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A homeless camp known as “The Pit” in downtown Portland has been cleared and private security guards are patrolling the area in the latest effort to clean up the poverty-stricken subway.
The tent neighborhood had long been an eyesore in the city, where huge crowds of homeless people had gathered under the Steel Bridge near the Willamette River.
But locals praised the removal crews and biohazard teams who descended on the site this week and forcibly removed 19 people to a mass sanctioned campsite in the city’s southeast on Monday.
“Thank God they finally got their eviction notice,” said resident Aaliyah Mays, who told KGW she had been reporting the camp to the city for two and a half years.
The latest attempt to clear the area apparently stemmed from a fire that broke out in an area under the bridge of the encampment, with contractors working in the burned area hiring private security guards to patrol the area and protect their equipment.
Long lines of tents have plagued downtown Portland for years, angering residents and fueling vile open-air drug use.
Drug users smoke fentanyl, a powerful opioid, in once-thriving downtown Portland, near ‘The Pit’ encampment
Local resident Aaliyah Mays celebrated the move, saying she had been complaining about The Pit for more than two years: ‘They finally got their eviction notice, thank God’
“We’re finally getting our neighborhood back,” Mays added, with the community finally seeing progress after years of enduring Portland’s homelessness crisis.
The Pit has been a persistent problem for the downtown area, where previous attempts to clear the encampment have resulted in the tents quickly returning.
This dynamic, which also plagued San Francisco residents, led Mays to temper her expectations that The Pit would remain tidy.
“It would be naive of anyone to trust a system that has let you down so many times in the past,” she added.
Officials in Portland say homeless people will be given a two-week window to move before sweeping the area.
Large boulders have also been placed under the bridge to prevent people from having space to pitch a tent.
Multnomah County’s homeless population reached 5,228 last year – an increase of more than 1,200 from 2019
Part of ‘The Pit’ under the bridge caught fire earlier this year, with contractors tasked with clearing the area hiring the guards patrolling the camp
Homeless people are given a two-week period to vacate the area before being forcibly removed
The encampment was littered with tents before the latest attempt to clear the area. This week, 19 homeless people have been transferred and guards have been stationed to ensure they do not return
Armed guards moving around the area and violently preventing the construction of new tents is also seen by some as a bolder show of force against the homeless crisis than the city has made in recent years.
Brandon Schandler, a security guard charged with keeping the area clean, said his role is to “enforce” the camping ban. He said if a homeless person refuses to leave, he files a report and a city official takes him away without mercy.
“They would have a response unit come here to help remove the person if they were defiant and didn’t follow the request to leave,” he said.
“I think the city is doing the best it can, it’s just a really big problem.”
Tents line the sidewalk on SW Clay St in Portland, Oregon
An investigation by KGW found that Multnomah County, the Oregon Department of Transportation and the city of Portland all denied paying for security.
The contractor in charge of the burned-out section of The Pit appeared to be the reason for the guards, with construction companies often leaving their equipment on site as an industry standard.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation said the contractor was hired “to repair the wall casing under the Steel Bridge ramps.”
‘It is common for construction contractors to keep materials and equipment on a construction site 24 hours a day and hire security personnel to monitor the area to keep their materials safe.
‘The contractor also did that in this case.’