On a cold April day, a Portland police officer gave Renee Crisp a choice: Go to jail or talk to a city outreach worker about moving into housing.

It was the second time in three months that Crisp, 40, had watched city contractors stuff her tent, blankets, clothes and other belongings into trash bags as they told her she couldn’t camp on a public sidewalk.

Crisp chose to avoid jail and speak with an outreach worker. She said that person took her to a downtown Portland day shelter, where she was only allowed to stay for three hours.

“And then I was back out on the street,” Crisp said, speaking to OPB on a sidewalk in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood in October, waiting in line for lunch at Blanchet House. “I had nowhere to sleep. I had no plan.”

That wasn’t the outcome Portland’s leaders had in mind when they first adopted the public camping ban in 2024.

The ban issues criminal citations that threaten violators with seven days in jail or a $100 fine unless they agree to move into a shelter. The idea was to use the citation to encourage people to accept a path out of homelessness, and ultimately reduce the number of Portlanders living outside.

A year into enforcement, Portland’s camping ban has led to zero convictions. But it has led to dozens of people facing repeated criminal charges, missed court dates and jail time. The city says the threat of prosecution is helping move people into shelter. Public defenders and homeless advocates question whether the policy is offering a true path out of homelessness – or creating a new set of obstacles.

Mayor Keith Wilson, who’s made ending homelessness his office’s priority, says that public perception tells him the ban is working.

“Just two years ago, 50% of Portland voters said homelessness was their top concern,” Wilson wrote in an email to OPB, referencing a recent Oregonian/OregonLive poll. “Now, that number is 14%.”

Meanwhile, the city is removing roughly the same number of homeless camps monthly as it did when the ban began – and the overall number of unsheltered Portlanders has grown.

The city says that hundreds of people have accepted shelter in lieu of criminal charges. That includes Crisp, who’s back sleeping on the sidewalk, just with fewer belongings.

“Now what?” Crisp asked about her housing situation. It’s a question that the first year of enforcement data can’t answer.

How Portland got here

Portland’s camping ban was years in the making.

In 2018, a federal appeals court ruling barred the city from penalizing people for sleeping outside if no shelter is available. And for years, Portland didn’t have enough beds indoors to meet the needs of people living outdoors. But, as the homelessness crisis ballooned in the early 2020s and encampments spread across Portland, city leaders like then-mayor Ted Wheeler looked for other ways to crack down.

A state law enshrined the appeals court ruling in 2023, while allowing cities to regulate public camping if their restrictions were “objectively reasonable.” Wheeler tried to enact a camping ban that year, but it was thwarted by a lawsuit accusing its time-based restrictions of being unreasonable.

The city regrouped. In 2024, it returned with a new policy prohibiting people from camping in public if “reasonable shelter” is available. When shelter is unavailable, the policy limits what people can do while camping outside.

The availability of shelter beds became a driving force behind incoming mayor Wilson’s push to open new shelter beds after entering office in 2025.

The ban went into effect Nov. 1 that year.

How it works

Hank Smith, director of Portland Solutions, the city office focused on addressing unsheltered homelessness, calls the new citation a “game changer” for his outreach staff, who are the ones offering shelter to people during camp removals.

Those workers coordinate with police and campsite removal contractors to visit camps that are “uniquely impactful.” That can mean a number of things, like reports of criminal activity, hazardous waste or other public safety concerns. Upon their arrival, people at the camp are told about the new criminal charge and asked whether they’ll accept shelter.

“That moment is a moment of accountability,” said Smith. “This is one of our most helpful interventions to get people to come inside.”

City data shows that more than 600 people have agreed to move into shelter in lieu of a citation. It’s not clear how many of those were hourslong stays, like Crisps’, or more long-term as a stepping stone into housing. Smith said they don’t currently have the software set up to track how many of those people may return to homelessness, and much of the impact is measured with anecdotal data.

About 1,000 people have declined shelter during a camp removal this past year, the city says.

Police reports show people have declined shelter because they didn’t want to leave their pets or belongings behind. Others say they’ve had bad experiences in shelters. A few people accepted help, but never arrived at the shelter.

Declining shelter isn’t an automatic criminal charge. Police often issue several warnings before citing people.

Based on court records, police have issued 120 citations and charged 58 people in the ban’s first year – meaning dozens of people have been charged more than once.

No one has been convicted. About two-thirds of those cited have had their charges dismissed, records show. Reasons include a lack of public defenders available to represent them, prosecutors’ inability to provide witnesses or people agreeing to meet with a city outreach worker at the courthouse as a last-ditch effort to avoid conviction.

Those meetings give people a second chance to accept placement in a shelter.

“If they meet with us, that can often be the end of their case,” Smith said. “It’s a path out.”

An imperfect system?

But for some people, this path may lead nowhere.

People often have their cases dismissed after speaking with an outreach worker at the courthouse before they are assigned a public defender, a position in short supply in Multnomah County. According to Stacey Reding, executive director of public defense firm Multnomah Defenders, Inc., this practice subverts a person’s constitutional rights.

“No one should be charged and not get an attorney,” said Reding.

She added that, even if a judge dismisses someone’s case at that first appearance, the charge remains on their criminal record.

“This process is still criminalizing homelessness,” Reding said.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on its role in the process.

People whose cases haven’t been dismissed are stuck in a different kind of legal limbo. According to court data, most of them didn’t show up to their initial court hearing, resulting in a warrant being filed for their arrest.

In October, OPB spoke with a woman living outside in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood who said she was unaware of any criminal charges related to public camping. Court records OPB reviewed after the interview showed that the woman had been cited twice for violating the ban and had missed two court dates. A warrant had been issued for her arrest.

OPB is not naming the woman because she isn’t aware of her criminal charges.

Charitie Johnson, a peer support specialist with a nonprofit called Peer 2 Peer Portland, said that many people she works with aren’t aware of when — or if — they have a court date.

“They have too many other immediate needs going on,” said Johnson, whose work entails connecting people living outside with resources. “They need to find a meal, a safe place to sleep or medical care.”

If a person has a warrant attached to their name, they’ll be taken to jail. According to the court documents, at least seven people have been jailed for missing a court date. After being released, at least half of those people were then charged again for violating the camping ban.

“And now they have a criminal record, which makes it harder to get into a shelter, let alone housing,” said Reding. “If this policy is supposed to end homelessness, I don’t think it’s working.”

Working for some

Police say the new citation is improving public safety.

“The purpose never was to convict people for being homeless,” said Aaron Schmautz, president of the Portland Police Association, a union representing rank-and-file officers. “The intent was to give law enforcement a tool to solve unsolvable problems.”

Schmautz said that the citation can be used to investigate “problematic” people living in camps, who may already be on officers’ radar for other allegations, like drug dealing or domestic abuse.

Court records show several people cited under the camping ban this past year had prior felony charges addressed in court after they were picked up for camping.

“Having enforcement tools to overcome significant community concerns is a part of creating public safety,” Schmautz said.

The Portland Police Bureau was more cautious with its analysis of the program thus far.

“While it’s not PPB’s role to determine whether this initiative is or isn’t resolving the issue of chronic offenders,” said PPB spokesperson Mike Benner, “we recognize that for individuals who are genuinely interested in accessing shelter, services, and support, the coordinated efforts of PPB and our city partners are creating opportunities and producing results.”

Wilson, who entered office on a promise to end unsheltered homelessness, said that the policy is more about getting vulnerable people off the streets.

“My goal isn’t convictions,” he told OPB. “It’s care and compassion.”

The city doesn’t keep track of how many people remain in shelter or housing after accepting help through the policy, making its impact difficult to measure. Wilson said he measures success by whether fewer people are dying while living unsheltered in Portland. Multnomah County, which tracks those deaths, is expected to release its 2025 data later this year. (In 2024, the county reported the first decrease in annual homeless deaths since it began collecting this data in 2011).

Multnomah County data does show that the number of unsheltered people in the county has grown since the ban took effect.

Wilson pointed to another metric to gauge success: He said the number of tents in Portland has decreased 93% since 2022.

According to the city’s own data, the number of encampments removed monthly by city contractors has decreased 6% since the city started enforcing the ban.

Smith said he’s seen the policy help move people into shelter and housing. He’s also heard gratitude from businesses and neighbors who have said they feel helpless when it comes to connecting people camping near their property with help.

“Our goal is to find a way of balancing our responsibility to our community in a way that is fair and effective,” Smith said.

Back in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood, Crisp is thinking about where she’ll spend the night. As a woman staying on her own, finding a space outside where she feels safe enough to close her eyes can be a days’ work.

“I’m tired of this life,” Crisp said. “I’d like a change.”

Smith admits that the new camping ban — and paired outreach program — doesn’t always work to end someone’s homelessness.

“These are folks who’ve fallen through a million different cracks,” said Smith. “But we can’t give up on them. If it doesn’t work today it might work tomorrow.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/11/10/portland-camping-ban-mayor-wilson-citations-arrestes/