Homelessness Activists Trying to March Springwater Corridor Campers Into Mayor Charlie Hales' Neighborhood

Some activists want to create a new camp. Others want to stay and fight.

In the wake of an eviction notice from Mayor Charlie Hales, hundreds of homeless people camping along the Springwater Corridor bike trail in East Portland are trying to figure out where to go.

Some organizers are looking for a new campsite. As first reported by The Portland Mercury on Saturday, the activist group Boots on the Ground is trying to open an "economic refugee camp" somewhere in the city.

Other activists want to stay and fight the police for control of the largest homeless camp in the Pacific Northwest.

Advocacy group Portland Tenants United released a list of demands to Hales this morning—including that he cancel the sweep—and indicated that some campers won't budge.

"At last night's meeting," says Portland Tenants United spokesman Gabriel Erbs, "the Springwater Corridor residents voted not to release specific plans to the media or general public about the scale of their resistance against the sweeps."

Recent mayoral candidate Jessie Sponberg is planning a third option: moving the camps to Hales' neighborhood.

This morning, Sponberg announced an "economic refugee exodus" this Thursday from the Springwater Corridor to parks in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, where both Hales and Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury reside.

"No one wants to have this fight on their front lawn. The city is turning people's homes into battleground," Sponberg said of the sweep. "Let's take it to the mayor's front lawn."

Sponberg's rhetoric recalls his efforts in 2013 to occupy the city's open-air reservoirs on Mount Tabor in protest of the city constructing new underground tanks. That protest went on for several days and was largely without incident, but did not change the city policy.

Sponberg hopes that 100 people will participate in the exodus, though he knows that many people will want to stay behind at Springwater until the sweep.

Sponberg isn't sure if the Eastmoreland location would be a temporary or permanent location for a camp—he says it's up to Hales. "We can turn it into a permanent solution," said Sponberg. "It's a beautiful park where people can access resources. It's a perfect site for that unless the mayor finds something else."

Hales spokesman Brian Worley says the mayor is not yet offering comment on Sponberg's planned exodus.

"If a camp was to spring up in Eastmoreland neighborhood, it would be dealt with in the same way as one in any other neighborhood," says Worley. "We're certainly working very hard to find shelter for people leaving Springwater. We're prioritizing some of the most vulnerable people."

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