Tigard City Council has a goal of reducing homelessness by 2025. Their strategy focuses on adding shelter capacity, including a City-sanctioned car camping program called Safe Parking. Safe Parking provides those living in vehicles 120+ days of access to a parking lot with amenities, storage, and an offsite case manager.
The City’s original plan was to host this program in partnership with Just Compassion on private church parking lots, nested within residential neighborhoods, and in close proximity to preschools and places children frequent. In response to concerns about the original plan, they agreed to first host a Safe Parking pilot site at City Hall. However, these same concerns persist for potential future private residential locations.
The City says they plan to provide metrics on program effectiveness; however, after learning the details of their plan, there is pervasive concern that the data will both lack transparency as well as direct alignment to the Council’s stated goal. We urge the City and Just Compassion to collect relevant data that can be cross-referenced by the public before and after the pilot site launches. Data should reflect measurable progress toward the goal of reducing local homelessness, as well as any impact on the surrounding community. We suggest that this data should include police and non-emergency calls, reports, and arrests. It should also capture any increase in unsanctioned camping or garbage surrounding the site. Safety and livability must remain front and center as we work to support those experiencing homelessness in Tigard.
Further, taxpayer-funded homeless programs should be subject to reasonable location criteria. Programs serving at-risk populations are most appropriately located on commercial or public property. These locations mitigate risk to the community and naturally provide increased oversight. Safe Parking projects should not be co-located within mere feet of preschools, nor share a direct property line with private residences. This is a fair and reasonable request to reduce potential negative impacts to the community.
Recently, the City passed two reactionary ordinances to restrict camping. One on hardscape surfaces and another that specifically targets the public library. These new rules were passed in reaction to “instances of behaviors that are not acceptable in a space where families spend time.” Let’s learn from this recent example and thoughtfully craft proactive policy that acknowledges the unfortunate reality that 58-88% of homeless individuals experience drug addiction[1],while 40% struggle with untreated mental health conditions[2].
We can work together to reduce homelessness in Tigard without sacrificing safety and livability. We are hopeful that the Tigard City Council will answer this cooperative call to create location criteria to mitigate risk, as well as collect and share meaningful metrics on reducing local homelessness, while measuring the impact of all future homeless projects on our community.
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1 Homeless Strategies and Solutions Initiative, 12/13/2022.
2 Portland Street Medicine Point in Time Data, 2022.
