The city of Tigard has further honed rules allowing people to camp on designated city property by barring them from storing camping supplies on city rights-of-way, such as sidewalks.
The revision is intended to bar “camp materials” – temporary shelters, bedding and food – from impeding pedestrians’ use of the nearby sidewalks. The city has allowed people to camp on a lawn nightly from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. outside the public works building at 8777 S.W. Burham St. since mid-2023. The rules already required campers to remove belongings from the lawn by 8 a.m. each day.
Closing a loophole, the Tigard City Council passed the rule update on an emergency basis in light of complaints, some from people with disabilities, that the city says have protested camping gear along access routes to the building.
“What we’re doing here is balancing the need for safe, accessible public spaces with the reality that some of our community members do not have access to shelter,” said Yi-Kang Hu, mayor of Tigard.
Council member Jake Schlack suggested the new rule marked another tightening in the city’s years-long response to a rise in homelessness. “Sometimes the compassionate thing to do is to take tough decisions proactively,” Schlack said.
In addition, city council members said they planned to consider restoring a homeless advisory board in the wake of other, similar, past public forums.
City officials emphasized police had stepped up general morning enforcement to make sure campers clean up their belongings, and city representatives had alerted campers about the prospective new rule.
City Attorney Shelby Rihala said camping in and of itself does not cause access problems,, and most campers keep their belongings with them. In cases where they leave their belongings on city rights-of-way, she said, police do not have the capacity to seize abandoned property for storage for 30 days, as state law requires.
The new rule allows police to cite campers with a Class 3 civil infraction or issue a citation or make an arrest for second-degree criminal trespass.
Council member Heather Robbins said that though the city invests considerable resources to ease homelessness, the issue is also “about fairness and about the fact that if you need that extra space to be able to safely move along the sidewalk, it should be there.”
Caleb Peterson, an advocate for homeless people who spoke during an April 21 council hearing, asked the council to view the issue from homeless people’s perspectives.
“What looks like clutter on the sidewalk is, for many people, everything they own,” Peterson said. “What you are usually seeing when you drive by public works during the daytime are people watching over each other’s belongings while others go out into the public to attend appointments, go to their jobs, explore hopeful opportunities or visit their families.”
Youth council member Asher Hellhake, whose vote is advisory, cast the council’s sole vote against the ordinance.
