Deaths and Displacement in Portland’s Dangerous Cold, Part II
Before the city council meeting was shut down, Commissioner Mingus Mapps began to speak again, as he tried to change the subject. “Friends,” he stated. “This next item comes to us from PBOT. But before we jump into that presentation, I want to take a moment to acknowledge what was truly a horrendous week for many of us here in Portland. We all experienced the downed trees, the power outages, the business and school closures, and sadly — ”
He was cut short as someone called out, “how about Palestine?”.
It is important to understand what ignited the rage at this statement. For Mingus to attempt to distract us by talking about the winter storm was truly audacious. Especially as the business owners, speaking in support of a ceasefire resolution, had criticized the city’s lack of preparedness for what have become standard catastrophic winter events due to the climate crisis. They railed against the city’s inaction, the closing of the warming shelters as the layer of ice set in on Portland; all as we divested millions in public taxes to fund the Israeli apartheid state.
It is also directly correlated to the city’s gentrification and the interests of the tech industry that had deep ties with the techno-fascist state of Israel. Mingus also solely discussed the experiences of home-owners, as he brought up downed lines and burst pipes that left over 119,000 residents without power. He wholly ignored the plight of the unhoused, as Portland City Hall has worked to drive them out, and in some cases allow them to die in the elements.
As such, in this article, we will discuss the catastrophic winter storm, and the city’s part in the displacement and death.
The week of January 12th-21st saw a major polar vortex descend upon Portland. The city underwent a major weather disaster, as a deadly drop in temperature set in on the 12th, followed by an ice-storm that caused a break in infrastructure.
For the week prior, local mutual aid organizations and anarchist collectives had warned about the impending freezing temperatures, and prepared for the storm through fundraising for cold-weather supplies.
Their work was profound and direct, as collectives and mutual aid networks worked to move neighbors into over 100 hotel rooms across the city. The impact of their work extends past the procurement of temporary shelter from the freeze, to providing water, heating supplies, and assistance to struggling Portlanders.
The response from the city and county Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS) was truly abysmal. The event saw hundreds of hospitalizations, and several deaths. However, the number will never truly be known of who passed away from hypothermia, or being covered in ice as they lived on the streets. By the night of January 12th, two deaths were already reported of unhoused residents freezing in the cold.
This was also overlaid with the number of sweeps that took place shortly before the polar storm. Dr. Sandra Comstock, director of Portland nonprofit Hygiene4All, reported “Thursday Jan 4th, a week prior to Portland’s anticipated polar vortex, City Contractors (Rapid Response — or RR) descended on people living in the 8 blocks West, North, and South of our Hub on MLK and SE Belmont, demanding they remove their tents, clothing, bedding, mittens, hats, socks in a matter of 2–3 hours. Of the 7–8 people I personally talked to — not one was offered assistance securing a sanctioned shelter bed, tiny house, or any alternative to remaining on the street”.
“Just three days later the Joint Office of Homeless Services — recognizing the lethality of the imminent polar vortex- put out a request to individuals and groups to ask they collect and distribute the very same critical cold weather gear [Rapid Response] had just thrown away”.
The issues of supplies for the unhoused, the sweeps that saw mass displacement, alongside the record number of people that sought shelter from the cold are deeply intertwined.
To start, there is the shelter system, which is under threat by city officials in recent weeks. After the failures of the system during the polar storm, the city announced that they would no longer staff the warming shelters unless Multnomah County provides armed security. The county is resisting this move, and the city’s policy is under question should another horrendous week strike.
There are a number of reasons for the failures of the shelter system, outside of the notion that neighbors should have to wait for shelter in certain extreme-weather events, and that these shelters are intended to drive people back out into the streets by certain times.
One flaw was their notification of the opening of shelters. Because of the flawed weather tracking system, it was not known until day of, whether or not shelters would open. The polar vortex had meteorologists guessing. As such, the city and county did not announce the opening of warming shelters until the day of, and solely on social media and online.
In an act of blatant disregard for the reality of the emergency, the JOHS sent an email and flier that discussed “care for when it’s cold”. Instead of having a clear plan for the advent of the freezing temperatures, they simply informed people on how to stay warm in the hypothermic conditions.
The city and county operate the warming shelters within arbitrary temperature requirements. According to their own policy, “severe weather shelters open as needed when any of the following thresholds are met for any of the conditions below that are forecasted to persist for four hours or more between the hours of 8AM-7PM”.
For cold weather events, “forecasted temperature of 25 degrees Fahrenheit or below. Forecasted snow accumulation of 1.0 inch or more. Forecasted temperature at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit with driving rain of 1.0 inch or more overnight”.
As such, as soon as the temperatures rose a single-digit past the 32 degree mark, the city closed down the warming shelters on Wednesday the 17th of January. On Tuesday, an ice rain storm set in on Portland, and layered the city in a blanket of ice. Wednesday’s slight increase above freezing melted some ice, but as the temperatures remained just around 33 degrees, the ice refused to melt and instead created dangerous road and travel conditions. Conditions that the city expected neighbors to return to, while there were scores of injuries from the inability to leave one’s home.
During the freeze, when this city descended to 20 degree temperatures with a single-digit wind chill, the county began asking for volunteers. According to an email from Multnomah County, “the County has opened 12 shelter sites across the community so far — more than we ever have before. We operated at capacity overnight, providing life-saving shelter to a record-high of over 1200 people. The warmth, safety and connection that people find in these spaces is only possible because of a total community effort.” The fact that this shelter system relies on the support of volunteers, rather than trained professionals is shocking. While many would choose to volunteer to assist their neighbors, this should not be the way they operate.
This also coincided with the failures of infrastructure. Throughout the week of the storm 119,000 residents of Portland lost power. Lines collapsed onto cars, trees fell on people’s homes, the MAX was forced to shut down, and pipes burst.
The City of Portland urged residents to remain at home and limit travel on their social media, yet turned unhoused residents onto the streets they deemed unsafe. In the midst of this chaos, there is also the issue of supplies for unhoused residents to stay warm and clothed.
JOHS has already faced scrutiny for a flawed approach to providing resources for the unhoused. This problem has existed since its inception, and has only been exacerbated by the current city council.
As had been attested by a member of MedicBlocPDX in a previous article, “The system goes, JOHS distributes cheap, fast and easy supplies to non profit organizations that clamor for the chances to get anything to keep people safe throughout the year and seasons, Portlanders pick up and distribute these supplies to unhoused neighbors in need”.
“PPB and Rapid Response sweep those neighbors, take their things and places to get warmth including medications, vital documentation, food, clothing, and shelter. They put it in a truck and take it to a warehouse for a brief hold”. However, in many cases, seized belongings are taken straight to the dump.
Speaking with someone that does mutual aid work, they described how the system had changed. During 2020, anyone that was doing work with the unhoused could get an appointment with JOHS to pick up supplies including anarchist collectives and mutual aid networks. This was partially due to the pandemic, and how many nonprofits could not send workers in person. The support towards encampments fell, as it always does, to volunteer Portlanders directly providing support to people unhoused.
In 2021 the rules were altered to specify that only representatives of recognized nonprofits could pick up supplies. JOHS used the county moving the pandemic to a “low-risk” rating, as well as a change in funding as a result, to prohibit further pickup by mutual aid organizations. Instead, only state recognized nonprofits could gather supplies from JOHS. As a part of the announcement email, they thanked their community partners for being the ones willing to meet the record-breaking need for 15 months, while the nonprofits failed; then forbade them from picking up supplies in the future.
In the aftermath of this decision, JOHS switched the system from being allowed to collect supplies once a week, to once every two weeks. They also restricted the amount of items available. For example on June 7th 2021, they announced that no further tents were in stock, from what was already a harsh limit of three tents per week.
This system remained throughout several catastrophic weather events, including the increasing heat and the dropping cold. In the summer of 2022 JOHS then announced that they would reduce supply pickups to once per month, without increasing the amount of supplies one could pick up.
The current items included in a pick up of cold weather supplies are the following: 5 tents, 5 sleeping bags, 20 tarps, 20 blankets, 12 warm hats, 12 pairs of gloves, 25 pairs of socks, 4 pairs of sweatpants, 4 hoodies, 20 hot hands packets, 20 mylar blankets (if in stock) and 30 Cases Water Bottles”. This is also the first time that water was limited to 30 cases, as previous cold weather pickups provided 60 cases.
This pales in comparison to the actual need. 2023 saw a 20 percent increase in the unhoused population, according to various point-in-time studies that worked to track the amount of Portlanders living on the street. As mentioned before, these projects fail to correctly identify the number of residents that live unhoused.
Once again, the work to provide direct supplies has fallen on mutual aid networks and anarchist collectives, as the nonprofits are wholly overwhelmed. This was evident throughout the last two years of increasing catastrophic storms and weather events.
The response from JOHS has been scrutinized for years. During the heatwave of late June and early July 2021, which saw temperatures of over 100 degrees for several days, JOHS closed the supply center temporarily from June 25th to July 6th, essentially planning to provide no water in the midst of the soaring temperatures. It was only after an unhoused advocate alerted the media that the supply center would be closed during a catastrophic heat event, did JOHS announce they would reopen and make water available. It was during this time that they also announced restricting supplies further with the new policy of bi-weekly supply pick-ups.
According to Marie Tyvoll, someone who sources life-saving supplies for unhoused neighbors, she asked Dan Fields, director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, the following question during an online meeting of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association: “JOHS used to have weekly supply pickups for advocates to distribute to our houseless neighbors, then they moved to bi-weekly pickups and now we only have a once per month pick up. This is despite an increase in our houseless population and recently JOHS had a waitlist of 24 nonprofits. The demand hugely outweighs the supply and we are desperate for life-saving supplies including water. We never have enough water. Since JOHS has funds it has not spent, how can we, a consortium of nonprofits, work with you to increase the amount of supplies to keep our houseless neighbors alive given catastrophic hot and cold weather and not enough shelter or housing?”.
February 2023 saw a freeze set in to Portland once again, which caused the city to shut down. It was during this catastrophic storm that Rene Gonzalez prohibited Portland Street Response from providing tarps and tents.
The system for re-distribution is already flawed, and relies on nonprofits that are overwhelmed. However during cold and hot temperature gear pickups, any member of the public can sign up to pick up supplies. This moves the responsibility of mutual aid back onto the community networks and collectives that have already been doing this work.
In the midst of the recent polar storm, JOHS announced an extension for “Coordinated Outreach”. They explained that the city was broken into 37 arbitrary “zones”, of which they reported “100 percent coverage”. In order to receive supplies, nonprofits and members of the public would have to report which zones they would distribute the supplies they picked up at JOHS. JOHS stated, “due to the very large response to these emails, there could be a delay in getting a reply and your patience is appreciated”.
This claim of “100 percent coverage in all 37 zones” was vehemently contradicted by the mutual aid collectives and community volunteer networks that worked to provide direct support to their unhoused neighbors in the midst of the polar vortex. These volunteers could not keep up with the demand from the unhoused for life-saving supplies.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
“I am here because these essential human goals have been threatened and denied repeatedly,” Lynsea Coy addressed the city council. “You can see these denials in our egregious lack of infrastructure for these annual weather events that your constituents now come to expect. Like we saw last week, with 119,000 Portlanders without electricity. You can see that denial through our shameful number of our houseless neighbors denied life-saving resources like tents.”
Mapps’ attempts to steer the conversation after the series of remarks from business owners was truly egregious. Again, he only discussed the issues that homeowners and those living housed have encountered.
In the aftermath of the sheer failures of infrastructure, the shelter system, and the supply system; Portland’s government released this condescending statement, “you’re resilient Portland. Now that the winter storm is over, let’s recover together… Hardened snow and ice are blocking water that is ponding on our streets. Please do what you can”.
The blatant dismissal of the deaths that the storm caused, both among the housed and unhoused population was disappointing. The question of who is responsible is one that consumes Portland politics. The city seeks to blame the county, while the county blames the city for its part in a fractured system.
According to the Willamette Week in March 2023, “$22.3 million. That’s how much Metro Homeless Services bond money Multnomah County budgeted but failed to spend in the first half of the fiscal year”. The county and city both have taxes to assist in the housing crisis, and yet both have improperly budgeted and spared funds to assist in weather emergencies, and only at the last minute.
The Joint Office of Homeless Services was previously under the direction of Commissioner Dan Ryan. In 2023, in preparation for the changing city charter in 2025, Mayor Tevis Edward Wheeler took over the responsibility to work with the county, all the while railing against the lack of coordination among the government bureaus.
Mayor Wheeler and the city commissioners have proven themselves unfit for directing emergency responses for unhoused neighbors. All the while, they fail to provide basic life-saving resources through the collapse of the supply system.
In the meanwhile, commissioners like Rene Gonzalez have worked to dismantle Portland Street Response. PSR was founded two years prior, in the midst of the national reckoning with police brutality and racism, fueled by the murder of George Floyd. It was intended as an alternative to violent policing that sought to lock away those dealing with mental health crises and living on the street.
PSR has met its goals of reducing police interactions by responding to mental crisis calls, in the place of armed officers. In 2022 they responded to over 7,000 calls and according to researchers at Portland State University, have created an excellent program that deals directly with Portlanders in the midst of crisis.
Yet, despite the record-breaking successes, Gonzalez has worked to destroy the program. The reason is simple. Gonzalez won his seat, working on behalf of rich benefactors, promising to reduce the unhoused population.
While he has acted as if this meant alternative and affordable housing, it has only been a series of policies intended to put unhoused Portlanders in jail or allow them to die from the elements. It is also under his tutelage that PSR was banned from providing tarps and tents for unhoused neighbors in 2023.
Gonzalez has stated that part of his issue is that a number of those working for Street Response are police abolitionists, who joined the program as a means of offering an alternative to policing. In a statement to Oregon Public Broadcasting, “A police abolitionist as a city employee involved in first responding… that is problematic for [the Fire Bureau],” Gonzalez said. “Firefighters view police as key to their safety in certain circumstances.” These statements are a complete fabrication. The president of the Fire Fighters Association and the unions representing Portland Street Response have discredited this claim, as they see absolutely no “cultural differences” in achieving their mission of assisting Portlanders living unhoused.
As discussed by the business owners advocating for a ceasefire resolution, it is the direct result of city policy that many neighbors died from the polar storm. The collapse of infrastructure stems from the lack of proper investment by city and county officials. A city that has contributed over 10 million dollars to the Israeli apartheid state in 2023 alone, while failing to utilize over 22.3 million in public funds to directly support the unhoused.
The city is now pushing the opening of sanctioned sites for the unhoused to be herded into. This occurs hand-in-hand with the mass sweeps that prefaced the polar vortex and deadly cold. The sweeps are tied to the gentrification of this city, and the interests of Oregon’s tech sector in “cleaning up” Portland’s image. A tech sector that is deeply intertwined with increasing investment in the techno-fascist state of Israel.
In essence, it is the fault of all city officials who have worked to push the blame to bureaus and other organizations, while failing to provide direct support for citizens.
This is also not the end, as catastrophic weather events including life-threatening heat waves and record-breaking cold are the direct results of the climate crisis and will only continue to expand. A climate crisis that is being fueled by Israeli warplanes and the genocide in Gaza.
No Ceasefire, No Votes.
