Skip to main content
Mayor Charlie Hales made his plans official this morning: The city will start sweeping as many as 500 homeless people from East Portland's Springwater Corridor bike trail on Aug. 1.
WW reported on Thursday that Hales was preparing to clear out the nature area and bike trail, after a shooting on the trail last week.
But the mayor's official announcement expands the scope of the sweep, and bars campers from returning.
Hales announced Friday that the sweep will include the entire stretch of trail in East Portland, which has drawn the fury of neighbors as it grew over the past year, becoming one of the largest homeless encampments in the nation.
"We have resisted removing campers from the area because we don't yet have good options for all the people living there," Hales said in a statement issued today. "But public safety and environmental issues have reached a tipping point."
The mayor's office, citing police estimates, says "several hundred people" will be displaced.
It's unclear where they will go.
The press release notes that new homeless shelters will be opening beginning July 22 with the Hansen Building in East Portland, which will have space for 200 people.
But it fails to mention that the Peace Shelter, in the downtown owned by the Menashe Properties, will be closing the same date; that shelter has space for 267.
Full press release below:
Willamette Week