Portland begins enforcing public camping ban

Portland’s public camping ban went into effect over the weekend. Police can now issue citations for people living in vehicles or camping in parks, streets and other public spaces if “reasonable shelter” is available. The ordinance originally passed in 2024, but Mayor Keith Wilson said in February he would pause enforcement until the city could open more shelter beds.

Meanwhile, Portland voters had until Tuesday at 8 p.m. to decide on a controversial ballot measure to raise property taxes to fund a new city Parks Levy after the old one expired.

Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB. She joins us to talk about election results, how camping enforcement is going so far and what the ban means for people living outside.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Portland’s public camping ban went into effect over the weekend. Police can now issue citations for people living in vehicles or camping in parks, streets or other public spaces, if “reasonable shelter” is available. Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB. She joins us now to talk about camping enforcement and what this ban actually means for people living outside. Alex, good to have you back.

Alex Zielinski: Great to be here.

Miller: So Portland has had a pretty complicated history of camping bans and legal fights, but am I right that the current ban actually passed by the previous city council in May of 2024?

Zielinski: Yeah, and this one was adopted after a previous iteration was challenged in court the year before. So like you said, there’s been a long, long history of attempts to penalize folks for sitting, lying and sleeping in public spaces. The one that was adopted May 2024 was a result of a lot of legal negotiations and debate, and it finally kind of seemed to kind of meet the mark of everyone on council.

Miller: Well then, why hasn’t it been in effect continuously since then?

Zielinski: Well, it went into effect, police began enforcing it in July of last year. But it wasn’t very heavy handed in enforcement. The city said it only arrested about three people during that entire time until February. Portland police weren’t really prioritizing the enforcement, they were stretched pretty thin. So it was put on hold until February of this year after Portland’s new mayor Keith Wilson took office. You’ll remember that he entered office with this big promise to end unsheltered homelessness by quickly opening hundreds of new shelter beds. He asked to hold off on enforcing the camping ban until more beds were online.

Miller: So let’s get to how the ban works. First of all, what does it actually prohibit?

Zielinski: So it prohibits people from camping in a tent or living out of a vehicle on public property like a sidewalk, a street, park, unless reasonable shelter is available. And if shelter is not available, the policy limits what people can do while camping on public property. For instance, people can’t use propane heaters, dig into the ground, start a fire, block access to private property, other activities on public land.

Miller: But there’s a really important phrase that you mentioned. How does a city define “reasonable shelter?”

Zielinski: They don’t. According to the city, determining whether someone has access to reasonable shelter is really up to the police officer who encounters someone resting on public property. The city says it could depend on many factors like if someone has a disability or a pet or is in addiction recovery. For instance, a low barrier shelter where people can bring in drugs or alcohol might be unreasonable for someone in recovery to move into. But there is no definition on the books.

Miller: Why did the mayor choose this time to start enforcing the ban?

Zielinski: He believes the city has enough shelter available to make the meat of this policy enforceable, to penalize people who are living outside. That’s because he’s opened around 1,000 additional shelter beds since taking office. As a reminder, these are beds in overnight only shelters made up of large open rooms filled with rows of beds where you can’t stay during the day. The addition of these beds brings Multnomah County’s total shelter bed count to around 3,500, which is still less than half of the estimated number of people living outside in Portland.

But Wilson’s argument is about vacancy. The new shelters he’s opened have pretty high vacancy rates compared to the county-run shelters. But the fact that there are dozens and dozens of vacant beds on most nights is a sign to Wilson that officers can go out and start telling people to move or move into shelter, or get a citation.

Miller: What have people experiencing homelessness or homeless service providers said about the reasonableness of these overnight shelter beds?

Zielinski: I mean, these beds don’t work for everyone. I’ve heard from a lot of people who’ve had bad experiences in these type of shelters, which are often called congregate shelters. Abuse or theft, the anxiety of being in just a big room with a lot of other people and not everyone’s comfortable there. They have a hard time getting their wheelchair in if they need access, in that sense. And some people have families that they feel a lot more comfortable with a closed-door room for their own privacy.

But I should be clear, the mayor agrees with this. He knows that they are not a one-size-fits-all solution. But the way he talks about these overnight only beds is that they’re triage, that they’re the kind of the only thing keeping people from dying on the streets in winter in Portland. So some exceptions may have to be made.

Miller: How will enforcement work right now?

Zielinski: It’s a little up in the air. Last I heard from the city, a day before the enforcement began, they still didn’t have any standard operating procedures in place yet for how police should be enforcing the ban. They did say the police will focus on encampments that pose the highest risk to the surrounding environments – like if people are dumping waste into the street or if there have been a high number of crimes reported at an encampment, they will focus on those ones first. But it’s very much wait and see right now.

Miller: What are the penalties?

Zielinski: So people who refuse to move or to move into shelter will be issued a citation that comes with a fine of up to $100 or up to a week in jail. Of course, if someone does not show up to their court date that’s on the citation where they’ll be sentenced, a warrant will be issued for their arrest. So another penalty.

Miller: The mayor has said that if a person who gets a citation does show up to court, that he hopes that they’ll be connected with, as he put it, “services and resources through the courts in lieu of penalties.” Is that kind of a diversion system set up?

Zielinski: Not for this kind of citation. While the courts and prosecutors have some discretion in what to offer people or plea deals, there isn’t any specific program that’s set up to help people who’ve been charged with a citation to defer these penalties in exchange for accepting shelter or other social services. Right now, the concept seems really centered on good intentions. There is not a system set up.

Miller: Shelter providers, police, prosecutors or homeless people themselves, have they been clear on how enforcement would work before this went into effect?

Zielinski: Not really. I spoke with a number of folks last week and the week before about what they anticipated and what they’ve heard and known about it. I spoke with the chief judge who oversees the county’s criminal courts last week, and he was asking me about how enforcement would work and what it will look like.

Miller: It’s always scary when a person who should know asks a reporter what’s happening.

Zielinski: Right, he hadn’t heard from the mayor’s office yet. I think they all had a meeting last Friday, which was less than 24 hours before this went into effect. The district attorney’s office was similarly kind of hazy about how their office would play a role. The county sheriff who oversees the jails [was] not sure exactly how that would show up in her system.

I also reached out to a number of day centers for homeless Portlanders, places where people can get services during the day, to get a sense of what people running those spaces have heard and what they know. And they have very scant information from the city as well, and their guests are really worried, and they have a lot of questions about charges and how to avoid them, and they’re turning to folks who are running these spaces, and these providers have no answers. So it’s a bit frustrating.

Miller: What do we know now about how enforcement has gone so far, just a couple days in?

Zielinski: We don’t know much. We know it began over the weekend, but the city has held off on sharing any update and data until later this week, so we’ll see.

Miller: I just want to turn briefly to the Parks and Recreation levy. There are still more ballots to be counted, but it appears right now that it’s headed to victory. This is the 75% increase in the old Portland Parks and Recreation levy. The “yes” votes have a little more than a 9% point lead, so it’d be very surprising at this point if the “nos” came back. Can you remind us what this will do and what it won’t do?

Zielinski: So the levy is anticipated or expected to drum up around $85 million annually to fund parks – programming, sports camps, different kinds of activities and some maintenance as well. It accounts for about half of the Park Bureau’s entire budget, which is significant. So if this levy had failed, it would have meant a lot of layoffs and closures. But as you mentioned, what it won’t do – it’s equally important – it won’t fix the estimated up to $800 million maintenance backlog that the Parks Bureau has been trying to navigate for a few years now. Only about $2 million a year from this levy will go towards major maintenance, which is just barely chipping away at it.

So it still creates a big issue in how the Parks Bureau will pay to keep its parks facilities from crumbling into the ground. I think there’s something like 90% to 95% of all of the parks facilities, buildings and playgrounds, all these things that are really worse for wear and need immediate help. Finding out how to pay for that has not been resolved yet.

Miller: Alex, thanks very much.

Zielinski: Thanks for having me.

Miller: Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB.

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