Mayor of Portland to give update on city-sanctioned homeless camps

PORTLAND, Ore. (KGW) — Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler released a video Wednesday outlining a broad strategy to address the city’s homeless crisis, ahead of a Thursday news conference where he will provide a progress update on the city’s plan to open six large-scale sanctioned campsites.

The news conference is scheduled for 10 a.m., and KGW will stream it live in the player above and on YouTube and the KGW app.

Wheeler proposed the mass sanctioned campsites plan last fall, coupled with a goal of phasing in a ban on unsanctioned camping elsewhere in the city. The city council approved the plan in November, and Wheeler’s office has been searching for suitable locations since then.

The city has not publicly released any locations, but a couple places have been reported to be under consideration, including a building owned by Volunteers of America Oregon in the Montavilla neighborhood and the “Clinton Triangle” next to where the MAX Orange Line crosses Southeast Powell Boulevard.

The sanctioned campsites, referred to by Wheeler as Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites, are a central component of the overall strategy Wheeler outlined in the Wednesday video.

Wheeler framed the crisis as three overlapping issues: homelessness, behavioral health and substance use disorder. He said the city’s response plan has three main components: increased investment in affordable housing, moving unsheltered homeless residents closer to services and criminal justice referrals to incentivize people to seek housing, services and treatment.

The shelter sites are necessary to achieve the second goal, Wheeler said, adding that it’s currently impossible for the city to hire enough outreach workers to connect people with services because Portland’s homeless population is spread out over hundreds of small unsanctioned camps.

Wheeler also discussed a recent report from Multnomah County about homeless deaths in 2021, which found that 20% of Portland’s homicide victims that year were homeless and the average age of death among homeless residents was 48 for men and 46 for women.