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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The City of Portland’s own rules prohibit camping within 150 feet of Safe Rest Villages. However, neighbors living across from the Menlo Park site claim they have been forced to put up with years of open drug use, trash, and illegal camping just steps away from the shelter — and now, they’re demanding action.
When the site opened in 2022, some landlords told KOIN 6 News they were cautiously optimistic.
At the time, Landlord Karen Alvarez said she lost a tenant at her Ash Street home due to fear of what the shelter might bring. Despite the financial loss, she said the city’s rules might help keep the neighborhood clean.
“I noticed that it did clear out for a little while,” Alvarez said. “So, I almost feel like if the streets and the sidewalks were kept clear, the village might be okay.”
But three years later, Alvarez argued the promise had been broken — leaving her new tenants to live with constant screams, sidewalks lined with needles, and vandalism.
Neighbors who asked to remain anonymous told KOIN 6 News conditions have only deteriorated.
“When we first came here, there was a trailer that came and parked right when we moved in and it set on fire,” one resident said. “There’s no excuse. They’re doing drugs out there in front of kids who don’t get a choice.”
Neighbors told KOIN 6 News their frustration is not with the shelter itself, but with the constant cycle of camping and illegal activity outside its gates.
“I brought a lady back to life the other day; I watched her flail herself onto 122nd avenue, watched a guy pull her body over to the corner,” the neighbor recalled. “By the time I got home and grabbed Narcan and ran up there, he had her laid out on a trash can with her feet in a shopping cart. What is that saying about our city?”
The City’s Impact Reduction Program, which fields requests for camp removals near shelters, told KOIN 6 News they’ve posted notices and sent cleanup crews to the area 15 times in the past two months.
“The high frequency presence of our IRP work crews in the area has kept tent camping to a very low level,” said IRP Communications Coordinator Laura Rude. “IRP can fully remove any camps where no vehicles are present, but we rely on coordination with PBOT to remove lived-in vehicles.”
Rude added, “PBOT has a significant backlog of tow projects on their schedule, and it does take longer for the City to resolve vehicle camps.”
The city said the multi-vehicle camp near the Menlo Park Safe Rest Village is scheduled to be tagged by the end of September, with a full trash removal by October 6.
In a statement, Ann McMullen, Chair of the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association, wrote:
“This should not be happening right outside the SRV – especially since [the city] just expanded the occupancy of that village to 75 people and so far, have refused to expand the so-called buffer/engagement zone to accommodate for adding more people.”
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Joelle Jones
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