PORTLAND, Ore. — Cities across Oregon have until July 1 to update their rules around unsanctioned homeless camping to comply with a state law that was passed in 2021. That law, HB 3115, makes homeless camping on public property legal when no shelter is available.
Portland City Council made a change to the city's ordinance earlier this month when they voted to ban daytime camping, with homeless people facing fines or jail time if they violate the ban three times or more. That ruling was met with protests outside city hall and heated hours-long testimony.
In Hillsboro and Beaverton, camping has always been prohibited. Both cities just passed ordinances to allow camping overnight on some public property if no shelter is available. It will remain banned during the day.
"We have more available shelter this summer than we did last summer, much more, but we know that's still not enough for every single person outside," said Hillsboro Community Services Coordinator Mandy Gawf.
If homeless people violate the new policy there, they could face fines.
"That again is a civil not a criminal (citation). If they continue to violate that then it could become a criminal trespass which could result in jail time, but again that's a very rare situation," Gawf said.
Beaverton is relying on their police bike team to enforce their ban, with similar fines to Hillsboro, or jail time.
"Although they are there to provide enforcement to our ordinance, they are also there to make sure that folks are getting connected to the service they need — that is always the first goal," said Sia Lindstrom, the interim assistant city manager for Beaverton.
The city of Gresham made the least number of changes to its homeless camping rules. It simply adjusted certain wording in the code. The policy itself remains the same: Camping is not allowed at any time unless shelter is unavailable.
"Through years of doing this work we've been able to get ... our population of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Gresham is decreasing because we've had this approach in place for so long," said Jessica Harper, Gresham's livability services director.
They enforce this by posting campsites for removal and putting those people into shelter. Harper said it's been working.
"We don't even offer citations for unauthorized camping — we're not going to arrest anybody for unauthorized camping in the city of Gresham because that doesn't solve the issue and that doesn't help anybody," she said.
One main difference between Hillsboro, Beaverton and Gresham are the lack of homeless services compared to those in Portland. In Hillsboro, for example, they don't have a year-round shelter. While it's hard to prove, that may be one of the reasons there are so many homeless people in Portland — making the crisis there that much more difficult to manage.
On top of that, camping has been banned in these suburbs for years. That said, Portland has also banned unsanctioned homeless camps on city property. It just hasn't been very active in enforcing those bans.
"We know ordinances don't reduce the number of folks we're seeing on the streets, we really have to continue to work on our housing solutions to do that," Gawf said.
As for community enforcement, these cities encourage people to call the non-emergency line to report any campsites seen on public property.
These updated camping ordinances go into effect on July 1.