City News

Police tactics toward homeless under fire as Salem considers new ordinance

Tammy Hudson holds her dog Shadow at Cascades Gateway Park, where police have recently cleared out campers, on Sept. 12. Hudson said she often has to fight people away from the motor home she lives in. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)

Ken Houghton doesn’t have to look very hard to find Salem’s homeless residents. There aren’t necessarily more of them – they have just been pushed out into the open.

As outreach coordinator for The ARCHES Project, Houghton connects homeless individuals to shelter, rental assistance and free food. Lately, he’s spotting them more along busy streets than in the wooded parks where they stayed for months.

“They’ve been displaced and they’re much, much easier to find. I’m not having to walk around in the woods as much as I used to,” he said.

He and other people who work close to the homeless population point to a wave of police activity that has, since August, scuttled camps out of Wallace Marine Park, Cascades Gateway Park and on private property near Chemawa Indian School.

Homeless residents and advocates say the people don’t go anywhere but are more out into the open.

At the same time, city officials are proposing a new city law that would ban sitting or lying down in public spaces during most ours of the day.

Salem Police Department officials say the recent clear-outs aren’t unusual, that the actions are standard police work. Officers are enforcing laws prohibiting anyone from being in a city park after sundown. On private property, they are keeping people from trespassing.

“This is really a lot of pretty routine things,” said Lt. Treven Upkes, a spokesman.

Handfuls of people found in the camps have been arrested or cited, and many have been warned.

Upkes disputed that the efforts are “sweeps,” a term he said implies police are seeking to arrest groups of people. He said most of the efforts help clean up city parks.

The most recent activity occurred Aug. 31 at Cascades Gateway Park, a 100-acre park in east Salem that had reportedly been home to people living in tents and cars for months. Upkes said seven people were either cited or arrested, with another seven warned.

Police have returned to the park regularly to ensure it stays clear. Police have arrested at least two more since the first night.

Lorrie Walker, a volunteer with The ARCHES Project, talks with Doug Pendleton at the van he lives in at Cascades Gateway Park on Sept. 19. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)

Before that, police posted 24 hours’ notice at Wallace Marine Park in what Upkes described as a “concerted effort” to clean up trash. No arrests were made.

However, police arrested several people in late August on private property near Chemawa Indian School, near the intersection of Northeast Portland Road and Kale Street. Advocates say at least 80 people lived there until the clear-out.

Upkes couldn’t say how many people were arrested there, but said people arrested had warrants. Upkes said police gave no advanced notice because the property is private and posted with “No Trespassing” signs.

Police are also patrolling Minto-Brown Island Park as the city sprays herbicides and pesticides, Upkes said.

The wave of activity has exasperated homeless individuals. They don’t think the police are acting unlawfully, but say they haven’t seen so much activity so rapidly.

“They’re chasing everyone out,” said Stephanie Myers, who lived in a 16-year-old sedan at Cascades Gateway for four months. 

Myers said she and other campers weren’t bothered when she first arrived. Then police quashed a camp on private property near Wallace Marine Park and more campers found their way to Cascades Gateway.

“We had a whole bunch of people from Wallace move out here and park out here,” she said. Then the camp started to swell. Trash piled up, she said.

“At first it was alright. We weren’t having no problem,” said Doug Pendleton. “Then all of a sudden people started trashing the place, filling up the garbage cans.”

Pendleton, 64, had lived at the park since his last November. Prior to that he had just been released from jail, he said.

Now the entire camp suffered for the crimes of a few, said another camper, Ted Turner.

“They group-punish,” Turner said. “It pisses me off. I don’t condone any of that. People need to be cleaning up their own garbage.”

Doug Pendleton, a former camper at Cascades Gateway Park, shows the inside of the van he lives in on Sept. 19. Pendleton said trash at the park had gotten worse in recent months. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)

Since Cascades Gateway was cleared, the campers said they have tried to find other places to spend the night. They move in groups because they know who they can trust, the residents said, but that also makes them easier for police to spot.

“They’re giving us nowhere to go,” said Tammy Hudson, 50, who lives in a motor home and said she often has to fight off people who try to break in.

Likewise, people who work closely with the homeless – helping get them food, shelter and services – say the spate of police activity is alarming.

“These people don’t disappear after these things happen,” said Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, which oversees ARCHES. “They go back where they were, or somewhere else. It’s just redistributing the concentration.”

Dave Maciera, who hosts a weekly feed for homeless people and hands out food boxes, said more people are coming since the police clearings. He said he’s giving out almost double the number of food boxes.

“There’s just been a big spike,” he said. “These police patrols, these camp cleanups, (homeless residents) don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Upkes and city parks staffers say the close timing wasn’t deliberate, that they responded to public concerns.

Police decided to respond to those parks after complaints came in, Upkes said. He said citizens called in reports of people throwing trash into the pond at Cascades Gateway.

Upkes said while police have been aware of camping at Cascades Gateway and Wallace Marine, the police consider how to use officer time and resources. For example, after dark they often clear out Marion Square Park, the park closest to the downtown business district.

“We try to keep that free of people after the park closes, but we have the resources with the downtown team to do that,” he said.

At Wallace Marine and other parks, sometimes city parks employees are calling the police. 

Dave Maceira, who organizes events that help feed homeless residents, voices his opinion on the proposed ordinance that would ban sitting or lying down on public rights-of-way for most hours of the day. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)

Jake Snell, field supervisor for the parks department, said public works’ own hotline – where people can call about dangerous trees, sewer breaks and the like – has collected more calls in recent weeks of homeless camps at city parks.

Snell said the public works agency hasn’t tracked calls it gets about homeless residents.

“It’s not like we run reports every week to quantify that,” he said. “I can tell you that we have most likely seen an increase.”

Parks workers, who landscape, clean restrooms and dumpsters and overall preserve the parks, also call the police if they feel their jobs are being hindered because working near a camp could be dangerous. Snell said the agency posts advanced notice of an impending clear-out by police, followed by parks crews for cleaning.

“My staff is sometimes apprehensive about going into these camps. It’s kind of a safety issue, we don’t know what we’re going to encounter,” he said.

“We try to balance compassion with management of the land,” Snell added. “At the end of the day, we have to protect the land and resources for the city of Salem’s taxpayers.”

The Oregon Department of Transportation has also been more active clearing camps on its property, such as under bridges and along freeways. 

According to spokesman Lou Torres, the agency cleaned 27 camps in Salem in all 2018. Through September this year, the agency has cleaned 29 camps.

Ken Houghton, homeless outreach coordinator for ARCHES, pours a cup of coffee to serve to a homeless resident in downtown Salem on Sept. 4. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)

Have a tip? Contact reporter Troy Brynelson at 503-575-9930, [email protected] or @TroyWB.