Due to staffing and budget constraints, the Joint Office of Homeless Services limited the amount of supplies such as tents that groups helping the homeless can get
Like many programs that materialized in spring of 2020, the three city-sanctioned tent camps that appeared in central Portland in April of last year were born out of a crisis. Oregon’s COVID-19 pandemic social distancing rules had just fallen into place. The mandate forced homeless shelters to immediately reduce capacity, leaving hundreds of vulnerable Portlanders to shelter-in-place outdoors in the midst of a still-mysterious pandemic. At the same time, places that unhoused people relied on.