce capacity.
Bowman said in a follow-up email to Street Roots that utilization for the city’s shelters rose to about 73% for the week of Oct. 20. He added that while there is a broader challenge about the lack of shelter beds for people living outside, Wilson’s office is “confident in our ability to offer immediate shelter to those who are ready to come indoors.”
“Enforcement is not an absolute citywide ban on camping,” he wrote. “Our goal is to offer an immediately available shelter bed to those our teams come into contact with, and we are continuing to add capacity so the system can flex to meet demand.”
Outreach workers are encouraging people leaving overnight shelters to go to day spaces where they can use laundry facilities and showers, warm up with a cup of coffee and access mental and behavioral health services, Brocker-Knapp said at the Metro Council meeting.
“A cup of coffee goes a long way to really encourage folks to get to different services,” she said.
‘Absolute last resort’
Speaking during a press conference the day before the ban took effect, Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez said police and outreach workers will do all they can to connect someone to shelter before they are cited.
People who are cited will have to go to court, where prosecutors are “going to look for every opportunity to dismiss or get rid of that case” — as long as the person is trying to get off the streets, he said.
“When we talk about things like jail, that is going to be the absolute last resort,” he said.
Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell said in an email that she supports Wilson’s efforts and reiterated that jails should be used for “cases involving violence, victimization or ongoing criminal conduct associated with homelessness.
“Our jails were never designed to absorb the weight of inadequate housing, medical, and behavioral health systems,” she said. “They should not be seen as the default response to illegal camping or unmanaged crises.”
Portland police arrested 40 people during the first five days of the city’s enforcement of the ban, all but one of which were for outstanding warrants for unrelated crimes, according to figures initially released to the media. The mayor’s office did not include Street Roots in the initial release.
Police spoke to 101 people at 57 locations. Of those contacts, police issued 83 warnings, seven citations, 39 people went to overnight shelters and two went to Multnomah County’s deflection center, which allows people to pursue treatment for substance use instead of charges.
Criminal justice reform advocacy group Partnership for Safety and Justice wants the county’s deflection program to play a bigger role as the city enforces the ban.
The group is now calling for the program to be expanded to include housing and social services.
Andy Ko, the group’s executive director, said deflection programs are based on the now widely accepted idea that it’s ineffective to punish someone struggling with addiction. Similarly, he said, it makes no sense to punish someone who is struggling with homelessness. People living outside still have to go somewhere after having all their worldly possessions carted off and disposed of after a sweep, he added.
“Every time they charge somebody and prosecute them, they are creating a record and destabilizing their life,” Ko said.
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This article appears in November 11, 2025.