Sweeps of homeless encampments in Portland have stayed at a similar weekly average throughout 2021, aside from a few outliers, despite officials saying enforcement was reduced prior to May 24.
While the sweeps come on the backdrop of city officials attempting to make sweeps more humane, questions abound as to whether the resources for unhoused Portlanders are adequate and regulations are followed during sweeps. Furthermore, the expanded guidelines instituted May 24 may be at odds with the very CDC recommendations they cite, though the city disagrees.
Portland swept 264 camps between Jan. 3 and Sept. 26, according to data released in the Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program’s (HUCIRP) “Weekly Campsite Reports.” While the rate of sweeps is much lower than the pre-pandemic rate of more than 50 per week provided by the city, changes in the weekly average of sweeps throughout 2021 more closely correlate with changing COVID-19 restrictions on businesses than the changing rhetoric of public officials or their policies.
A policy change
The main policy change came May 24, when Portland City Council unanimously approved a HUCIRP proposal expediting sweeps by lessening oversight and allowing HUCIRP to immediately post encampments for sweeps if it finds those sites meet expanded criteria for removal.
Some critics said existing criteria was vague or subjective: eight of more structures at an encampment; credible reports of criminal behavior “related to an inhabitant of the campsite,” according to law enforcement; scoring 65 or higher on HUCIRP’s 100-point impact scale; and blocking someone’s ability to use public sidewalks, paths, transit stations, public restrooms or building entrances.
The criteria was expanded to include the following items as grounds of immediate sweep postings: “untreated sewage is prevalent, leading to increased risks of exposure to Shigella or Hepatitis A; or locations determined to present a public health risk to both housed and unhoused community members due to the presence of biohazardous materials; or locations identified by Portland Fire & Rescue as being an extreme fire risk or blocking critical fire access; or verified reports of violence, arrest, or criminal activity; or ADA access is blocked despite attempts by outreach to maintain ADA accessibility requirements; or encampments are impeding regular operations at schools.”
The proposal cited several reasons for the expanded criteria, including large amounts of trash and biohazardous materials, tents blocking sidewalks and entrances and CDC recommendations that gatherings should remain under 10 people, and tents should have 12 square feet of space. However, the proposal failed to mention the CDC also advised against sweeping camps because dispersing people from camps increases the risk of spreading COVID-19. In fact, the CDC specifically advised not to sweep camps even if tents are not plotted with the recommended amount of space around them.
“If an encampment is not able to provide sufficient space for each person, allow people to remain where they are but help decompress the encampment by linking those at increased risk for severe illness to individual rooms or safe shelter,” the CDC guidelines say.
Local and county officials say the CDC encouraged them to make region-specific guidelines.
HUCIRP spokesperson Heather Hafer said HUCIRP worked with Jennifer Vines, Multnomah County health officer, and Ann Loeffler, deputy public health officer, to craft the expanded sweep criteria that went into effect May 24. Hafer provided Street Roots with a memorandum written by Vines in March and described it as “recommendations on how to best manage campsite removals in Portland.” The city published the same memorandum when it announced the expanded criteria in May.
Vines’ memorandum stopped short of encouraging HUCIRP to disregard the CDC recommendation not to sweep camps, but did provide additional information about prevalence of COVID-19 infections among the homeless community, as well as other infectious diseases like Hepatitis A.
“While there is risk of spreading virus to new groups when encampments are dispersed, there are few known outbreaks of COVID-19 traced to a group of people living outdoors,” Vines wrote in the memorandum.
The final line in Vines’ memorandum suggested she had not yet seen the proposed HUCIRP protocols when writing the memorandum, though Vines and Loeffler ultimately reviewed the protocols before they were submitted to City Council.
“We look forward to reviewing your protocols for communicable disease mitigation and working with you as the work progresses,” the memorandum concludes.
Denis Theriault, communications coordinator for Multnomah County, said Vines and Loeffler helped HUCIRP navigate considerations of multiple public health risks when creating the expanded criteria. Theriault said these considerations included discussions around waste and sanitation, as well as no known outbreaks reaching homeless encampments in Portland, according to the county.
Theriault said the guidelines proposed were ultimately decided on by HUCIRP and the county did not approve or disapprove of the final proposal.
Hafer did not explain why the CDC recommendation not to sweep camps was omitted from the HUCIRP proposal. Hafer also did not explain why HUCIRP felt the CDC recommendation for space between tents and sizes of gatherings not being met contributed to the need to expedite sweeps, even though the CDC specifically recommended against sweeps even in the event space between tents wasn’t adequate.
“I just wanted to follow up and make it abundantly clear that in conversations we had with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention they recommended that we work with our local health officials to determine region-specific protocols,” Hafer said in an Oct. 4 email to Street Roots. “We took that recommendation and worked directly with Multnomah County Public Health officials.”
Theriault echoed Hafer’s sentiment on the CDC encouraging local and county officials to formulate region-specific policies.
Beyond sweeps, HUCIRP pledged to do “everything it can,” prior to initiating a sweep, including cleanups, in the proposal. Cleanups can potentially prevent a camp sweep by reducing the impact of the camp. However, cleanups themselves are a fraught metric because they aren’t always explicitly linked to camps.
“On rare occasions if our employees are in an area where a large amount of debris is present and they have time, they will stop and collect that trash,” Hafer said. “These crews are also sometimes dispatched to remove hazardous material that Clean Start is not equipped to handle. Crews are also sometimes dispatched to referrals for PBOT’s vehicle inspection team to remove excess trash and debris in areas of vehicle camping.”
When sweeps increased
The weekly average of cleanups and sweeps have slightly increased since the resolution passed, a Street Roots analysis of weekly sweep data from Jan. 3 through Sept. 26 found. That increase, however, is almost entirely attributed to a spike starting just before COVID-19 restrictions were eliminated in Portland on June 30.
An average of 6.6 camps was swept weekly prior to May 24, compared to an average of 7.3 camps swept weekly after the announcement. Between June 28 and the end of July, when the latest COVID-19 surge was in full swing, the city swept an average of 10.8 camps each week.
Officials say the increase of sweeps in the five-week window between June 28 and July 31 had nothing to do with COVID-19 restrictions being lifted in Portland.
“While there is always pressure from people to remove campsites, we have very strict risk assessment criteria that we use to determine which campsites get removed,” Hafer said. “It is critical to the success of our program to rely solely on the systems we have created to determine which sites to remove.”
City initiated cleanups also increased slightly after May 24. Prior to the resolution, an average of 17.7 cleanups were reported by the city each week. After the resolution, the number increased to 18.6. Between June 28 and the end of July, HUCIRP reported an average of 24 cleanups per week.
Both cleanups and sweeps decrease slightly after May 24 if the period of June 28 through July 31 is removed from the calculation. Removing the June 28 through July 31 spike shows sweeps decreased from 6.6 per week prior to May 24 to 6.4 after, and from 17.7 cleanups to 17.2.
HUCIRP maintains there is no relationship between COVID-19 business restrictions and sweep or cleanup activity.
Additionally, Hafer said using the weekly data provided by HUCIRP is “not very indicative of the amount of work being performed.”
“Some of our campsite removals can be completed by one crew in a couple of others, while others take several crews (three to four) weeks,” Hafer said. “So the total number of removals conducted in one week is not a good measurement of our program’s work. Also, our work is always contingent on availability. If we can get more work completed, we will – but we are constrained by the available resources we have on hand.”
A history of problems
Even without a pandemic that has claimed more than 700,000 lives in the U.S. alone, how the city handles the homelessness crisis in Portland has long been a source of contention, culminating in police actions and legal battles.
Most recently, the July 29 sweep of Laurelhurst Park drew much media attention as a large police presence secured the camp. Nine other camps were swept the week of July 25 to July 31 with little attention. Between July 31 and Sept. 26, the end date of the most recent weekly report, the city swept 45 camps.
In an attempt to address concerns that people are displaced with nowhere else to go, the city has touted temporary housing options they are pursuing — including Safe Rest Villages, new shelter beds and new housing vouchers — as they did in the release announcing the sweep of Laurelhurst Park. Aside from shelter beds in congregate facilities where people have little privacy, and temporary hotel vouchers, few alternatives to sleeping on the streets exist nearly two months down the road, nor did they exist at the time of the sweep. Some progress appears to have been made on new Safe Rest Villages, the city’s term for sanctioned homeless encampents, as three locations were announced Sept. 30. One location was removed Oct. 5 after city officials found it was in a flood zone.
The Laurelhurst Park sweep showed a heightened amount of outreach not seen since at other camps. Even with the unusually high amount of outreach and communication conducted before and during the Laurelhurst Park sweep, residents of the encampment said the way the city conducted the sweep was difficult to navigate.
“It’s incredibly stressful, number one,” Robin Mikel told Street Roots during the July 29 sweep when asked about the city’s policy to provide a 72 hour to 10-day window for sweeps, rather than a concrete date. “Number two: I got to figure out what the hell to do with my stuff.”
People are given as little as 72 hours warning they are being displaced from their temporary shelter when a sweep is posted, a short period of time to coordinate a move for anyone. As was the case with Laurelhurst Park, it’s not uncommon for the city to begin a sweep as soon as possible after posting a camp. People who are not present at the time of posting — often done in the morning when many camp residents are working to gain an income or secure resources — have even less than the full 72 hours to prepare.
“I spent two days organizing, cleaning … two days wasn’t enough for me,” Joshua Peters told Street Roots during the July 29 sweep. “I busted ass and I couldn’t get that far.”
Michael Fuller, an attorney who provides pro bono representation for more than 12 people swept from Laurelhurst Park in legal claims with the city, said the issue of the short window is exacerbated when applied to people who already have a lack of resources for transportation and storage.
“You could definitely make changes to the noticing policies to improve the quality of the lives of the people being swept,” Fuller told Street Roots in August. “We hear complaints that 72 hours is not enough. We also hear complaints that the city will issue notices and then conduct no sweep at all, which in and of itself is not necessarily problematic, but it creates an attitude and an uncertainty to where you’re getting sweep notices and they’re being kind of used as a deterrent and with no real intent to conduct the sweep during that time. I don’t feel the notice process should be used to mislead homeless campers and houseless campers.”
Another point of criticism surrounding sweeps is advocates and unhoused Portlanders saying their belongings are not properly stored by Rapid Response Bio Clean, a company the city contracts, after seizure during a sweep.
Even during the high-profile Laurelhurst Park sweep, numerous people said belongings in sanitary and usable conditions matching the guidelines were improperly disposed of. This time, it resulted in legal claims.
Fuller, who is also the attorney on a class-action suit filed May 24 on behalf of homeless Portlanders swept by the city, said GPS tracking devices attached to clients’ belongings irrefutably prove those belongings were not stored in accordance with the law. Items seized and ostensibly destroyed during sweeps range from items with sentimental value like paintings to items with practical value, like winter gloves, according to Fuller.
“Dozens and dozens of homeless people over the course of several years can’t be wrong,” Fuller said of city contractors not properly storing belongings removed during sweeps. “This is something that’s been common knowledge among the street camper community — not just in Portland, but across the country — and we were able to prove it using the tracker technology.”
SR Correspondent Henry Brannan contributed reporting to this article.