Charlene Brown and her dog, Charlie, sit in front of her sleeping pod at the Clinton Triangle shelter in Southeast Portland on February 27, 2024. Brown has lived at the shelter since July, and is eager to move into permanent housing.
Alex Zielinski / OPB
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case out of Grants Pass that asks whether cities can punish people for living outdoors if there’s not enough shelter space for them to go to instead. Clinton Triangle, a large, low-barrier, outdoor shelter in Southeast Portland, is supposed to be the city’s model for how to serve chronically homeless Portlanders, and allow the city to enforce its camping ban policy. We visited the shelter with OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski, who shares the voices of people who’ve lived and worked there, and considers how the shelter’s approach has been working for residents trying to leave homelessness behind.
Listen to all episodes of The Evergreen podcast here.
