PORTLAND, Oregon — Portland police will begin enforcing the city's daytime unsanctioned camping ban on Nov. 13, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced at a news conference Monday. The city council passed the ordinance back in June, but held off on enforcement in order to give the city more time to create sanctioned camping spaces and focus on a public education campaign.
The news conference serves as a two-week warning before the start of enforcement, Wheeler said. After that, violators will receive two written warnings and could then be subject to citation or arrest if they continue to camp in unsanctioned areas.
Enforcement won't be universal to start with, according to Wheeler and Portland Police Chief Bob Day. Enforcement efforts will be done in coordination with street services, Wheeler said, and police will prioritize areas of the city that have been the most problematic. Day added that enforcement would likely be mostly complaint-driven to begin with.
Wheeler also urged Portland residents to call 311 rather than 911 to report unsanctioned camping unless there's an emergency or life safety issue.
Day said the Portland Police Bureau's operations branch has been preparing to begin enforcement, although he said the bureau is still working on developing processes for how to track the written warning notices and how to evaluate the availability of shelter or sanctioned campsite space before issuing citations.
The mayor has described the daytime camping ban as a step toward the goal of ultimately banning all unsanctioned camping throughout the city, but he stressed that a full ban would need to be paired with a sufficient amount of shelter beds or sanctioned camping sites to accommodate all of the city's homeless residents.
He touted the city's progress in that regard, pointing to the opening of the first of six planned mass sanctioned campsites in Southeast Portland earlier this year and the announcement of a location for the second site last week.
Day separately announced that PPB will operate a temporary walking patrol initiative downtown and on the inner east side during the holiday season, starting in about two weeks and continuing through the beginning of January, with the goal of making police more visibly present and engaged with the community in the downtown core.
"If they have to engage in enforcement, that's acceptable, but that's not the mission," he said.
The on-foot patrol teams will include staff from across the bureau, he said, including himself and other PPB leaders. He said he'd be open to the idea of extending the initiative past the holiday season, but added that foot patrols require a lot of police staff time while only covering a very small area, so the limited duration is about balancing available resources.