PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Millions of dollars are spent each year to clean up homeless camps around dangerous highways in the City of Portland. In recent months, the city has increased its camp removals in those areas.
This effort closely ties to the Emergency Declaration Mayor Wheeler issued on Feb. 4, 2022, that prohibits camping along high crash transportation corridors that currently remains in effect.
But funding trouble could mean things are about to get worse.
The Oregon Department of Transportation and the City of Portland has a deal where ODOT provides the city $2 million per year for homeless camp cleanup on ODOT Rights of Way. However, the city is already tapped out.
“The City of Portland is responsible for managing those funds over the course of the year to provide a consistent level of service,” said Don Hamilton, the spokesperson for ODOT. “Although the City has been working hard to put better tracking tools in place to manage their spending on clean-ups in the future, as of February they already spent the full $2 million for the budget period ending June 30, 2023.”
The agreement mutually supports both the State and the City as ODOT is primarily responsible for cleanups on its own property.
Mayor Wheeler’s office told KOIN 6 News that they regularly meet with ODOT and that the funding gap has been under discussion for some time.
Terrance Moses, the founder of the community-based homeless camp cleanup organization Neighbors Helping Neighbors, said he’s not surprised the city ran out of money already.
“When the city is doing their contracting, they have 10 or 12 different companies who use box trucks, who use trailers that don’t dump, and so they have to bag up everything and they spend the majority of their day in one place,” said Terrance Moses. “That’s how it becomes expensive.”
Moses went on to say that because his nonprofit is volunteer-based, his group can clean up garbage at a fraction of the cost of city crews. Although he did acknowledge that the city has ramped up clean-up efforts, leaving less work for his nonprofit to do.
ODOT has spent $8 million over the past four years on camping clean-up activities on ODOT’s Rights of Way.
ODOT is currently in the process of reducing spending to address declining gas tax revenues.
“Funding for the camp removals comes from the same sources as our snow removal, guardrail and pothole repair and other road maintenance services, so ODOT does not have additional State Gas Tax funding to contribute at this time,” Hamilton said.
ODOT’s Intergovernmental Agreement with the city allows them to continue cleaning up camps on ODOT property at the city’s expense if they choose to do so.
“But our agency cannot reimburse them beyond the $2 million per year provided for in our agreement,” Hamilton said.
Recently, the mayor met with Gov. Kotek to inform her of the situation. Her team is working with ODOT and others on the next steps.
Camp removals in Portland on city land are not impacted by this issue.