The city of Portland began enforcing its updated anti-public sleeping ordinance July 1, threatening to fine and arrest homeless Portlanders who choose not to move to a shelter when offered. July 1 was also the first business day after the U.S. Supreme Court decided issuing civil and criminal penalties against involuntarily homeless residents is constitutional.

Two days later, City Council voted 3-2 to approve a new three-year intergovernmental agreement with Multnomah County to respond to homelessness, amid uncertainty around the agreement’s fate.

The process to finalize the Homelessness Response Action Plan, or HRAP, revealed a host of dynamics at play between officials and those influencing the process behind the scenes, some of whom border on assisting in writing policy despite not holding office. Most notably, the process shows ideological disagreements about the causes and solutions to homelessness still have an outsized influence on local and state policy.

The city and county often have competing ethics in addressing the homelessness crisis, leading to a historically contentious relationship. While the city repeatedly pursues punitive measures seeking to compel homeless residents into temporary shelters — of which need outstrips availability — the county administers most of the publicly funded shelter system, has ramped up permanent housing placements and distributes life-saving harm reduction tools.

“Right now, we shelter and re-house thousands of people a year,” Jessica Vega Pederson, Multnomah County Board chair, said. “Multnomah County has invested in expanded day center options, shelter spaces, recovery and transitional housing, and other services needed to support people living on this community’s streets and this will continue regardless of city ordinances or penalties.”

The County Board passed the initial version of the agreement in a 4-1 vote June 13 after more than 12 months of crafting the policy and soliciting feedback. City Council added amendments to the ordinance in its July 3 meeting, sending a final vote back to the county. County commissioners voted 4-1 to approve the agreement July 11.

While the county holds significant leverage in negotiations due to the city contributing a net total of $10 million to the $285 million Joint Office of Homeless Services 2025 fiscal year budget, the city appears to set the terms of political discourse while the county acquiesces to its demands.

Shiny objects

As part of the negotiations, a longstanding county harm reduction approach came under fire when city Commissioner Rene Gonzalez issued an ultimatum, telling the county to halt the purchase of tents and tarps it distributes to homeless residents via organizations throughout the county — some of which are responsible for removing the very same tents they distribute.

Gonzalez voted in favor of the intergovernmental agreement in part because Vega Pederson agreed to pause purchases.

“I do not believe perfection should stand in the way of progress,” Gonzalez said July 3. “I received encouraging news from the county chair that they will be halting new purchases of tents and tarps while we work to establish clear guidelines around their continued distribution. The county is going to compromise and work with us to move the ball forward in good faith.”

The city also changed the agreement to require a committee overseeing the HRAP to present a new policy on tent and tarp distribution by Oct. 15 — exactly three weeks before the 2024 election.

Vega Pederson told Street Roots there was never a discussion of stopping distribution of those tools on the county’s side, but confirmed the county would stop purchasing new tents and tarps while in discussion with the city before making any change in policy.

“Distributing tents and tarps ties into the City’s work of public space management, and we will craft a policy for how we distribute these supplies moving forward using the new governance systems created by the intergovernmental agreement and Homelessness Response Action Plan,” Vega Pederson said.

On its face, city commissioners intend for the amendment to ensure the city is in compliance with a 2022 class action settlement with some Portlanders with disabilities. The class action suit, brought by local attorney and lobbyist John DiLorenzo, said homeless encampments violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, because the city does not effectively remove tents from sidewalks, making it difficult for people with mobility devices to use the rights of way.

However, the political bent toward punitive measures can effectively harm the very people the proposals aim to help, according to Tom Stenson, Disability Rights Oregon, or DRO, deputy legal director.

Stenson said the conflict around disability rights is manufactured by those in power to avoid addressing the root causes of homelessness.

Nearly one in three homeless people in the United States are "chronically homeless," according to an amicus brief recently submitted to the Supreme Court by The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, joined by DRO. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, defines chronically homeless as a person with a disability who also meets a set of other criteria.

A rising number of homeless residents are elderly, with chronic conditions — a demographic expected to triple in some locations by 2030. In California, 42% of homeless residents report having a disability, the brief said.

Stenson disagrees that the choice is between having clear sidewalks and disregarding the rights of homeless residents, or protecting homeless residents and disregarding the rights of people with physical disabilities. He said it’s a false dichotomy pitting two parties with overlapping membership and interests — accessible, affordable housing — against one another.

“The two groups overlap very strongly,” Stenson said. “The solution for both parties is, and should be, the same.”

But the city isn’t asking disability advocacy groups like DRO to help develop or provide advanced feedback on policies impacting people with disabilities. Instead, it’s asking DiLorenzo.

Records show Gonzalez met with DiLorenzo on April 19, alongside T.J. McHugh, Commissioner Dan Ryan’s chief of staff. Gonzalez sent DiLorenzo a draft copy of the ordinance the afternoon of April 22 and met with him 30 minutes later. Neither Gonzalez nor McHugh responded to Street Roots’ request for comment on the nature of the meetings.

DiLorenzo acknowledged the meetings in an email to Street Roots, saying he supported the final version of Gonzalez’s amendments alongside his clients, who provided testimony to City Council.

“The amendments would have limited tent distribution by the County, kept the sidewalks clear for those with disabilities and would have done much more to encourage our mentally ill and drug addicted populations to seek shelter inside as opposed to remaining warehoused on the streets and sidewalks in tents which I regard to be the least humane option,” DiLorenzo said in an email to Street Roots. “Building permanent housing for this population without consistent supervention and intervention will not work. Indoor shelter from the elements and drug and mental illness treatment is the only solution.”

DiLorenzo’s statement regarding permanent housing encapsulates a changing tide as the political will to coerce homeless Portlanders into single-night congregate shelters erodes the political will to house homeless Portlanders. It also represents the incorrect and oft-repeated belief that individual afflictions like addiction and mental illness — both of which are covered under the ADA — represent the main causes of homelessness and poverty.

DiLorenzo previously represented landlords who unsuccessfully sued then-Gov. Kate Brown, the state of Oregon, Multnomah County and the city of Portland over the constitutionality of COVID-19 eviction moratoriums.

Evidence suggests the eventual expiration of those same eviction protections are much more to blame for the rise in homelessness than drugs or mental illness.

As Street Roots reported in February 2023, Oregon’s eviction moratorium, ordered by Brown, went into effect in April 2020 and helped keep eviction rates low. Evictions dropped from 676 in March 2020 to 124 in April 2020 after the moratorium began.

In June 2021, the last month of the moratorium, landlords filed 473 evictions. In July 2021, the first month without the moratorium, evictions almost doubled, rising to 792. By January 2023, landlords filed at least 2,324 evictions in Oregon.

The rise in evictions and rent prices — which increased 39% in 2021 and 23.6% in 2022 in Portland, according to Redfin — correlates closely with the sharp increase in homelessness. Homelessness increased throughout the United States in the same period, particularly for people experiencing homelessness for the first time, according to HUD.

Advocates and experts believe lacking access to health care is a component of homelessness, and HUD acknowledges that “for a significant minority, mental health and physical challenges further complicate their ability to sustain stable housing,” but data shows it isn’t the main cause.

“High rents, low wages, various forms of discrimination, an inadequate supply of affordable housing, evictions, and other factors contribute to the persistence of homelessness in the United States,” according to HUD’s Office of Policy Research and Development, noting homelessness is especially prevalent in areas with the least affordable housing.

If and when

Public records show Gonzalez introduced an earlier draft amendment for a trigger clause in the city’s anti-public sleeping ordinance making it unlawful for any person to sleep on any public property or rights of way in the event the Supreme Court overturned Grants Pass v. Johnson and the state legislature repealed ORS 195.530. ORS 195.530 dictates any local laws regulating sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property “must be objectively reasonable with regards to people experiencing homelessness” in Oregon.

The amendment said violating the ordinance — meaning sleeping in public despite no reasonable alternative — would be punishable by a fine of up to $100, up to seven days in jail or both.

Gonzalez ultimately pulled that version of the amendment when he realized he didn’t have the votes, according to Jimmy Radosta, Commissioner Carmen Rubio’s communications coordinator.

Gonzalez subsequently introduced two more versions, with the third version failing after he presented it at City Council on April 24. Ryan was the only city commissioner to vote in favor of the amendment.

Rubio and her chief of staff Jillian Schoene spoke out against the Gonzalez proposal, saying Gonzalez attempted to hide the policy proposal by circulating the draft through city attorney Robert Taylor, citing attorney-client privilege. That privilege only applies to legal advice, and it is not standard procedure to cut policymakers out of policy proposals.

“We had a revised camping policy that struck the right balance that was ready for council consideration,” Rubio said. “Commissioner Gonzalez put a different approach on the table that is inhumane and will no doubt be immediately legally challenged.”

Gonzalez’s calls to repeal the Oregon law is not simply a headline-grabbing performance. The law is under fire across the state from Republican and Democratic leaders alike.

Mayor Ted Wheeler said he supports a “robust discussion” in the next legislative session. Senate Republican Leader Daniel Bonham (R-The Dalles) said Senate Republicans were ready to take action on “Democrats’ 'Right to Camp' law.” Democrat and Republican-run cities have repeatedly asked for clarity on the law as to what makes an ordinance “objectively reasonable.”

Kotek has not directly defended the state law, which she prioritized as Oregon Speaker of the House in 2021. Kotek said she is focused on addressing the primary driver of homelessness — a lack of affordable housing. At minimum Kotek may be open to hearing discussions in a future session as she ultimately has the power to veto any changes to the law.

While elected officials debate how to change the law or whether or not to provide life-saving tools to homeless Portlanders — many of whom are themselves disabled — the lack of ADA accessible housing is a primary concern for many people with disabilities. Less than 5% of housing in the United States is accessible for people with moderate mobility impairments, and less than 1% is wheelchair accessible, according to HUD statistics.

Stenson said the limited number of affordable and accessible housing units excludes people with disabilities from a large portion of existing housing and funnels them into high-demand places, making them more likely to end up homeless in the first place. He added that people have many disability-related reasons for determining an otherwise reasonable shelter is not an option for them personally, despite the threat of penalties for not taking the offer for shelter under the city’s new ordinance.

“It’s not surprising when people do end up homeless that they end up staying homeless, when we are creating, maintaining and often exacerbating the barriers we know exist,” Stenson said.

The plan

The HRAP outlines a lofty set of goals, including sheltering or housing nearly 2,700 people, adding 1,000 shelter beds and ending all behavioral health and hospital discharges to the street by the end of 2025. Proponents of the plan say the alignment is a fresh start for a historically rocky relationship between the two local governments, while critics say the agreement represents a publicity campaign that may have little chance of success in reality.

“I voted no on behalf of people suffering outside and on behalf of people directly impacted by the humanitarian crisis in our streets,” Ryan, who joined Commissioner Mingus Mapps as the only city commissioners to vote against the agreement, said in a statement July 3. “What was passed today forces the Joint Office to return to City Council in 3 months and show their work. To the Joint Office — the clock is ticking. It is beyond time to deliver for Portland. Let’s see what the County can accomplish.”

Alexandra Farland, Central City Concern, or CCC, communications specialist, said the organization was among stakeholders providing opinions and expertise in support of the HRAP. Farland said much of the work paralleled the organization’s contributions to Gov. Tina Kotek’s Central City Task Force, which convened in September 2023 to take a multi-faceted approach to economic development in downtown Portland.

That task force faced scrutiny from the media and the public alike for its closed-door approach to an economic revitalization of downtown Portland. An unofficial working group made up of similar business and political stakeholders — calling themselves the “Kitchen Cabinet” — also helped draft the HRAP. Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran said she believed the HRAP was devised in secret without an opportunity for county board members to be involved — one of the many reasons she voted no on the agreement.

“My greatest problem with the HRAP is that, despite its jargon, it does not actually provide a cohesive, holistic, comprehensive plan for addressing homelessness,” Meieran told Street Roots. “It contains no meaningful deliverables or mechanisms for governance, accountability, oversight or transparency. Instead, it recycles decades of homelessness plans, each of which failed worse than the last.”

Meieran said she supports the county’s harm reduction efforts and has championed those efforts at a policy level, adding the county needs a strategic plan and accountability for its efforts. Meieran provides services on the front line through her work with Portland Street Medicine and as a medical doctor who has treated people in the emergency department from the negative health effects of living outside. She said the conversation around tents and tarps distracts from the necessary work of materially preventing and addressing homelessness.

“We need to be able to transcend political winds and pet projects and do what's right to actually help people,” Meieran said.

Still, service providers — many of whom receive funding from the county to do their work — publicly say they’re hopeful the implementation process can prove the concept and start to make a dent in getting people off the street and into housing.

“CCC is a strong supporter of the HRAP, and we know that if Multnomah County implements their plan, we will see an increase in shelter beds as well as permanent housing placements,” Farland said. “The Grants Pass v. Johnson decision further emphasizes the need for Multnomah County to prioritize the realization of that plan.”

Chris Gardner, Do Good Multnomah communications director, said the goals outlined in the HRAP are a “level up” from previous years. As one of the largest homeless service providers in the county, Gardner offered an optimistic outlook for the next phase of the shared response to homelessness.

“Sometimes ambitious goals can be what it takes to address something as complex as Portland’s housing crisis,” he said. “In the past six months, these increased numbers have helped frame our work in a new way. We’re getting creative. We’re energized.”

However energized officials and service providers are because of the HRAP, advocates say the political current may put the HRAP’s laudable goals on a collision course with an ideological wall. Setting more barriers in front of people trying to get off the streets, and pitting people against one another, does more harm than good, according to Stenson.

“I think there’s actually a growing realization, at least in some places — a growing recognition that those policies really are not helpful,” Stenson said. “For whatever reason, in Portland, we’ve had the opposite experience and the opposite sort of tidal movement in our political discussions in leadership.”

---

Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.

© 2024 Street Roots. All rights reserved.  | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 40