12/30/2023 0 Comments Portland expo center homeless camp![]() ![]() Since May 16, the Portland Police Department has received 41 calls for service at the park and ride, compared to six in the same time frame last year. ![]() Police also have seen upticks in calls for service. Like in Bayside, the new encampments have drawn complaints from some neighbors and businesses. "We just want to be able to use the bathroom and try to keep things clean." It's just continuing over here," he said. He said people are facing the same challenges in the new spot, with the lack of bathrooms and trash disposal creating a big problem. "There isn't one person out here that's sober."īruce Cavallaro, who also was living on the Bayside Trail, is now at the park and ride. "When I get up and step out of my tent and there's three dudes over there shooting dope in their necks, it's kind of hard to stay sober," Matthew said. Now at the Fore River Parkway, he said it's been hard to keep the area clean and avoid drugs while living among others who are using. He also tried the park and ride, but said too many people there were stealing from each other. "I don't know where they expect us to go," he said. Then he was kicked out of another site on state property. Matthew, who would not give his last name, was camping on the Bayside Trail and lost a lot of his belongings when the trail was cleared. A handful of people also are camping on the outskirts of Deering Oaks. The Western Prom, a park and ride on Marginal Way and the Fore River Parkway Trail are some locations where new tents have popped up since the Bayside camp was cleared. Many of the people living there have dispersed to other, smaller encampments around the city. The Bayside encampment was a large and visible sign of the homelessness crisis. That's about the same number as city staff reported in mid-May when the city decided to clear a large camp of more than 80 tents along the Bayside Trail due to health and safety concerns that had arisen as the encampment grew. "As a result, more and more circumstantially unhoused people – more than we've ever seen before – have been sleeping outside in tents."Īs of Friday, Snyder said the city believes that there are at least 130 tents people are living in around the city. "We cannot meet the demand for emergency shelter beds, even though we have 654 hosted and staffed in the city," Mayor Kate Snyder told the City Council this week. The city is currently housing about 1,200 people per night using shelter space and hotels, but has struggled to meet the need. People need help."Īround Portland, encampments like the one Roberts has been staying at on the Western Prom have proliferated this spring amid a high demand for shelter from both an influx of asylum seekers and those who are unhoused by circumstance. "There needs to be more people to bring out food and water. "There needs to be more housing and more support for people like us," said Roberts, who became homeless after his mother died and he lost his job and apartment. But he realizes not everyone is so fortunate. Soon after setting up camp, Roberts was befriended by a man from a local church who helped him find a job in Scarborough, where he plans to move. "This is the first place I thought of because I grew up in this neighborhood," he said. He set up a tent with two inflatable mattresses on the edge of the Western Promenade overlooking the woods and nearby cemetery. ![]() When he found himself homeless in Portland about a month ago, Donald Roberts knew where he would go. ![]()
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