Efforts by several Portland City Councilors to stop sweeps of homeless camps failed Wednesday, Nov. 12 after a blistering debate exposing the animosity between mainstream liberal councilors and councilors further to the left who coin themselves the Peacocks, which stands for “Progressive Caucus.”
The debate raged at a meeting over proposed staff budget adjustments that the council routinely discusses as revenue projections change. The usually quiet hearings balance the budget by tweaking various fund balances. But this year resulted in a tense, packed, hours-long dispute preceded by emergency neighborhood meetings and protests outside City Hall. At least 200 people attended the hearing.
Instead of simply rebalancing the budget, Councilor Angelita Morillo introduced an amendment that would cut $4.3 million from the Impact Reduction Program (IPR) responsible for cleaning up homeless camps. Morillo’s action would undermine the sweeps that Mayor Keith Wilson resumed in November.
Wilson authorized the sweeps after deciding that the city has opened enough additional overnight shelters so that everyone who is displaced has somewhere to go. Morillo, who represents District 3 in Southeast Portland, made no bones that her amendment would “reduce the number of sweeps that are happening.”
The amendment also would have cut funding from Prosper Portland and Portland Parks & Recreation. The combined reductions would provide funds to create more housing and feed people, the amendment stated.
Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Councilor Dan Ryan, of District 2, opposed the measure. “Councilor Morillo’s budget amendment would be devastating for every neighborhood and every storefront trying to rebuild and revitalize our economy,” Ryan said on social media. “We cannot back-peddle to 2021 when our national reputation took a nosedive due to intolerable conditions on our sidewalks,” he added.
Other councilors opposing the amendment were Olivia Clark and Eric Zimmerman of District 4 covering southwest and northwest Portland, Loretta Smith from District 4 in outer southeast and Steve Novick from District 3.
The amendment failed to get a majority of seven votes as only four councilors joined Morillo in voting for it, Mitch Green from District 4, Jamie Dunphy from District 1, Sameer Kanal from District 2 and Tiffany Koyama Lane from District 3.
Once it became clear that the measure would fail, Clark, Ryan and Candace Avalos from District 1 all left the council meeting and did not officially vote.
Kanal disagreed with Wilson’s claim that the city has now created enough additional homeless shelter beds to accommodate everyone displaced by camp sweeps. “There are 7,500 homeless people here and 1,500 beds, and that is the most important data set of all,” Kanal said.
The council will vote on the full staff budget recommendations on Nov. 19.
Amendment cuts spur emergency neighborhood meetings
In a surprise development, Morillo’s proposed amendment cuts also alarmed the Northwest District Association, the city-recognized neighborhood office servicing Northwest Portland. Although it had initially opposed Wilson’s plan to open a 100-bed overnight shelter for homeless women in the Pearl District, the organization changed its mind after seeing that the shelter was well-managed and did not increase the houseless problem in the area.
During an emergency meeting held the night before the city council hearing, NWDA President, Todd Zarnitz called the proposed amendment an effort to “kneecap a program to keep our neighborhood safe and get people off the street.”
The debacle reignited criticism that the 12-member council that took office in January cannot follow its own rules. The contentious hearing happened just months after the council unanimously approved funding the additional overnight shelters in June. Pirtle-Guiney complained of Morillo’s proposed major changes to the budget that took effect on July 1 instead of the relatively minor revisions the previous five-member council had always considered.
In a newsletter released on the morning of the hearing, Pirtle-Guiney said the amendment had not gone through the full public review process. Because of Veterans Day, there was only one working day after it was introduced before the hearing.
“Portlanders deserve a government that takes the time to get it right, not one that makes sweeping changes on short notice. I’m willing to work with any of my colleagues on their concerns, but we have to do it with integrity,” Pirtle-Guiney wrote.
Houseless crisis heats up
The hearing took place as controversy is increasing over the region’s current efforts to reduce houselessness.
A report on the federally mandated point in time count prepared by Portland State University, said there were12,034 houseless people on Jan. 22, 2025, compared to 7,483 on Jan. 22, 2023. The number of houseless people in Multnomah County, including Portland, has increased from approximately 6,300 to approximately 10,526.
The most recent official houseless count released on Nov. 4 said that it has increased in the Portland area by 61% between 2023 and 2025. The greatest increase was in Multnomah County at 67%, followed by Clackamas County at 22% and Washington County at 22%.
Part of the increase is the result of better counting and closer coordination by the three counties. However, numbers show that more people are becoming houseless in the Portland area every month than those that are being housed.
“The January 2025 snapshot data confirms what we have seen on our streets: homelessness in Portland is an emergency that requires an urgent, coordinated response,” Wilson said of the report.
The increase happened despite the fact that regional spending on homeless services has jumped significantly in recent years, largely due to the 10-year Supportive Housing Services tax measure approved by Metro voters in May 2020. Total spending topped $724 million in the 2024 fiscal year, a 36% increase from the previous year. Funds came from various sources, including the regional Supportive Housing Services tax (43%), federal dollars (21%), Multnomah County (10%), and the City of Portland (9%).
The increase in houselessness despite the additional spending is prompting a reevaluation of the so-called Housing First strategy that has long been embraced by most elected officials and social service providers in the region. As first reported by the Northwest Examiner, Andy Mendenhall, executive director of Central City Council, has changed his mind about providing housing without first requiring addiction treatment and sobriety.
Mendenhall co-authored a 27-page white paper titled “Exploring a New Approach to Housing” that was released on Sept. 10. It acknowledges that the Housing First model has not met its goal of moving homeless people into independent living, while introducing unsustainable burdens on the housing agencies attempting to practice it as well as on the wider community.
Mendenhall shared his finding with other social service providers, including the executive directors of Union Gospel Mission (Matt Stein), Portland Rescue Mission (Erin Holcomb), Blanchet House (Scott Kerman) and CityTeams (Lance Orton). According to the Northwest Examiner, some of them agreed.
“Far too often…people are placed into apartments or supportive housing units while still deep in addiction or untreated mental illness. When that happens, they are not being set up to succeed. They are being set up for relapse, eviction and another turn back to the streets,” Orton told the newspaper.
Mendenhall then spoke at a Nov. 5 forum on houselessness that was covered by the Northwest Examiner.
“The message that housing alone without treatment solves nothing was reinforced by Lance Orton of CityTeam, Vadim Mozyrsky of Partnership for Progress, Ken Thrasher of Northwest Community Conservancy, Alan Evans of Bybee Lakes Hope Center and David Dickson of Homeless Solutions Coalition, who convened the meeting,” the newspaper reported.
The growing discontent could threaten voter renewal of the SHS tax, which is set to expire in 2030.
The City of Portland is announcing its release of a public data dashboard to track participation at the city’s emergency overnight shelters. Data indicates 299% growth from the first month of operations in January 2025 to the end of October 2025. As of the end of October, the data shows that the city has provided over 49,000 nights of safe, dignified sleep.
Read the full news release. Access the City Shelter Services Data Dashboard.