PORTLAND, Ore — It’s been about a month since the city unveiled it’s 90-day reset plan to "repair, rebuild and reopen the Old Town corridor.” The city is doing this primarily through homeless camp cleanups and removals. Through this process, dozens of people lose their belongings and are left searching for the next corner to call home.
“I was the only tent there. There was nothing posted saying that it was going to be swept,” said Douglas Marcks, who sat at a picnic table Tuesday morning.
Marcks has been living on the streets for about 10 years. On Monday night, the city removed his camp.
“I was pretty furious actually,” Marcks said. Most of his belongings were taken too.
“All my clothing other than what’s on my back, all my electronics except for what’s in my backpack, all gone — that’s several hundred dollars’ worth of stuff,” he said.
“Honestly, I think its rude,” added Danny Junior who also lives in Old Town. He watched the city remove his friend’s camp earlier this week. "It’s hard, you know, seeing somebody get everything they pretty much own get taken away.”
“It’s been a very loud, tumultuous time the last couple weeks,” said Kaia Sand. She runs Street Roots, a homeless advocacy group and newspaper.
She described watching camps get cleared outside her office window.
“We saw all these flashing lights and yells,” Sand said.
Earlier this month, the city’s Impact Reduction Program cleaned two sites and removed 19 others in Old Town, and 25 more sites in the neighborhood are scheduled to be removed.
“I’m just scared for the ways in which this is just so destabilizing for people,” said Sand.
In the past three days, the city says it has helped 23 people affected by the Old Town cleanups find a shelter bed.
“They’re surviving. The man that was camped here, he moved around the corner and then he was swept again,” said Sand.
“The streets have not been safe — not safe for the folks who are living on them, not safe for the pedestrians,” said Carrie Saum, business navigator for the Old Town Business Association. She works to attract new businesses to the area, which she said it's hard to do when the streets are filled with homeless camps.
However, this past weekend she saw a change.
“The streets were very clean, they were safe and what we’re hearing from business owners and folks who love the neighborhood but haven’t felt safe, their experience this weekend was night and day," Saum said. "Everyone was thrilled with how different it was down here.”
For people like Marcks who choose not to be in the proffered shelters, the search for a new, safe place to sleep continues.
“That’s what happens it’s like people just cycling through having more trauma more stress having a new place to survive and then it goes on,” said Sand.
The city is working to connect with each person displaced by these cleanups. They’ve set aside about 65 shelter beds for them and are offering free rides to the shelter.
Here are steps the city told KGW people can take to retrieve their belongings lost in the cleanups:
- Property collected from campsites will be stored by a City contractor for at least 30 days. Property left for longer than 30 days will be destroyed or donated.
- To arrange pickup, please call 503-387-1336 with the date, location and a description of items collected Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
- No identification or name is required for obtaining removed property unless obtaining prescription medications, personal identification or credit cards (in which case name is required).
- There is no fee, fine, ticket or citation for retrieving personal property and that the City does not perform warrant checks or ICE referrals in connection with the retrieval of personal property.
- If you are unable to retrieve your personal belongings within 30 days, please call the number to work out an extension.