Weeks before an important deadline, Portland and Multnomah County leaders appear divided over a policy that would limit how the government can hand out tents and tarps to people living outside.
FILE - Portland Commissioner Rene Gonzalez during a City Council meeting May 31, 2023.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
During a Friday meeting of a new regional homelessness oversight board, Portland City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez floated a new countywide policy that would limit how frequently county staff can distribute tents and tarps.
“Tents are a false sense of security,” said Gonzalez, who is running for mayor. “I’m not sure we should ever be distributing [them].”
The proposal, which would largely limit distribution to periods of severe weather, track who received a tent and where they set it up, and label every tent as being owned by the county, was received coolly by county officials on the oversight board.
“There are a lot of problematic areas,” said County Commissioner Lori Stegmann, who represents the county’s eastside. “It’s a lot to take in.”
The countywide proposal is only the latest in a long debate in Portland over whether tent and tarp distribution does more harm than good for people with no other shelter.
The discussion began after the city and county ramped up tent distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing requirements reduced shelter space. That brought complaints from Portlanders about blocked sidewalks, increased trash and alleged crimes taking place at encampments.
It also brought a lawsuit: In September 2022, a group of Portlanders with disabilities sued the city for neglecting to keep sidewalks accessible, a requirement of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The city reached a settlement with plaintiffs last year, in which the city agreed to remove 500 sidewalk-blocking encampments every year for the next five years. The city also agreed to hand out tents only during severe cold weather or to replace a tent damaged or destroyed by the city. Tents can also be distributed under this settlement if it will make it easier for the city to remove a sidewalk encampment.
Earlier this year, when the city and county were negotiating a new contract to jointly manage the region’s homelessness response, the attorney representing plaintiffs in that lawsuit pushed to stretch the city’s tent policy countywide.
FILE - A homeless encampment in North Portland on Oct. 11, 2021.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
The contract didn’t go that far, despite Gonzalez’s support. But it did direct a new joint oversight committee to “have a policy discussion” about this topic and present the results to both the county and city by Oct. 15.
Gonzalez and Mayor Ted Wheeler represent the city on this new committee, while County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Stegmann represent the county.
At the Friday meeting of this group, Gonzalez introduced a policy slightly stricter than the city’s rule.
Like Portland’s policy, he suggested that county staff and contractors only hand out tents and tarps when it’s cold enough outside (between 32 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the circumstances) that the county opens winter severe weather shelters. Tents must be only big enough for two people, suitable for winter camping and come with a bundle of warm clothing for recipients.
The draft policy also allows county staff to hand out tents to replace ones their staff may have destroyed or to help the county remove someone from another encampment.
Where the policy differs from Portland’s is how the county tracks and labels the tents. Gonzalez suggests all tents handed out by the county be affixed with a large yellow label with the words “County Funded Tent.” He also wants the county to record how many tents are being handed out and keep track of the name and location of every tent recipient.
Gonzalez said the idea was to address the growing problem with fires and alleged crimes taking place at encampments. And to encourage people to move into shelter by handing out fewer tents.
“The reality of encampments is they are a sort of chaos in our community,” he said. “We just want to make sure we’re not facilitating, enabling that type of behavior.”
Wheeler didn’t attend the meeting, but his adviser Skyler Brocker-Knapp supported Gonzalez’s pitch.
Others on the committee questioned the purpose of restricting tents when the county doesn’t have enough shelter to accommodate its unsheltered population.
“I worry we’re approaching a place where we’re dehumanizing people,” said Stegmann. “If we say no one is going to hand out tents/tarps, then why shouldn’t we hand out food? Where is the line if we’re going to deny someone the basic need of shelter?”
As of January 2024, an estimated 5,398 people were living unsheltered in Multnomah County — and the county’s roughly 2,000 shelter beds are nearly full most nights.
Mindy Stadtlander, the CEO of the state’s Medicaid provider Health Share of Oregon, who sits on the committee, said that if someone living outside is sick, they have a much better chance of getting better inside a tent.
“I hope in a year or two or three, we will be in a place where we have more shelter capacity and we can offer people more safe places to be with services,” she said.
Vega Pederson echoed Stadtlander, saying she hoped the county could soon ramp up its housing and shelter beds production to make tent distribution moot.
Gonzalez said he believes that, even with increased shelter capacity, people will choose to stay living in a tent outside. He pointed to city data that found between April 2022 and January 2024, over 70% of Portland’s approximately 3,500 offers of shelter beds to unsheltered people were declined.
“I just want to calibrate expectations,” he said.
This isn’t the only Portland policy on homelessness that the county is considering. Earlier last week, Multnomah County commissioners discussed introducing penalties on public camping similar to those adopted by Portland City Council in May.
But a countywide tent distribution policy is far from final.
Over the coming weeks, the county’s Joint Office of Homeless Services will write a tent and tarp proposal that reflects the oversight committee’s feedback. This, among other ideas, will be presented to all city and county commissioners at an Oct. 15 meeting.