PORTLAND, Ore. — You may not see it, but you can surely smell the result of five days of extreme temperatures on the streets of Portland’s Old Town neighborhood. Urine and hot trash seem to steep on the concrete sidewalks — inescapable for those who live on them.
“It's disgusting. It is so gross, every corner that you turn,” said Amelia, whose face was covered in scabs Monday morning.
Amelia said the scabs were due to a fight that sent her to the hospital — all fueled by the heat, she said. “Every time the weather gets worse, everybody gets a little bit hotter, their temperatures, their attitude,” she said.
“It is hot and there are just so many people that are struggling. It gets really hot in a tent. They rarely have any ventilation,” said Liz Starke, who works at Rose Haven, a day center for homeless people.
A KGW crew found many abandoned tents Monday as people turned to places like Rose Haven or county-operated temporary cooling centers.
“We're going to stay open until 4 o’clock today as a cooling center,” Starke said Monday.
In the meantime, those tents aren't going anywhere. On Wednesday, the city of Portland paused camp removals and enforcement of its camping ban, which threatens jail time and fines for illegal camping, due to the severe weather emergency declared last week. This safety move came just two days after enforcement of the new ban began.
“I think it's probably a bit performative,” Starke said of the city's decision to pause the camping ban and camp removals.
“That should probably be the opposite if you think they should probably find shelters for them,” said Jimmy who is homeless in Southwest Portland.
“While it is normal city procedure during extreme weather to not enforce camping bans, I want to take the opportunity to urge people to go to cooling shelters, find shade, and stay out of the direct sun as much as possible. We already had tragedy with heat related deaths this weekend and we’re only really beginning the summer heat waves.”
The city has paused camp removals during severe weather events before and instead those crews handed out water and encouraged people to go inside. It's unclear if that's what's happening this week.
“Regardless of what happens at city hall and when these kinds of proclamations are made it doesn't really affect people on the streets that much," said Starke. "The word is on the street that you're going to be swept, you're not welcome, so once people know that that is the culture ... people are not only hot and uncomfortable, they're scared.”
A spokesperson for the mayor's office told KGW that resuming camp removals and camping ban enforcement is dependent on the weather.