Homeless

Rules on camping outside must be "objectively reasonable." Cities across Central Oregon are still interpreting what exactly that means..

The city of Bend announced plans Wednesday to sweep a large outdoor camp on North Hunnell Road in March, the latest action in an effort to limit camping in Central Oregon’s largest city.

It would be a herculean task to accomplish what the mayor is suggesting. One that would require changing laws. And to actually work, it would also mean addressing a workforce shortage of health care workers and law enforcement officers and necessitate resolving a statewide hospital and residential treatment bed shortage. Perhaps, more importantly, it would require another kind of reckoning as well: deciding whether this is the way the state and city want to tackle the mental health and homeless crisis.

In other news, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler will reassign Portland bureaus to City Council members and mussel harvesting reopens along Oregon Coast.

With constituents seething over the proliferation of homeless tents across the city, a controversial plan to ban unsanctioned homeless camping appears to be gaining momentum among the public.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler plans to ban homeless camps along routes where students are likely to be walking to school, according to a draft emergency declaration leaked Thursday.

The founder of the Rogue Valley’s largest homeless services organization was terminated this week, following allegations of conversion therapy at his church.

The decision comes two years after a U.S. District Court found the city’s anti-camping ordinance was unconstitutional, in part because Grants Pass had no low-barrier shelters.

Multnomah County residents have one more chance to weigh in on a budget that will put $255 million — a historically large investment — toward trying to turn around the region’s worsening homeless crisis.

For 70 years, Portland’s Blanchet House has served free, hot meals three times a day, to anyone who would like one. Earlier this month, they reopened to indoor dining for the first time in two years.