Is Portland’s Homeless Problem Undermining its Potential?

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Annie Ellison, GoLocalPDX Reporter

Pastor Steve Trujillo can tell the difference between the people sleeping on Portland’s streets who are locals, and the people who are moving through.

He calls them “the travelers.”

Trujillo, who serves as the public safety chair for the Portland Downtown Neighborhood Association and has been working with the city’s homeless population since 1991, applauds the public services available to unhoused people.

Photo: Jim Hair via Flickr

But he said it’s those very services, Oregon’s wide-ranging free speech law, and high tourist traffic that attract a vagrant population that is undermining the city’s expanding business and tourism industries.

“It’s not the homeless of Portland that are causing problems, the bad behavior that drives away the business and tourists--it’s the travelers,” Trujillo said. “They tend to pick the cities that are lenient.”

In 2004, the city of Portland launched a 10-year plan to end homelessness. When 2014 came around, the number of people in Multnomah County who were sleeping outside, in a vehicle, an abandoned building, or transitional housing had increased to 4,441, according to the most recent numbers from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The recent approach taken by officials from multiple agencies in Multnomah County has been a comprehensive, “housing first” strategy intertwining law enforcement, social services, and mental health and medical services, called A Home For Everyone (HFE).

“Are we being successful, or are we being so generous we’re attracting a lot of homeless people from outside the city?” Trujillo asks. “If you provide a good thing, people will come.”

Multnomah County spokesperson David Austin said the HFE strategy is an improvement from the 10-year plan.

Sidewalks and Free Speech

One thing that makes Portland, and Oregon, less hostile than other states for unhoused people is the state’s robust free speech law. Under the provisions of Article I, Section 8 of the Oregon Constitution, a person can be on the sidewalk so long as he or she is three feet from the curb.

The state mandates how sidewalks are used, not cities, meaning a change in law must come from the state legislature. Portland has no laws governing behaviors like panhandling.

According to the Portland Housing Bureau’s Matt Grumm, no plans are in the works to implement legislation, such as an aggressive panhandling ordinance, which have been implemented by other West Coast cities.

“It’s your right to speak and be there,” Grumm said.

According to Travel Portland, tourists spent $4.6 billion in the city in 2014. They come to see the bridges, the bike scene, and Powell’s City of Books, and it’s good news for the economy.

Photo: digitalstorytyler via Instagram

Travel Portland’s Marcus Hibden said the organization could not comment on the effect the city’s homeless population has had on tourism. Tourists flock to line up outside Voodoo Donuts in the city’s Old Town district, the hub of Portland’s homeless services.

“Every once in a while we might hear something,” Hibden said. “Everyone has a different comfort level when it comes to those issues.”

Doug Sera, a former downtown hotel worker, said he regularly interacted with homeless people and police regarding public urination, drug use and sleeping on hotel property.

“We've had guests say they wouldn't be back to Portland because of the homeless problem,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

Trujillo remembers the owner of a dress store at SW 3rd and Stark who eventually took her business from the area because of people--largely travelers--sleeping in the doorway.

“She had an issue with them staying next door with pitbulls, keeping people from coming in,” he said.

A person can sit within three feet of the curb, in the “furniture zone” of the sidewalk, and legally cannot be forced to move. Numerous attempts to enact a “sit-lie” ordinance have been struck down or expired.

“Portland is an easy target for travelers because people are generous and the rules are lenient,” Trujillo said.

Locals vs. Travelers

With services located in Old Town, and near central Southeast Portland’s Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and St. Francis Parish, the majority of Portland’s unhoused people do not go far from the area.

Encampments in Central Southeast, near the Hawthorne and Morrison Bridges are growing, according to advocates, as the weather warms. The encampments affect where customers decide to park their cars, which affects nearby businesses, said Michael Fournier, a homeless advocate who operates Film the Police.

Of three people found dead near the Willamette River’s East Bank last week, two were homeless. The third, Francisco Marcelo Flores, 61, also died of drowning, though his living situation was unknown, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Dept.

Jamee Riebhoff, 26, who died of a medical event, was found on the East Bank’s esplanade March 26. Robert Allen Hannick, 48, was first spotted in the river under a drain pipe the same day.

“My first thought was ‘I bet he climbed in the pipe looking for shelter’” said Fournier. “Because of police pressure, people can’t secure shelter.”

HFE is currently outlining a strategy for the next decade, while the first of a three-pronged Homeless Bill of Rights, which would guarantee the right to sleep on sidewalks, has been introduced in the Oregon legislature.

Related Slideshow: 20 Wealthiest and Poorest Communities in Oregon

GoLocalPDX looked at the most recent data from the census bureau's American Community Survey to compare the median household income of cities in Oregon. We used that data to rank the richest and poorest cities.

Is Portland’s Homeless Problem Undermining its Potential?

Locals vs. Travelers

Related Slideshow: 20 Wealthiest and Poorest Communities in Oregon

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