Camping bans are cruel and inhumane
Commentary by Kaia Sand
Imagine you have to carry everything you own — bedding, the food you’ve secured for the time being, your clothes. You’ve lost so much, but you still hold onto a few possessions that matter — a couple of photos, a small notebook, a grandparent’s ashes in a tiny jar — and you are terrified to lose those, too. You can only carry so much — laundry is heavy, and it’s difficult to come by washing machines. Mostly you discard clothing and start anew.
Today you signed up for a shower at the Bud Clark Commons, so you lug all your possessions with you, scooting them as your place in line inches forward. A shower is an hours-long commitment, so it’s a rarity. Mostly you try to clean with wipes, or a ‘bird bath,’ as people call it. But a shower will provide some relief, and it’s a private place to cry if tears arise.
A shower is minor healthcare, and you need so much more. Your feet are turning blue, your hands red with infection, your body itching with bugs, and your mind gripped with agony.
You already lined up at Union Gospel Mission for breakfast — your day is consumed by waiting in lines — and if you finish your shower in time, you might be able to visit Blanchet House for lunch. Because you have to carry everything, you are limited in the distance you can travel, so you map your movements by the blocks and not the miles.
You also find enough daily calories eating food that’s been discarded and eating food that’s dry — like a cup of noodles or cereal. You might find a day space where you can microwave the cup of noodles.
It sure would be easier if you weren’t bogged down by daily human needs, but you, as everyone, must eat, drink water and defecate. Mostly, your stomach hurts, and sometimes you are bent over with this pain. Sometimes you can’t access a restroom, and you soil yourself. It’s awful. When you use a red city porta-potty, you risk leaving items unwatched for a moment.
From place to place, you lug your possessions. A daytime camping ban on top of the already relentless camp sweeps makes it hard to cluster a couple of tents together to collectivize survival — sharing food, watching each other’s possessions and keeping watch to ward off danger.
Instead, according to the city, you just have to keep moving. Since even sleeping bags are banned by day, you can’t look like you have bedding if you stay still.
You are told there are some places where you can pitch a tent at night, but you have already given this up because it’s too hard to manage hauling a tent, too, and you don’t sleep at night anyway — it’s not safe. It’s clear City Council did not get guidance from unhoused people. 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. are not the safest hours to sleep, especially for people who are frequently victims of violence.
You stay awake to not succumb to violence, as well as watch for rats. You are terrified at night.
Daylight is safer. You are exhausted from merely trying to survive, and you are sleep deprived.
You use a walker for mobility, as so many others do on the streets. You can haul a few things in your walker and use it as a seat. You feel fortunate that you can still walk a bit.
Wheelchairs and walkers are ubiquitous on the streets where disabilities are common. Bodies break down. You’ve had some toes amputated from too many freezes, but you haven’t lost limbs as some have. You know some people with amputated legs and no wheelchair.
Some people attempt to build caravans off their wheelchairs, but it’s nearly impossible. You see plenty of people stationary in their wheelchairs as if that’s their only shelter. The wheels beneath their feet are like pilings into the earth; will the city deem this a shelter too?
You know people who have moved into RVs, but those get towed plenty too, and you need to find people you can trust to let you move in. The woods aren’t an option for you with your walker.
Wherever you go, you catch disdain. You are always the problem. It’s depressing, terrifying, alienating. Some people attempt to escape this feeling, but with the fentanyl that has overtaken other opiates, they are skirting close to death each day. Walking that line up to the edge of death is its own means of survival.
There are people who make decisions about what happens to you in City Hall, but there’s no way you can reach them through the metal detectors that stand between them and you — not when you have to lug all your possessions — so there’s no way to testify when they make decisions that shape your life. It’s your life, but you have so little power.
You feel a little power when you can muster anger, but it’s like you are shouting into a wind tunnel. It’s infuriating that city leaders would aim to skirt basic constitutional responsibilities. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it cruel and inhumane punishment to punish people for sleeping outside when there is not adequate shelter. You know all about the Martin v. Boise case.
Instead of doing the hard thing of leading the whole city through grappling with the scale of the humanitarian disaster, the majority of city commissioners have determined you are the problem. Some might call this gaslighting. Some might say you are the scapegoat for a rich society that discards the poor.
Instead of addressing the fact that a lack of adequate shelter — let alone good shelter — is cruel and inhumane, city leaders are seeking a work-around, the loophole, as if cruelty as policy is good enough.
Editor’s note
Portland, Oregon has until recently been a welcoming place for street dwellers, providing food, health services and emergency services for the poor. But a recent state law has led to the city council banning daytime camping in most areas of the city. This rule has been supported by many business and individual homeowners, who saw the homeless as driving away tourists, or being dangerous, respectively. The new law prevents, under penalty of fines or imprisonment, leaving any sign of an encampment during the day throughout most of Portland. The consequences are far-reaching and devastating for the former street dwellers. This article is from Street Roots, a high-quality weekly newspaper that is sold on the street by the poor and homeless, getting $1 per paper plus tips, with the most diligent and fortunate of vendors earning enough to be able to sleep indoors. The article is compiled by the editor of Street Roots from the experiences of homeless individuals. I visit my son in Portland regularly and have witnessed at close range much of what is described here, and have seen both the love and the enmity for the poor among more fortunate Portlanders. NS
Source: streetroots.org, June 8, 2023.