WORK IN PROGRESS

Housed

An ongoing project exploring the sweeping of unhoused neighbors from plot to plot along the Springwater Corridor trail in Portland, Oregon.

The Springwater Coridoor trail and adjoining pathways circumnavigate Portland’s eastside. The paved pathway was built for walkers, bikers, and rollers of all kinds to travel car free around the city. It has a contentious reputation however, as the paths provide alcoves and brush for unhoused folx to set up camp. Concerned, housed residents along the path, as well as path users report the activity and the city employs their contracted Rapid Response Bio-Clean to sweep these camps when they’ve caused housed people problems. A sweep begins with an eviction notice, notifying campers that their camp will be roved between 72 hours to 10 days of posting. When Rapid Response does come, they displace residents, remove debris, and take any belongings to city storage. A sweep may clear part of the corridor trail for a few days, but campers quickly refill the area in a day or two.

These sweeps are ineffective, and serve to harm campers who are already in vulnerable situations, uprooting the space they’re using as home, and taking their belongings as well.

The sweeps do offer an opportunity for the city to refer campers to services like shelters. The city keeps diligent statistics on this. In the summer of 2023, the city has been averaging around 100 camp sweeps weekly, referring about 50 people to shelters, with only a handful of campers taking the city up on the offer.

Advocates for the unhoused explain how these services are the wrong fit for these marginalized folx. In social justice circles there’s a concept of “mutal-aid, not charity,” in which volunteers and advocates ask these people need, and seek to provide them those things, fulfilled by the interconnected resources they have built and developed from the gap that the city and normal channels have left. In this way, unhoused folx get what they need, rather than what the city thinks they need.

Housed as a project is still in the research and exploration phase. It seeks to develop a deeper understanding of what is happening in this area, and go beyond just 24 hour news cycle headlines related to the unhoused. This area is rich with stories to be told.

As a basis, there is the glaring irony of the housed lining the trail - The housed are the ones who want the unhoused swept, and yet the trail consists of lush forest, unused buildings, water sources, and empty buildings.

What if the gaze is subverted, and we look instead at what it means to be housed?