Portland council holds homelessness workshop without unhoused demonstrators

The Portland City Council convened online on Monday evening and held a workshop on growing homeless encampments in the city’s Deering Oaks Park and now in front of City Hall. They did not, however, ask any of the unhoused residents currently protesting their policies to weigh in.

Now in its seventh day, the “sleep-out” in front of city hall was organized to draw attention to the growing unhoused population and need for basic services. City officials have not yet met with the demonstration’s organizers. 

“We no longer accept people making decisions without us in the room. That’s what the city council is doing. They had a workshop about homelessness having not reached out to us at all,” said Sydney Avitia-Jacques, an organizer with Maine People’s Housing Coalition, which includes low-income and unhoused Mainers and advocates.

Organizers hand out food donated by the community on Monday. | Dan Neumann, Beacon

‘You are prioritizing bureaucracy’ over lives

On Saturday, encampment organizers issued a list of demands to city officials, including decriminalizing camping out, defunding the police, establishing overdose prevention sites, allowing affected residents to take the lead in planning permanent affordable housing and extending a freeze on evictions.

City councilors acknowledged some of these demands on Monday during a special workshop on the city’s homeless encampments. They did not, however, allow public comment on either the Deering Oaks Park or City Hall encampments, instead saying that people could comment during the next council meeting, on August 3.

“We certainly don’t want to silence anyone, but we do have our council rules,” Mayor Kate Snyder said of the agenda, which didn’t allow for public comment on the encampments.

Many community members called in to the meeting to discuss the situation, including several unhoused residents staying at City Hall, where the meeting was broadcast through a public address system.

“I think you are prioritizing bureaucracy over the lives of the citizens who elected you[…] the people who are sleeping on the streets in 90 degree weather without access to air conditioning,” resident Olivia Pennington called in to say. “I don’t see how we’re going to have a conversation and a workshop on homelessness without listening to folks who are homeless, who clearly are the experts.”

Another unhoused Mainer staying at the City Hall encampment asked Snyder to speak to the people there.

“I would like to see you, Mayor,” he said. “Come out after the meeting and say a few words about how you’re going to help us.”

Councilor Pious Ali is the only member of the council who has visited the City Hall encampment so far.

Council debates whether encampments will be allowed to stay

The City Hall encampment started in response to the large number of unhoused residents gathering in Deering Oaks Park after the Preble Street Resource Center had to shut down onsite services at their facility in the Bayside neighborhood, including access to bathrooms and showers. Last week, Bangor Daily News reported that the city told social workers to “cease and desist” serving food from a new mobile soup kitchen in the park while they work out an agreement for the use of public space.

While they didn’t talk to encampment organizers on Monday, city councilors did hear extensively from city staff about safety concerns. Many of them detailed their distress over discarded syringes and human waste in the park. 

Ethan Hipple, director of parks, recreation and facilities, said Deering Oaks Park had descended into “lawlessness,” and was “not welcoming” for park visitors. “It’s pretty staggering,” he told the city council. “I counted 20 instances of human feces.”

The city’s corporation counsel, Danielle West-Chuhta, advised the council that the City Hall encampment did not have a permit for a public demonstration and could be dispersed.

Councilor Spencer Thibodeau expressed a desire to disperse the people in the encampments, though not with police. He said he supported encouraging unhoused residents to access services “where we are offering them.” They should “move on” from the two encampments, he said.

Councilor Belinda Ray said she did not support legalizing camping out, as organizers have demanded. “I don’t think that’s a good way to go,” she said. She did say she supported finding an alternate facility in the city to house people now at those sites.

“Encampments are not a good long-term solution,” Snyder said.

‘I don’t want to use the word volunteer. We’re here with people in solidarity’

Stalls have been erected at the city hall encampment to distribute donated clothes. | Dan Neumann, Beacon

Activity has increased each day since unhoused residents and allies first set up camp in the plaza in front of city hall on June 22. About 15 people occupied the plaza on the first night. Now, more than a dozen camping tents have been erected on the steps. Makeshift stations for food and water, first aid, clothing, supplies, phone charging and hand-washing have been set up and manned around the clock by supporters.

The organizers have already raised over $27,000 for mobile showers and other basic services through a GoFundMe created on July 13.

In response to unmet basic needs, organizers say that they have established a horizontal, non-hierarchical mutual aid system similar to ones developed in Zuccotti Park in New York City in 2011 and other cities across the country during the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Encampment protests have sprung up in multiple cities following the George Floyd protests, many of them occupying city halls. Several encampments have already been dispersed by police.

In Portland, organizers say the relationship-building and political participation happening in the encampment is an essential part of understanding and ultimately designing durable solutions to homelessness. They believe participation is increasing in response to the city government’s inaction. 

“The reason that we have more folks camping out, joining us every single day is because of the fact that we’re here at city hall, providing some basic human rights to people, reminding everyone what the city is not doing,” Avitia-Jacques said.

On Monday, CNBC reported on an analysis that found that 40 percent of renters across the country are at a risk of eviction. In Maine, with courts slated to resume eviction hearings on Aug. 3, the same analysis found that 35 percent of renters face eviction. 

Avitia-Jacques said that many Portland renters have joined the ongoing action and contributed to the mutual aid projects. 

“I don’t want to use the word ‘volunteer,’ actually,” they said. “That’s how some other media have reported on it. It’s like these privileged volunteers are coming to make sure people don’t get dehydrated.” 

“We’re here with people in solidarity,” they continued. “A lot of us have experience with housing insecurity or homelessness. We know that the only difference between ourselves and unhoused people is money. It’s not behavior. It’s not personality. It’s not work ethic.”

City says spots available at shelters

Monday’s narrowly-focused city council workshop on homelessness did not address the root causes and systemic failures that led to the crisis. Jennings commended the city council for their efforts to build affordable housing in Portland and thanked city staff for managing the city’s shelters throughout the pandemic. Portland Health and Human Services Director Kristen Dow said that many people staying in Deering Oaks Park are in fact housed. She noted that beds are still available at the city’s Oxford Street Shelter and the Portland Expo Center. 

Dow could not answer Councilor Jill Duson’s question Monday about why there are a large number of people camping out if beds are still available. She suggested that the warm weather might be a factor. 

Avitia-Jacques said this shows that the city has failed to comprehend the problems in its shelter system.

“People are not going to shelters for a reason,” they said. “It’s because shelters re-traumatize people. It’s not a safe place for everybody to get on their feet and to thrive.”

“The city shelter issues CTOs [criminal trespass orders] and cuts people off from basic human rights for having a bad day,” they said. “Do we really believe as a city that people have the basic human right to food, water, a bathroom? If so, it’s really clear what we’re doing is wrong because we’re taking that away from people when they exhibit what they call bad behavior, which is really infantilizing.”

“People are never going to ‘service’ their way out of oppression,” Avitia-Jacques explained. “Getting out of oppression is about having agency and dignity and making decisions over your own life. When we have institutions that are investing a lot of money into giving people the bare minimum — not even that, as we see with the people camped out here — we are not giving people the opportunity to lift themselves out of oppression.”

Top photo: The encampment at Portland City Hall on Monday. | Dan Neumann, Beacon