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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 2010)
street roots Feb. 5, 2010 The Out of the Doorways campaign, later known as Dignity Village, was bom in 2000 out of a protest of the city’s camping ordinance. For more than a year, dozens and sometimes hundreds of individuals on the streets and supporters moved from one park or bridge to another in protest. The city eventually sanctioned Dignity Village in 2004 as a legal camp or tent city — the nation’s first. A homeless, protesteroutside City H all in April 2008. The round- the-clock protest was againstthe camping ordinance that prohibited homeless people from setting up shelter or sleeping gear at night. P H O T O B Y K R IS T IN A W R IG H T CAMPING, from page 1 In April 2008 more than 140 people camped at City Hall in protest for nearly three weeks after being swept under the Burnside “ Bridge. Several™ arrests were made over the three- week period in protest of the cities sit-lie and camping ordinances. Erickson, to create policy recommendations that would allow people without access to shelter to camp outside, get a good night’s sleep, and escape the weather. Street Roots hoard member and vendor, Leo Rhodes, also sat on the committee. Ironically, Rhodes received two park exclusions for camping during the month of January — which he is appealing. The recommendations from the Housing Bureau became the basis of conversations to settle the lawsuit. But parallel to settling the lawsuit, the policy conversations still took place — the idea being, Fish says, that g the way Portland allows homeless people to camp would change one way or the other. “I don’t think not having a settlement means we can’t talk about public policy issues around camping/” says Marc John, the executive director of the outreach agency JOIN. “I think it would be disappointing if they couldn’t reach a settlem ent” ' “There’s been no collapse of a settlement process,” Fish says. , Fish is currently working with City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the Police Bureau, to finalize the guidelines. Saying that there is “broad agreement on most pointy” Fish stated in an interview that the guidelines would most likely be ready to.become policy in-the next two weeks. But the new guidelines would not become permanent policy. Fish says that there isn’t : the political support inside City Hall to do that. Instead, for the next six months the new guidelines will be considered a “test 4 drive” to see if they work. * . “The reality is that there are some low- January by M ike Vance With faces grim, 1000 abreast they trudge Iron boots split the earth with each defiant stomp. Blood fog bellows from their ferocious mouths Icicles fall from row after row of staunch remorselessness Children shake beneath their quivering beds Subzero death wind battalion!! All remaining flesh Preserved in frigid agony- Forever. impact camps going on now that might be bearable,” says David Woboril, ah assistant city attorney representing the city in the lawsuit against the camping ordinance. “It has to be managed properly.” A'key sticking point in the settlement negotiations camé from defining thé exact size of a camp. The guidelines currently say camps no larger than four people will be permissible. But, Woborilasks, does that mean tent capacity for four people, or the point in the negotiations surrounded where people would be allowed to camp. The agreement currently says that thé ordinance would hot be enforced against people camping on public property that is currently open to the public. i\ “There won’t be much capacity,” Woboril says, because that would exclude areas underneath bridges and privately owned land where people commonly sleep. The obvious solution would be to create a Est of places where people could sleep. The fear is that would effectively create green | zones. (See “Making a pitch for tents,” Street Roots blog, July 11, 2008.) “I haven*t resolved that question,” Fish says. "I can see both sides.” The settlement stalling comes at the | same time that a large camp gathered underneath the Burnside Bridgé until à pqlice sweep the night of Jan. 22. At a Feb. 1 meeting of the Sharing Public Sidewalks Advisory Committee, an advisory group to City Commissioner Amanda Fritz on homeless and livability issues. Central Précinet Officer Dave Famous said that 50 to 100 people had been camping underneath the bridge since November. Along with the increasing numbers of people came drug use, violence, trash, weapons, disorderly conduct, and other behaviors that provoked 313 calls to the police between Nov. 20 and Jan 20. Ibrahim Mubarek, a homeless advocate , who was present during the sweep, says that the perception that camps naturally cause drug activity and violence is wrong. “People are going under the bridges to get out of the raim They’re not going out there to have a big drug party,” he says. Lio Alaalatoa, a JOIN outreach worker who does outreach in the downtown area, says that it is nearly impossible for him to do his'job when camps are that large. “There’s no hope of any private talking,” hé says. | , Alaalatoa says that camps as large as the one underneath the Burnside Bridge are bound to congregate if police continually sweep small camps from different areas. “That’s the end result you cannot avoid,” he says. , ' z - i And once camps are swept, the. relationships he builds with Jhe individuals staying in those camps aré frayed, as well as the progress being made towards getting that person housing or services. “It will take me a while to find where they move. They’ll just disappear for a while. They’ll be so angry (that) they won’t contact me,” Alaalatoa says. J • And, he says, in large camps, “there is ■-hardly áriy síééíjníg,^ eoiitiary camps of one or two individuals that he h finds in other areas. 3 “You go there by nine, they’re asleep. No ‘ one bothers them. They’re up by four or five,” Alaalatoa says. Megan JDoern, the public affairs manager of the Portland Business Alliance, points to the camp that was underneath the Burnside Bridge as reason to not have the sort of camping guidelines the city is now pursuing. ' “I don’t think that the situation under the Burnside Bridge says very much about the pólicy conversations around camping,” John says. “(It doesn’t) represent what anybody is trying to work towards.” Jolin'also adds that he thinks if small camps were allowed, and people were able to sleep through the night without worrying about being swept by the police, that large camps would not be as common as they are currently. . ■ When asked whether she agreed, and whether she thought smaller camps would - have a different impact than large camps, Doérn would not comment. In late December, it looked all but certain that the city would settle with the Oregon Law Center. An ordinance that became public on Dec. 16 and would have been heard during the City Council’s Jan. 6 meeting would have paid $30,000 to the plaintiffs of the ease, as well as attorney’s , fees to the Oregon Law Center. But an administrative error, in part, scuttled the ordinance and the settlement. At the same time that the ordinance became public, so did the draft of the document defailing the settlement, as well as the new camping guidelines. Because the settlement was not finalized,’the document was taken offline. The ordinance was also taken off the Council agenda once the settlement negotiations stalled over the size f and locations of camps. A letter from the Portland Business Alliance dated Dec. 18 - two days after the settlement document became public - was sent to Fish, Mayor Sam Adams and the rest of the City Council, explicitly See CAMPING, page 9 In June of 2008, the City of Portland moved to dismiss the lawsuit because the Oregon Law ' Center’s arguments were not well grounded. The city also argued that overturning the camping ordinance would allow for certain groups of people immunity from being criminally convicted. In August 2008, a Judge gave a green light for the lawsuit to move forward, rejecting the city’s request for dismissal.
