Thank you for your feedback. City staff have indeed seen the growing number of tents and encampments throughout Portland, many of them in our parks and on our trails. As of last week, we had 94 tents city-wide, and group encampments as large as 50 tents, on the Bayside Trail. Many members of the public ask what our plan is, so here is some information about the current challenge and what is being done about it.

None of these encampments seen city-wide are sanctioned. Due to a ninth circuit court case, cities cannot remove encampments if there is not space available in local shelters. That court case actually went to the Supreme Court, where they denied an appeal, so it stands today. Portland adopted a policy on encampment removal last year reflecting that court case. In a nutshell, we will continue to remove outdoor encampments, so long as there is local shelter space. We remove encampments to keep our parks clean, safe, and accessible for everyone, and equally importantly, to motivate people to utilize services and shelters.

Many cities across the country have offered sanctioned campsites with enhanced services, but those efforts have typically not been effective in reducing homelessness, and have usually resulted in people becoming more entrenched in living outdoors, rather than accepting indoor shelter or housing. It is unlikely for someone to end their struggle with homelessness while living in a tent in a park.

As you may have read about, our shelters in Portland have been at capacity this winter. Our Health and Human Service Department is regularly providing shelter for over 1,200+ individuals on any given night, which is staggering. Many of those folks are families with young children. Churches and other groups are assisting as well. Unfortunately, with so many demands including our traditional homeless population, plus 300+ asylum seekers arriving each month, there is not enough room in existing shelters. There are many ongoing efforts to increase shelter and transitional housing capacity, and spread it throughout the state, so that Portland isn't left to shoulder this alone.

Once we have additional shelter capacity in place, we will continue to remove encampments from our parks and trails and get people the help they need. This will require coordination with Police, Health and Human Services and other social service partners.

On a local level, our crews are out cleaning up impacts from these encampments on a daily basis. Our Park Maintenance Crews and Park Rangers are spending an average of 40% of their weekly time on encampment cleanup efforts, which is detracting from other vital park projects. Some weeks in the summer, that figure jumps to 60%. Last year, we had good luck in engaging unhoused individuals in the parks in helping to clean up the trash and debris that was building up. Our Parks Maintenance Crew provided tools, trash bags, trash cans, and worked alongside them. Several of the participants enjoyed the work and expressed a desire to continue to do this work, and we encouraged them to seek employment with us, MaineWorks, or another temp work agency when they were ready. One of them got a job with a temp agency and worked with us the rest of the summer and fall. That's a start.

Again, thank you for reaching out. Please know we will continue to monitor and address these situations as best we can.