A 27-year-old died from severe burn injuries Tuesday after a fire engulfed their makeshift shelter set up beneath an overpass in North Portland.
Investigators with Portland Fire & Rescue believe the fire started from a propane-fed device the victim had used to heat the space on a night where temperatures dipped to one degree above freezing.
The shelter had been constructed under an overpass on North Vancouver and North Columbia, according to the fire bureau. The 27-year-old was able to escape the shelter but suffered third-degree burns over their entire body. The victim, who was not named by the fire bureau, died at Legacy Emanuel Hospital’s burn center a few hours later.
This is at least the second death this winter related to someone living on Portland’s streets trying to stay warm. On December 16, a woman in North Portland, later identified by investigators as Autumn Penn, died in a tent fire after knocking over a candle.
In a statement, Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who oversees the fire bureau, said she was heartbroken by the latest instance of a Portlander dying while trying to “tend to their most basic needs of shelter and warmth.”
“This is precisely why we need to urgently move forward with sanctioned camping, tiny home villages, safe RV parking, and other forms of low barrier, transitional housing that provides a higher degree of safety and stability for those currently sleeping on our streets,” said Hardesty. “Moving these projects forward will make Portland safer for everyone.”
During the pandemic, there have been anecdotal reports of homelessness increasing. However, there are no hard numbers to back it up. The Joint Office of Homeless Services said it would be too difficult to do its yearly homeless count during the pandemic while safely abiding by social distancing restrictions. This January, local officials asked the federal government, which typically requires jurisdictions to conduct the point-in-time count to receive funding, to forego it for one year.
In a recent plan on addressing homelessness distributed to city council, Commissioner Dan Ryan, the city’s liaison for the Joint Office of Homeless Services, said he wanted to see a real-time “system of data collection” that would include the number of homeless individuals on the street without shelter and how many beds were available on a given night.
In the absence of a new point-in-time count of some other form of data collection, the office said it is “possible that the size and composition of the unsheltered houseless population has changed drastically throughout the pandemic.”
In recent months, the city has amped up efforts to increase the city’s options of alternative shelter space. The Joint Office of Homeless Services is spearheading an effort to create designated parking lot space for people living in their cars who need a place to park safely with access to food, showers and other services. The office is also putting out a call for proposals on alternative shelter models with local government promising to fund the best ideas.
The city is in the process of decommissioning one alternative shelter model. City officials announced this January that officials would no longer be providing services to Hazelnut Grove, a self-governed village in North Portland’s Overlook neighborhood, citing environmental concerns. Hardesty tweeted Tuesday that the move, despite its many complexities, left her feeling “morally unsettled.”
The coming nights are expected to be some of the coldest the city has seen this winter. Service providers are currently looking for donations of cold weather gear, such as hats, gloves, blankets, tarps and sleeping bags. With snow in the forecast and temperatures expected to dip far below freezing, it’s likely the Joint Office of Homeless Services will open severe weather warming shelters. The shelters come online if forecasters predict an inch or more of snow or the weather falls below 25 degrees.
On nights where severe weather is declared, the office plans to open up 290 beds located at three facilities: Oregon Convention Center, Irving Street Garage, and Arbor Lodge Severe Weather Shelter. You can find the latest info here.