How I reclaimed the largest homeless encampment in Oregon

It wasn't luck or money. It was hard work, persistance and politcal will.

In 2019, I restored/reclaimed/cleaned almost five miles of the Springwater Corridor that had one of the most concentrated populations of the homeless in Oregon. It was filled with hundreds of homeless people surrounded by millions of pounds of trash. Today, there are zero homeless and virtually no trash.

Found in a homeless camp in Gresham in the Spring Water Corridor

The Springwater Corridor is 22 miles long and is a multi-use path that goes through Portland, Gresham, and Boring, Oregon. It was first planned in 1904 to build a long trail connecting multiple parks. It was completed in 1990. By 2003, yearly usage had surpassed one million people. Then homelessness exploded, and usage has since dropped by over fifty percent.

In June 2018, Mayor Bemis sent a letter to all Gresham residents. In the letter, he talked about Gresham’s plan to take a different approach to resolving the homeless crisis. He said it was essential to help the homeless, but to also hold firm on livability. He finished by stating there was nothing compassionate about allowing a homeless person to live on the streets. I remember reading that as I stood at my mailbox, and it felt like a bolt of lightning hit me. I had never heard of a mayor with the courage to say that. I was so inspired, I wrote him a letter.

Before doing so, I did my research. The city had the desire but not the right model. They were also relying on the wrong people. They had commissioned a costly study on homelessness. The conclusions were complete nonsense, and I felt like they had wasted several thousand dollars. I told the mayor the need to show tough love and not to do anything close to what Portland had been doing.

Partial transcript of my original email to the mayor, 2018

A few days later, I was asked to meet with management at Gresham City Hall. Soon after, I was offered a job. They made me the Community Health Services Advisor. My primary responsibility was working with the homeless.

After getting a tour of Gresaham, I learned quickly that our section of the Spring Water Corridor was an absolute Third World mess and decided to focus much of my energy on reclaiming that massive greenspace spanning almost five miles. It was a monumental challenge. Gresham, at the time, had a higher per capita homeless population than Portland. Step one, we hired clean teams to start picking up the trash. It took a whole year and countless truckloads. I calculated there was about two million pounds of trash in those woods and trails. Step two was to have daily contact with every single homeless person. Daily contact builds trust but also deters negative behavior.

On my first day, when I said I would be back the next day, they all laughed after me. A month later, nobody was laughing. Step three: We passed a strict no-camping ordinance. To all the homeless who wanted help, this ordinance meant nothing because they were motivated to leave the streets. To the ones causing all the problems, the ordinance gave us the power to reclaim our streets. The video shows a long line of shopping carts filled with trash made by one homeless man. The work

was hard. I worked long hours and walked over 1100 miles the first year. I was attacked multiple times, stabbed, and had guns pulled on me. Still, I persisted. I housed hundreds. Many others did not want help. These were the drug dealers, the human traffickers, and the ones nowhere near ready for change. Even with them, we made every effort to help. They did not like the daily contact, and many left. Others committing serious crimes were

arrested. Some homeless people had lived in those woods for several years and said we were the first people to approach them ever. Some were excited for the help, and some wished they had not been found. We stumbled upon several camps with booby traps. This was a hole covered in dry leaves with sharpened sticks on the bottom.

We found Hobbit-type homes on steep cliffs. Inside were people who had been living like this for years. Many said I was the first outreach worker to ever approach them.

After one year of daily intensive outreach, I was told there was an 88% drop in all police calls of the SWC within Gresham city limits. That was a savings of 1.2 million, according to the former police chief. That’s a real measurable difference. Outreach

Taken exactly one year apart, working on the SWC daily

isn’t just about finding people who want help. Sometimes they need help. One day, I found a teenage girl in a tent with an older man who did not want her to leave. She was lured into the woods and had not been seen in days. They were in the deep woods over a mile from the concrete path. I approached the tent and offered help. A

male answered and told me to go away. Something did not feel right, so I stood my ground. He eventually came out of his tent, and in the back was a girl curled up in a ball. The man was holding a machete and demanded that we leave. We refused to leave without the girl. As we walked out, he followed us, threatening to do something. The girl gave me her father’s number, and I called. He was so relieved and met us at the trailhead. This is why outreach is so important. Some people want help, and others need it.

The biggest reason I was able to restore such a large area of a city was political will. In 2019, we had a mayor and city council that actually worked together. There were some ideological differences, but they all respected each other and found a way to work together for the greater good of the city. Things changed after 2020, and the city had never been more divided, making it significantly harder to get work done. The good news and we had already restored the area and now only needed to keep it that way.

Today, the SWC in Gresham is stunning. It is clean and it is safe. All that was needed was hard work and persistence. Just two weeks ago, I walked the entire 4.7 miles of the concrete path within Gresham City limits and every forest path (over 15 miles) leading into the deep woods. There was not one homeless person, one homeless camp, and enough trash to fill one bag. This is a video of my adventure.

As for the SWC in Portland, it needs a lot of work. I filmed this recently in a very small section in Portland where I counted over 100 grocery carts within 500 yards of each other. This was a half mile from the border of Gresham. This homeless crisis is solvable, but it’s going to take people dedicated and with a strong belief that anything is possible. Currently, very few people like that exist. Many current nonprofit

leaders continue to complain year after year that all they need is more money. Well, if money were the solution, they would’ve solved it years ago. The solution is in hiring the right people who believe anything is possible, with the goal of eventually working themselves out of a job.

After working almost thirty years in social services, I became an independent journalist. Thank you for subscribing to my page. It would mean a lot if you became a paid subscriber.