Portland expo center homeless camp8/28/2023 ![]() ![]() Both women accompanying said they were not allowed to say who they were or what they were doing. The other stated they were looking for someone in particular. “Just doing some wellness checks,” said one officer, who didn’t stop walking. Along with two women, a pair officers then went from tent to tent, shaking each one. A red-and-white umbrella pinwheeled straight down the trail, sticking to the pavement as if it knew where it was going.Īround 10:30 a.m., as a heavy drizzle set in, three Portland police vehicles arrived at the half-mile stretch of trail between Franklin and Elm streets. Smashed tents, their poles sticking out like starfish legs, rolled like tumbleweeds. Monday, following the storm, the trail was littered with garbage, shoes, books, tarps, canned food, orange peels, bicycles, underwear, human feces, what looked like a pink unicorn costume and thousands of needles. City officials say the camp, which has been growing since last fall, must go but admit the city is out of shelter space. Tents, soaked personal items, trash and tarps are strewn among a homeless encampment behind Trader Joe’s in Portland on Monday morning. Several homeless agencies provide a steady stream of tents and other rough-sleeping gear for those staying there. The trail is largely hidden by buildings and mounded, grassy verges meant to make it feel like a secluded urban oasis, which is likely why it’s become a popular place to camp. City officials have long courted developers interested in the vacant land, which formerly housed scrap yards and a stove foundry, but nothing has materialized. It’s sandwiched between the backside of Marginal Way businesses, a strip of undeveloped, former industrial land, and Somerset Street. “My brother’s been living in a motel in Scarborough, but he’s about to get kicked out.”īayside Trail is a paved urban walking path along a former railroad right-of-way. “Like a lot of people down here, things just kind of snowballed,” Cavallaro said. “I grew up on Myrtle and Oxford streets.”īut after a stint in the Army, his parents’ death and a few bad breaks, he found himself without a permanent home, camping along the Bayside Trail with dozens of others. This is all I got,” Cavallaro said, pointing to his scant outfit. “Hey Brucie,” called a voice from a nearby small green tent. Cavallaro’s tent lay in a crumpled heap, destroyed by the wind. ![]() Everything he owned - some clothes, sleeping bags, a little food - was sopping wet. Shivering in the damp cold, wrapped in a blanket and wearing just a pair of shorts and hoodie, Cavallaro looked through his belongings. ![]() With the encampment’s future in doubt and seemingly far from decided, campers along the trail continued to go about the business of surviving Monday after the storm. The campsite is behind Bayside’s last scrap yard and within view of both Whole Foods Market and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. A man emerges from a tent as another man fights gusty winds while trying to set up a dry shelter along Portland’s Bayside Trail on Monday. On Tuesday, officials are hosting an emergency meeting to discuss the situation and try to decide what to do next. That includes Portland’s brand new $24 million homeless services center on Riverside Street and the emergency shelter at the Expo. But so far, it’s held off doing so, acknowledging that every one of its 650 shelter beds are already occupied. ![]()
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