Homeless camps with over 100 people removed in Laurelhurst, local residents relieved

Posted January 2021

By Garon Jones

Staff Editor

City contractors removed the last vestiges of a large homeless camp along the outskirts of Laurelhurst Park on Nov. 17, 2020. About 100 people lived for months among a cluster of tents, makeshift dwellings, and garbage; a sight that had angered and worried nearby residents, not only over concerns of scattered garbage, but over their safety as well.

At the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, Portland completely stopped its removal of homeless camps, reportedly following the Center for Disease Control’s guidelines. Portland resumed again in July, but only kept the sweeps at a "limited capacity."

Heather Hafer, a spokeswoman for Portland’s Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program, told The Oregonian the city currently clears about three encampments a week. According to Hafer, prior to the pandemic, the weekly number would range between 40 and 60.

Although city officials have virtually halted addressing the homelessness crisis, a particularly large encampment in Laurelhurst Park had too many complaints to be ignored.

"Nobody is feeling safe right now, and that has to be addressed," said TJ Browning, a local neighborhood resident. "This is a crisis that has to be addressed.”

Browning is also the safety chair of the Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association. About 15-20 neighbors contact her every day with safety concerns. Campers would throw rocks at people who pass by, Browning told KGW8. One man told the story of how his young daughter found a strange object in the park.

"She picked up something, and he just got it in time," Browning said. "It was a used syringe."

Persistent reports of drug use, residential complaints, inadequate hygiene and social distancing made the Laurelhurst camp a target under the city’s revised removal protocols, Hafer told The Oregonian .

Dozens of protesters gathered at the park on multiple occasions in an attempt to prevent the sweeps, preferring to keep the homeless in their current location.

“This is a violation of human dignity,” said Aimee Niles to The Oregonian, a hospital chaplain and a member of Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance.

But the homeless were not removed rapidly, nor all at once. City officials said they planned to clear the camp along with the opening of a homeless shelter at Mt. Scott Community Center in early November.