Parking lots where people in cars and RVs can safely park while accessing hygiene services. Campsites supported by garbage pickup, hand-washing stations and portable toilets. Tiny-house villages.
Given the desperation many people endure in order to survive in our region, what can you imagine would make that survival a bit more possible?
Until March 9, the city-county-run Joint Office of Homeless Services is accepting proposals for funding what it sums up as “alternative shelters” — ideas that include “villages, safe parking programs, modular shelters, etc.” It has $3 million to put toward such projects.
Then on March 17, Portland City Council will hear testimony on the Shelter to Housing Continuum. This is the effort to expand where indoor and outdoor shelters can exist, as well as day storage and hygiene facilities, by expanding city zoning as well as fixing other city code.
TESTIFY: Sign up for the City Council hearing, or submit testimony online
Because the Shelter to Housing Continuum has identified land throughout the region that could host living spaces, the Joint Office is able to call for proposals in a wide range of neighborhoods, seeking proposals in particular that support people disproportionately impacted by homelessness — including Black and Indigenous Portlanders and people living with disabilities.
Together, these two governmental efforts represent a marked turn toward a variety of approaches for supporting people living on the streets outside of traditional indoor shelters.
In 2019, City Council requested the Office of Planning and Sustainabilty lead the charge to change Portland’s city code to better accomodate responses to homelessness, making permanent aspects of the State of Housing Emergency the City Council has declared a housing emergency since 2015. It’s a recognition that the housing emergency endures, constantly swelling in the chasms between housing and wages, social services and need, all coupled with systemic racism that has dispossessed generations of people from wealth and land.
Then, this past year, the pandemic and the fires wedged open new emergency responses to homelessness, the kind that the Joint Office of Homeless Services is now offering to fund.
In the early days of the pandemic, the city of Portland launched three camps collectively called C3PO (the “Star Wars” inspired acronym for Creating Conscious Communities with People Outside), first as a collection of tents on pallets, and then, prefabricated white houses. These were administered first by JOIN and then Right 2 Dream Too. Street Roots was part of the original coalition that advocated for these camp villages.
Because of the dangers of sharing indoor air, these camps were a way people could more safely shelter during the pandemic.
Then came the fires. People who fled the flames in cars and RVs needed somewhere to live. Safe parking efforts launched quickly, showing how easily this can be done, given the will to do it.
At Clackamas Town Center, for example, RVs, tents and cars inhabited the parking spaces. Mutual-aid groups and nonprofits managed to erect showers, RV hook-ups, cellphone charging stations and even a de facto post office.
Those emergency responses during the fires demonstrated support for people living in cars that’s possible whether they are homeless as a result of fires or not. People already try to achieve a bit of safety with locked car doors but still are at risk of being towed and are without access to toilets and sinks.
As the region strives to support villages and camps, “the history is already here,” as Right 2 Dream Too co-founder Leo Rhodes told me. Rhodes is also a Street Roots vendor and board member.
After all, Portland has a history of villages and safe-sleep camps. Dignity Village, Right 2 Dream Too and Hazelnut Grove began as direct actions by unhoused people and their housed supporters.
The proposals to the Joint Office, on the other hand, must be led by a nonprofit or other kind of organization, in the way that Kenton Women’s Village is administered by Catholic Charities and St. Johns Village will be run by Do Good Multnomah, which already runs the Clackamas County Veterans Village. Agape Village is hosted on the grounds of Central Nazarene Church.
Right 2 Dream Too became a nonprofit, and Dignity Village is now supported by JOIN. The embattled Hazelnut Grove is self-governed by its residents.
We should rightly recognize these governmental efforts around zoning, permitting and funding as a positive turning point. Please turn out and testify your views on the plans at City Council's continuum hearing on March 17. You can also submit written testimony ahead of time.
We also need to make sure that what gets built is driven by the dreams and needs of unhoused people. There are people among us who have been doing this work for decades, and I'll be featuring some of them in my columns this spring. The history is already here. The future is ours to write.