The number of tents on public property in Portland has grown by 42% during a 15-week period this summer. Many are calling the encampments a crisis that needs immediate attention. But what that response should be is an issue that's divided Portland business owners, community advocates and others. Now, a recent proposal to expand capacity at the city's existing homeless shelter illustrates why the situation has become such a challenge.
Portland Council Chambers was packed Tuesday night, with people lined up out the door. They had come to weigh in on a proposal that could expand the city's Homeless Services Center from 208 beds to more than 350.
The measure would have declared a city emergency and relaxed zoning rules at the shelter, which is already full every night.
But the idea didn't sit well with many people.
"Adding shelter space alone will not bring people inside," said Andrew Bove, vice president of social work at the non-profit Preble Street.
He and many other outreach workers say they support the general idea of adding shelter space, but they argued that simply adding more beds to the existing shelter will not make it more accessible to unhoused people living outside.
Street outreach worker Danielle Laliberte said many people worry they'll lose their belongings if they go to the shelter, and the shelter rules make it difficult for unhoused people to address mental health and substance use disorder challenges, or maintain a job if they have one.
"The lights are not turned off at night, and folks are having trouble sleeping," Laliberte said. "People who have pets are not allowed, unless they have a service animal. Couples are not allowed to be in the same shelter to sleep. There are no options currently for couples to be together."
But for some Portland business owners, the idea of expanding the shelter seems like the best available option. Kristen Moustrouphis owns Beacon Community Fitness on Marginal Way, close to one of Portland's largest encampments. She believes the site isn't safe for those living there, or for her employees coming to work.
"What you've proposed offers a solution," she said. "It might not be the solution for everybody in that encampment. But it may be the solution that saves a few lives."
For Carol Waig, who works with a Portland-based volunteer organization called My Father's Hands, the city's proposal doesn't address the more complicated problem of finding enough mental health and health care professionals to help unhoused people stay in a shelter, let alone more permanent housing.
"People need to understand the person that they're housing, before they just open a door and say here you go, here's a room or here's a one-bedroom apartment, go live," she said Tuesday evening outside Portland City Hall. "They can't. Because if they could, they'd be doing it."
The city should first have a plan for finding and hiring more social services workers, Waig said.
But that will take time. Portland City Manager Danielle West said the shelter proposal is intended to quickly open up more places for people to stay inside ahead of the winter.
"We're not trying to address and resolve the root causes of homelessness," she said. "We're trying to address a crisis situation that I've seen accelerate significantly over the last four to five months."
"The city manager said at the beginning of the night we're not here to explore the root causes of homeless. I agree; they're complex and many, really difficult," said Matt Brown, a volunteer with mobile outreach group Hope Squad. "But I would submit that we do need to explore the reasons for the hopelessness that people are feeling out here. And if you all sitting there don't understand the level and the depth of that hopelessness, then you have not done your jobs."
Some city councilors suggested they're not sold on the idea of adding more shelter beds, either. One called for more police presence at the encampments. Others urged the city to find new properties that could be opened to create more shelter space.
And some said they're concerned that the city-run Homeless Services Center is already short-staffed, and that adding more beds would simply be too difficult to manage.
"It feels like we're just in analysis paralysis," said Councilor Andrew Zarro. "And it feels like we are just going over and over everything. Not to say that I don't love a good process. I do. But it is getting colder."
Zarro echoed concerns from many that expanding the existing homeless shelter could actually set it up for failure. And he suggested that a soon-to-be built shelter for asylum seekers might open up more space for chronically unhoused people at the Homeless Services Center. The new asylum seeker shelter is expected to open around Thanksgiving, West said.
After nearly four hours, city councilors ended up back at the place they started. Next week, they'll consider an amended proposal that would more modestly expand shelter capacity by just 50 beds, rather 150.
