PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has announced a North Portland location for the second of six planned large-scale sanctioned homeless campsites in the city. The new site will be at 10505 N. Portland Road, according to a Thursday news release from Wheeler's office, a city-owned lot in an industrial part of the St. Johns neighborhood. The site still has to be developed, and the news release didn't mention a specific opening date.
Wheeler announced his plan about a year ago to open the six mass campsites, dubbed "Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites," followed by a ban on unsanctioned camping elsewhere in the city. The sites are intended to provide a secure and hygienic place to stay, coupled with access to mental health and addiction treatment services and housing support.
The first site opened in Southeast Portland in July and is now at capacity with 180 residents, according to the news release, and staff have helped 40 residents "get their paperwork ready for housing navigators" so far. The final several dozen spaces appear to have been filled just in the past few weeks; officials said earlier this month that the site had 134 residents with room for about 45 more.
The North Portland site is aiming for a capacity of up to 200 people, according to the news release. It will primarily be for RVs and camper vans, but tents and pod-style tiny homes will also be available. Wheeler's office said it will work with local stakeholders like the St. Johns Neighborhood Association to create a Good Neighbor Agreement and neighborhood advisory team for the site.
But one local neighborhood association said it wouldn't work with the city on an agreement, because its leaders don't believe the agreement would influence the city's plans.
Some residents near the site said they felt caught off guard by the announcement, and concerned about the impact of the camp.
"Sometimes the gates don't work good, so obviously not very comfortable about this because we have a lot of stuff in here, a lot of equipment," said Luiz Hernandez, who works in his truck repair shop near the site. "It's not a problem being there, but what about our stuff, what about ourselves, our safety?"
Related: New data shows Portland's Safe Rest Villages are having some success connecting people with housing
The site will be managed by the California-based nonprofit Urban Alchemy, which also manages the Southeast site and two of the city's seven Safe Rest Villages, which are part of a separate city-run program. The villages are similar in concept to the mass campsites, but they have a lower capacity and offer tiny home pods for all residents, whereas the larger sites are a mix of pods and spaces for residents' own tents or RVs.
"The need in our community far exceeds available resources and I look forward to opening this next site as quickly as we can to help get vulnerable Portlanders off the streets," Wheeler said in a statement. "Just in the last four months, the City of Portland has collectively opened four shelter sites between Safe Rest Villages and TASS, expanding the shelter continuum by well over 400 spaces."
The Portland city council already took the step of banning camping during daytime hours earlier this year, but the city has been taking a slow phase-in approach when it comes to enforcing the ban, in part to give itself more time to get additional large-scale sanctioned campsites set up.