Since Portland is a destination on the Oregon Trail, unlike Boise or Grant's Pass which are merely a waypoints, therefore efforts to criminalize houselessness are less likely to be successful, and the City and County should promote social and economic and geographic mobility instead. Houselessness Response Action Plan should include “measurable, community-wide indicators” of this, such as volunteer hours served, and number of city contractors who are recently house-less or housing insecure. Make partnerships with rural counties to give people work in agriculture, timber, and commercial fishing, and other seasonal “outdoor” work.
Exemplary providers are Sisters of the Road, R2D2, and Cascadia Clusters. Like many shelters and “temperorary alternative shelters”, Blanchet House gives a two-tier class system with no social mobility - anti-examples.
Proposed Camping Ordinance in Portland
Draft Legislation, presented to Portland city council 4/22/2024 PM 4:19:12
Every City sponsored outreach worker, police officer, or street response team called to intervene in an encampment,
Shall inform the camper of the:
Time, Place, Manner Permissions
Permission to camp must be extended to at least
1. One designated corner in every public park for overnight bivouacing, and emergency outdoor shelter during seismic events. 2. One designated vacant lot in every Neighborhood Council region for camping of one week or longer, 3. City sponsored "safe rest villages" with temporary shelter for one month or longer 4. Applicants to said village must be allowed to camp in the nearby assigned vacant lot, or other adjacent suburb camp, for up to one month pending admittance.
Campers who stipulate to a “Good Neighbor Agreement”, must be allowed. Local property owners who do not stipulate to a good neighbor agreement, should not receive response from Law Enforcement to their complaints except to educate them on what the law requires and allows. Campers who decline to agree with a “good neighbor agreement”, can be cited for trespass.
Good Neighbor agreement derived from the second table of the decalogue
Concise and easily cognizable summary of existing Oregon Statutes and Moral Law
1. No Murder: (or other personal injury). No threats or incitement to violence. No requirement that pregnant participants obtain abortions in order to retain their tenancy. 2. No Adultery: (or other sex crimes) Married couples camping together should not be separated. Domestic partnerships can be encouraged with ethical contracts, in lieu of vows, and should be recognized. This is the best solution to "homelessness", and the most likely path to long-term stable housing. 3. No stealing humans: no coercion, rape, enslavement, false imprisonment, or kidnapping. 4. No Perjury in court: no false reports in a juridicial process; uphold the administration of justice. 5. No Covetousness - no theft, embezzlement, or damage of movable property, no trespass or encroachment on residential property, no deception or fraud, no attractive nuisances, etc.
Post a copy of these mandatory rules on nearby infrastructure, And then inform him of any other Time, Place, Manner Prohibitions, which must be objectively reasonable. It is suggested and highly recommended that the camper be provided with a travel-size bottle of Doctor Bronner's Soap, with his creatively poetic exposition of the “Moral ABC” that “sets all mankind free”, etc.
Shall provide the owner of each tent with a copy of the Scouting USA Manual or Boy Scout Manual. Shall raise his or her and their right hand, and make the following pledge, or one substantially similar:
“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my City and Neighborhood, to be a good neighbor, to assist the public at all times, and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally upright”
And invite the camper to either voluntarily learn this pledge and recite it, or else sign a “Good neighbor pledge” agreeing to comply with the mandatory rules posted.
Anything less than this is objectively unreasonable, and we reserve the right to challenge the legislation in State or Federal Court.
Courts and Self-Government
We urge Multnomah County to exercise leadership in providing campsites that are low-cost, low-maintenance, and low barrier to entry, and respectful of neighborhoods and neighborhood rights, according to the principles outlined here. It can succeed at this by re-assigning some of its county and district attorneys, judges, and public defenders to serve as magistrates and advise neighborhood councils which would provide the forum for self-government, according to the “good neighbor agreement” stipulated here, which may be ratified and amended as necessary by each neighborhood council district according to its own deliberative process. These will have to train participants to mediate conflicts, judge the accused, assign reasonable penalties of community service, excommunicate defiant offenders, and hear appeals as necessary.
320 Updated Public Camping Restrictions
320 Update Public Camping Restriction Policies, TBH April 24th 4:00 PM
The full text will be added, with Our Proposed Amendments will be added Bold, soon. For the reasons stated above, we find the ordinance to be inadequate and objectively unreasonable and unlikely to survive a legal challenge, which we may bring if the council legislates it.
History and Present of Portland Houseless Policy
- July 2024 Sherriff Morrisey-ODonnell refuses to book houseless persons for mere violation of municipal ordinance. “Arresting and booking our way out of the housing crisis is not a constructive solution,” Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell wrote, and we concur. Mayor Wheeler and the whole city council are surprised by this, but they shouldn't be.
- City of Grant's Pass v. Johnson overturns the precedent of Martin v. Boise, which had held that criminalization of sleeping bags, tents, and makeshift shelter constituted “cruel and unusual punishment”, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the U.S. Constitution.