PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — There are just a few days left before the city’s planned cleanup of the Springwater Corridor, which is expected to displace hundreds of homeless campers.
Some of those campers will likely end up at a site in the Lents area that the city is grooming to become an outdoor shelter, but that isn’t sitting well with Lents residents.
A group of about 60 neighbors gathered to protest the site, saying they did not have a voice in the decision to have a city-sanctioned camp so close to their homes.
“We’ve shouldered the burden of the city’s homeless problem for so long that we’re feeling broken at this point,” Nicolas Manusos said. “And for this to happen without any public involvement, without any neighborhood involvement is awful.”
The camp is being set up to house 50 to 100 campers, including many who are already camping elsewhere in the Lents area.
Not far from the protest, a neighbor pointed out a clearing littered with campsite fallout they they’re sure will get worse when the Springwater Corridor is cleaned up.
“We’re finding needles. Our children are having to stay indoors most of the time,” IceBear Schroeder said. “So Lents, we do feel like we’re ground zero and we’re trying to have a voice and make sure this is all done safe and properly.”
Schroeder is worried about the people who will be moving to the area near his home.
“We want to make sure everything’s done right, safe and healthy, but we’re really, really concerned about the quality of people that are going to be living back here by looking at the mess behind me,” Schroeder said.
The protesters say what bothers them at much as the plans for the outdoor shelter is that the city never involved them in the conversation about it.
“Having a camp in a residential neighborhood without services is not a viable solution,” Manusos said. “And if it was, I think the city would have proceeded in a more public manner.”