The homelessness crisis in Portland, Oregon, has completely changed the everyday lives of residents due to drug use and crime in the city.
Mayor Keith Wilson has enforced his camping ban through encampment sweeps, which occur when tents block sidewalks, the entrances/exits of buildings, are set up near a school or playground, or when there is visible drug use or an outbreak of violence.
People who oppose the sweeps have argued that they are inhumane and that the city is just moving people from one side of the street to the other.
“Sweeps are expensive, they are cruel, and they’re ineffective, and we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this approach,” said City Councilwoman Angelita Morillo, who attempted to defund the sweeps in November. “People are losing their medication. People are displaced from resources and from connections. They often overdose because they are pushed from corner to corner. People are dying because of our sweeps.”
Wilson, who spoke during a three-hour public testimony to decide the fate of the sweeps, said Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit organization, accompanies the city during encampment cleanups. The organization ensures that medications are not thrown away, and it offers people beds and resources to treat drug addiction.
Urban Alchemy told the Washington Examiner that one of the biggest hurdles in getting people to accept housing and get off the street is convincing them to get clean.
“You do not have to be sober to enter. Our hope is by the time you leave, you are,” said Steven Arnold, a peer support specialist for Do Good Multnomah. “They are not allowed to use here; we don’t pass out needles. What we are doing is, ‘Hey, the next time you think about that, come grab one of us, we’ll sit down, we’ll have a conversation.’ That conversation leads to sobriety.”
The Washington Examiner spoke to several businesses and community members who believe that, while things might be improving, crime in the city has become out of control. Data show that Portland is improving. Crime dropped 17% year-over-year through June 2025, with a 11% decrease in property crimes specifically. Homicides saw a drop of nearly 40%, with 34 reported homicides in 2025 compared to 56 reported in 2024.
But better does not necessarily mean good. The reported aggregated assault rate dropped 0.17% from 115,378 offenses reported in January-November 2025, compared to 115,582 reported during the same period in 2024. Portland remains the second-highest city in the total crime rate per 100,000 residents, behind only Memphis, Tennessee. The city ranks 214% higher than the national average for property crime. The Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood, as well as the Southeast Portland neighborhoods of Lents & Hazelwood, see the highest rates of crime.
“With the tents and the garbage and the feces that [the homeless encampments] give rise to, the sidewalks are often impassable,” said Sheila, an 80-year-old resident of Old Town. “Because of the blocked sidewalks, we are often forced to walk in traffic lanes. Old people dodging cars is not a game we ever wanted to play.”
A few blocks west is the Old Town location of Urban Alchemy. The organization works with the city to find placement for people during sweeps. The area offers an outdoor sanctuary where people can shower, eat, charge their phones, and wash their clothes. But Allan Classen, who has lived in Portland since the 1980s, said that while these resources are necessary, they have unfortunate consequences for those living in close proximity.
“It creates its own cultural atmosphere,” said Classen, the editor and publisher of the Northwest Examiner. “Serious criminal activity goes on. From the drugs, prostitution, if you create a chaos zone, it’s very hard for it to be policed. There can be no positive social pressure because normal citizens won’t go near it.”
A mile down the road is where Friends of Couch Park gathers for its Friday morning coffee meetup. Leaders said the homeless encampment sweeps have improved their area of the city. Kara Shane Colley, the president of Friends of Couch Park, said the group started when a man living in an encampment that took over the east side of the park began threatening people with a machete. She and others worked with the city and parks department to enforce the camping ban in the park, which is also adjacent to a school, the Metropolitan Learning Center.
“I always try to emphasize that as Friends of Couch Park we can hold complex thoughts in our heads,” said Colley, a mother of two who moved to Portland in 2007. “What I mean by that is, I have compassion for the homeless. I have compassion for people with substance use disorder. At the same time, there is no smoking in this park. There’s no smoking cigarettes, and there’s no smoking fentanyl. I have no sympathy if you’re in this park smoking because this is a school, there should absolutely be no drugs.”
Max Steele, the treasurer of Friends of Couch Park, said he joined the group because he owns a gym nearby and wanted to make the neighborhood safer for people walking to his business.
“I train people of all ages, but I train kids,” said Steele, the owner of Kanabo Fitness. “One of the reasons I joined this group initially was it’s a tall ask to tell parents, like, ‘Hey, have your teenager walk past the scary Machete Park and come train!’ But that’s not something I want to ever do. I want to say, ‘I’m just past that really awesome park that you go to all the time.’”
He added that Wilson’s enforcement of the camping ban is important to the safety of the park, but more needs to be done.
“I kind of refer to it like a raft that has a small leak,” Steele said. “Right now, these rules are like the thumb on the leak, but somebody needs to come along and start patching it.”
Steele said he wishes Gov. Tina Kotek (D-OR) would accept President Donald Trump’s attempts to send in the National Guard.
ORGANIZATIONS HELPING THE HOMELESS IN PORTLAND THROUGH TRUST AND DIGNITY
“The National Guard are our neighbors, they were probably gonna, like, sweep up trash and be really, really boring,” Steele said. “If Donald Trump orders them to stand on a street corner in tutus and dance, they’re absolutely going to do it, because that’s not an unconstitutional order. If he asks them to fire tear gas canisters at old ladies, they’re not gonna do it. They are not just our neighbors, they’re usually the best of us.”
In November, a federal judge blocked Trump from deploying the National Guard to Portland. The 9th Circuit agreed to hear an appeal by the Trump administration as Kotek continues to beg Trump to send the Oregon troops home.