PORTLAND, Ore. — Off Northeast 82nd Avenue is a hidden side to Portland’s homeless crisis: young immigrant families from Venezuela. They came to Portland for promised work opportunities and help with legal documents. They were told Portland was a “sanctuary city.” Instead, they found themselves sleeping in tents along a busy road.
Jamie, a young mother, traveled to Portland with her family, including her 4-month-old daughter Hannah.
“She's a premature baby. I was in the hospital for 15 days in Cincinnati and I came over here and I’ve been on the streets with my baby, my 13-year-old son, my husband and myself,” Jamie said in Spanish.
When Jamie finally arrived in Portland, she was met with long housing waitlists and handed tents and sleeping bags. She's spent 15 days on the street so far. “I’m asking for help and no one is helping,” Jamie said.
“Well, I didn't think it would be like this. I thought they would help us,” added her friend Lorenda, who traveled to Portland with her own two young children. She said they were told there were no more resources for immigrants and that money ran out last month.
While these families are relatively recent arrivals, the issue is not a new one. In April, a nonprofit that had been supporting Venezuelan families in a nearby Northeast Portland hotel abruptly ran out of funding, and the families learned that they were in danger of being put out on the streets. They reported being offered tents and tarps by the county.
After KGW's reporting, Multnomah County arranged to keep the immigrants housed for a month while working for longer-term solutions. Immigrants from Venezuela currently have something called "temporary protected status" in the United States, which generally means that they can obtain work permits and are not subject to deportation.
Jamie and Lorenda's families likewise said they expected to find temporary housing and work opportunities in Portland while they moved through the immigration system, but that wasn't the case when they arrived.
“It's really cold outside. We have gotten wet. We are all wet and the kids don't have clothes. It's the situation that we're in right now. We don't have a home to be with our family,” said Lorenda.
A gift of shelter
On Wednesday, students at a nearby trade school stepped in to help.
“I pulled into work yesterday morning at about 5:30 in the dark and there were about three families sleeping in a tent in the parking lot getting rained on,” said Torre Sathrum, an instructor at the Northwest College of Construction.
In one day, he and his students made them a wooden shelter. The families were able to move their tents inside and cover the wooden structure with tarps.
“Those people deserve a warm place to sleep,” said Andy, one of the students who helped build the shelter.
KGW’s Blair Best brought the issue to Multnomah County commissioners on Wednesday.
“I’m literally hearing it from you for the first time," said Commissioner Sharon Meieran. "I’m just sickened ... the idea that we're even in this situation and people are suffering like that, we have allowed to continue to happen."
“My expectation is that we would find what shelter beds we have un-utilized, and no child should be sleeping on the street in a tent,” added Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards.
Jamie held her 4-month-old daughter and fought back tears as she shared this message to local officials:
“Please help me and be compassionate with us and with my baby, who is too little to be bearing these cold temperatures on the street. Truly, please help.”
A spokesperson for the Multnomah County chair's office told KGW that Chair Jessica Vega Pederson was unavailable Wednesday because she was in meetings. They said she is aware of what's happening to these immigrant families and has directed the county Department of Human Services to gather materials and respond. However, KGW was told that some of those key people were out of the office Wednesday and aren’t able to help until they get back on Thursday.
At the same time these families slept outside, Multnomah County officials at a board work session earlier this week announced they had available shelter beds and were operating under capacity. However, shelters properly equipped to take on families are much less common and more difficult to access.