Editor’s note: This is the second story of “The Unsheltered Truth” in a five-part series from Jeff Gianola on homelessness in Portland. For part one, click here.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — It’s moving day for 24-year-old Samantha.
Recently, Sam’s been living in a tent along a loading dock in Southeast Portland. But now, the owner of the business told her it was time to go. She’ll probably make her way over to a car lot over on Sandy, she guesses.
Sam has been working with Transition Projects, a non-profit that works to get homeless people into housing. She’s on a waiting list, but for now, the streets are her home.
Across the river, in Downtown Portland, the city ordered a group of homeless to pack up their sidewalk camp. They will set up a new camp a few blocks away.
Just up the street from that location is a young woman named Princess. She’s spent the last month on the sidewalk. Recently, she was notified of a sweep. Her tent and belongings will all be removed. She appears to have mental issues. When approached in conversation, she doesn’t move.
After her moving day, Sam has found a new home about a block away from Princess with another group of homeless. Her new home is a temporary one, though, and it’s not her choice. The city has posted a notice: in 48 hours this sidewalk will be cleared, as well.
Two days later, a truck pulls up: the city makes good on their process.
“They just came in and started ripping charts of our tents and were just like totally rude to me,” Sam said, “and asking if anyone was in the tent if I was telling them my real name.”
Portland police officers Ryan Engwieller and Tim Engstron are tasked with the removal. They said they do their job with precision and compassion. A lot of their posting, they said, are done on Fridays, allowing a full weekend for people to move.
“We are the only two officers in the entire city that have this job,” Engstron said, “and our fulltime job is to go to the camps do whatever and reach out.”
That includes interacting with some familiar faces, like Sam.
“We’ve done a referral on her awhile back, guiding her thru the process and get her off the street into housing,” Engstron said.
For now, Sam will stick to the streets while she waits to climb the waiting list. But after the latest sweep, she’ll have to move again.
“We try to guide them,” Engwieller said when asked where Sam will go, “but we can only go so far.”
It’s sweep and repeat, but does it work?
“I’m not proclaiming that sweep and repeat has no effect,” said Bill Russell, the head of the Union Gospel Mission, “I just think there’s a group of people for whom the option are so slim — you’re just gonna keep playing whack a mole and move them around the city.
“It drives people more underground deeper into hiding then the question is public policy is that what we want, or do we want to draw people into a place where they can get help?”
The Union Gospel Mission’s Search and Rescue team is all too familiar with sweep and repeat. Each night, they patrol the streets. They know exactly where to look — like the Ross Island Bridge.
“I would say there were probably 10 tents and we went last time and they were completely swept,” one search and rescue team member said, “so it look like they were never there were.”
Inside a tent near the bridge is a woman nicknamed “Momma.” Her needs are basic: some blankets, clothes to stay warm and some food, “whenever we’re able to get it,” she said.
Momma and her husband, Shadow, will stay in this tent until the next sweep forces them out.
Not far from Momma is another stop for the Union Gospel Mission, a happy sight for Jane and her boyfriend.
“We’ve been trying to stay off the radar we haven’t had any interactions with the police except for a couple,” Jane said. “That was officer Engstron.”
All these stops equate to a long night for the rescue team. They pass by tents and carts, the same ones they’ve seen before. Next week, they’ll disappear, and reappear the following week.
Sweep and repeat.
Blanchet House has been helping Portland homeless for 70 years. Greg Baker leads Blanchet House. He said Portland now has a national reputation.
“(Visitors) go home and say I was in Portland: the atmosphere was so nice, the mountains were beautiful’ the grapes and all the food; the salmon was wonderful — they talk about all these great things and they say its a nice place to visit,” Baker said. “But you know the last thing they say? They say, ‘I don’t understand why they have such an intense homeless problem out there—they don’t talk about that for 5 seconds. They talk about that for 5 minutes.”
Seth Longaker runs a shoe and apparel business in Northwest Portland with his brother, Zac. They’re lifelong Portlanders. He’s compassionate, but frustrated by what he sees on the streets.
“We call for a week its gone its over in the Springwater Corridor its in the southeast industrial area or it’s over in the rose quarter — it just moves around,” Longaker said. “Now the problems gotten so big that when it moves it doesn’t move very far cause there’s already somebody there, there’s already somebody there. Now we’re getting that’s my corner that’s my corner that’s my corner that’s my tent city.”
Thirty years ago, KOIN 6 News anchor Jeff Gianola took to the streets and reported on homelessness in Portland. There were no tent cities. No one ever imagined the thousands of unnamed faces and tents now seen on Portland street corners.
“I get it: I feel terrible,” Longaker said. “People don’t have a place to go, and I don’t know whose that’s on. It’s on all of us, I guess.”
Back on a downtown sidewalk at Southwest 11th Avenue and Southwest Columbia, Princess has paid no attention to notices, telling her to pack up.
As promised, the sweeping crews came, removed her tent and cleared the sidewalk. But there was one thing they didn’t take. Later that night, a light rain falls on Princess as she curls up with a wet blanket. They took her tent and her belongings, but they left her behind.
That’s the unsheltered truth.
Stay tuned for the third story in Jeff Gianola’s “The Unsheltered Truth,” a five-part series on homelessness in Portland. That will air at 5 p.m. on May 2nd.