PORTLAND, Ore. — As a homeless man by choice, Donovan knows what he needs to survive. That includes a large pile of scrap metal filled with aluminum scaffolding pipes, old vacuums and a used electrical board. Donovan says he collected it all from nearby dumpsters sat at one end of his homeless encampment in an industrial part of Northwest Portland.
“We're like the remnants of pioneers, the hunters and gatherers; we like to live outdoors. This is how we live,” said Donovan.
Like Donovan, many other homeless people chose the streets of Portland over other West Coast cities.
“There’s not a lot of other areas you can go where there's like, three accessible day programs for youth that are open all week, so I came here,” said Jupiter, who just turned 18. She’s been homeless on the streets of Portland for two years.
“I don't think California is a very good place to be a homeless resident,” added Donovan’s girlfriend, Raven.
Raven has a point, seeing as Thursday morning, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all state agencies to remove homeless encampments on state land, prioritizing camps that pose safety risks while giving “reasonable” advance notice to homeless people. California crews are also ordered to offer to connect people to local services and store their belongings for at least 60 days.
Portland service providers see it as a threat to those on the streets and a sign of potentially stricter homeless policies coming to Oregon.
“That is going to inform deeply what happens here… I just think there's going to be, again, increased fear, and folks are going to continue to be agitated and not know who to trust,” said Kiku Johnson, the executive director of Outside In, a medical clinic and homeless day center and shelter for youth.
“They set up the resources, we came for the resources, they're mad that we're here using the resources,” added Jupiter, who gets services from Outside In.
Gov. Newsom's order is the first of its kind to come out of last month's Supreme Court decision out of Grants Pass, Oregon, giving cities more power to remove homeless camps.
However, the ruling has little impact on Oregon due to a state law requiring cities to take into account available shelter space if punishing people for sleeping outside. Democratic state representative Pam Marsh was behind that law.
“I think that bill really acknowledged (that) yes, cities need to be able to take some control and have some regulatory ability to manage health and safety issues, and we have people on the street who, in many cases, have no place else to go,” Marsh said.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is calling on the state to review that law so that Portland can have the tools they "truly need to manage public camping," he told KGW.
“I think the law is providing the right parameters and I would be quite reticent to get rid of any of that unless I thought there was a better way forward and I haven't seen that,” said Marsh.
“Well, this is America. Isn't this our country? We should be able to camp where we want to,” declared Donovan.
KGW is still waiting to hear back from Gov. Tina Kotek on her response to California’s latest decision to remove homeless camps on state land and if that could impact things here in Oregon. Last month on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling, Kotek appeared unlikely to push the legislature to change that state law around homeless camping, saying instead her focus is on building affordable housing.