City Council banned camping outside of the Library and City Hall last month, limiting overnight stays to the lawn of the Tigard Public Works building.
The Library had been the city’s most populated sanctioned camping space.
The change, part of a planned revision to the Time, Place, and Manner regulations that govern overnight camping, came after a series of complaints and reported incidents around the Library earlier this summer.
During a July 23 emergency hearing, City Council members voted unanimously to tighten restrictions, eliminating the grassy areas around the Library and City Hall, and leaving campers with only the Public Works building lawn along Southwest Hall Boulevard.
“Some of those behaviors we’ve been seeing at the library we believe pose a significant risk to children and families who are using the library services, so we’ve recommended several changes (to the regulations),” said Kim Ezell, a strategic initiatives program manager who authored the initiative.
The library spot was popular for its easy access to amenities like bathrooms, water, air-conditioning (or heat, depending on the season), and electricity to charge electronics. Still, the activity around the camp had become untenable.
“(There) was just a sharp increase in visible drug use,” Ezell said in an interview. “A lot of folks were camping and were visibly using drugs directly outside of the children’s room and teens’ room.”
The city had also received complaints from community members who said that trash around the camps, drug use, and overgrown grass left them afraid to use the adjacent path.
Finding a solution has been a balancing act.
“These are human lives. We’re just trying to move forward thoughtfully with respect for people’s personhood and with compassion, and only responding again to behaviors that we see rather than fears in the community,” Ezell said.
She estimates there were about 10 campsites at the Library before the site was closed. About half a dozen of those initially relocated to the Public Works building. Less than two weeks later, Ralph Burton and Larry Lewis said they were the only campers left at public works.
Burton, who has been unhoused for about a year, said the changes have been difficult.
“One of the hardest things about this has been trying to follow the rules, but they keep changing the rules,” he said.
The Army veteran, who characterized himself as just passing through Tigard, isn’t currently interested in permanent housing but says he has access to services through the Veteran’s Administration.
He and Lewis, who has been without a house for about three years, help each other by watching each other’s belongings during the day. Camps must be broken down and removed from city property by 9 a.m., leaving campers nowhere to store their things.
Lewis is working with the non-profit outreach organization Just Compassion and is currently on a waiting list for a shelter bed or permanent housing. He’s been homeless for about three years since his mother sold his childhood home in Aurora to cover medical bills.
At the time, she was undergoing treatment for Cancer, and he was helping her. His mother has since passed, and with the house gone, Lewis had nowhere to go.
Tigard’s original Time, Place, and Manner ordinance, passed in June 2023 to comply with Oregon law, allowed camping between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m. on all city property, including the green space around the Library, City Hall, and the Tigard Public Works building, and most sidewalks, but not in parks or parking lots.
The ordinance, which replaced a city-wide camping ban, was among the most flexible in the area, offering multiple options for overnight stays while neighboring cities limited camping to small, designated spaces.
Built into the initial language was a requirement that the Council revisit the ordinance every six months for review.
“We recognized that we didn’t know what we didn’t know and that we were going to need to make significant changes along the way. Other cities in Oregon have continued to do that,” Ezell said. “When we made those decisions a year ago, based on the information we had, we allowed camping at all three city properties.”
She says the city worked closely with Just Compassion to communicate the changes.
“We recognize this is a significant change for those that have been using the location of the library to camp at night,” said Police Chief Jamey McDonald ahead of the move. “We’re going to work with community providers to let people know that there is a location available at Public Works that is already available. We have a restroom and trash facility and plan to bolster that with additional trash facilities.”
City Council denied a request from Just Compassion’s Michael Austin to extend library camping from the July 29 end date until Aug. 9 to create more time for moving, citing the need to restore the space immediately for the wider community.
Mayor Heidi Lueb and all the council members acknowledge the difficulties of finding a solution that works for the whole community, housed and unhoused.
“I want to center the fact that this is a really challenging conversation that we are trying to find our way through, along with other cities, and I appreciate the city team really understanding the challenges have escalated recently,” Lueb said.
Council President Yi-Kang Hu responded to a comment calling the ordinance a “liberal camping law” and “embarrassment” by applauding Tigard’s compassion.
“Houselesness is not a liberal or conservative issue; it’s a human issue. We’re dealing with real humans here,” he said. “We purposefully chose the Library because my understanding is it provides services to those who are the most vulnerable of our population. It offered privacy, which some of our people really need, so I’m not embarrassed that our city picked the Library as a location. I’m proud that we have a compassionate society. These are real human problems.”
The city is slated to review and revise the ordinance again in January 2025. Lueb acknowledged the nature of the law as a work in progress by inviting city officials to come forward with feedback and requests at any point.
Meanwhile, the city is set to roll-out a Safe Parking program in the City Hall parking lot this fall.
The program, modeled after a similar program in Beaverton, will provide space for up to three houseless families to live in their cars while working with a case manager to find permanent housing.
“This program is about getting folks a safe place to sleep at night, which will hopefully help them have the bandwidth to work on the other things in their lives that they need to address in order to move into stable housing,” Ezell said.
Participants can enroll through Just Compassion after passing a background check. The city is creating a community feedback survey to review before the program launches.
“We don’t have a (start) date yet,” Ezell said. “The next step is we’re going to be releasing the good neighbor guidelines and code of conduct (this month), and inviting community members to read those, look over them, and let us know what’s missing. What they like, what they don’t like, what we can do better.”
