PORTLAND, Ore. -- With a historic housing crisis still hanging over the city’s head, one of Portland’s newest self-run homeless camps is no more.
Inmate work crews with the Multnomah County Jail were out for hours Wednesday, cleaning up tarps, tents and trash left behind at "Forgotten Realms." The city evicted an estimated 50 residents from the camp last week.
Forgotten Realms put down roots near North Interstate and Greeley Avenues in the fall, the result of overflow from another camp right next door, named ‘Hazelnut Grove’.
For months organizers of "Hazelnut Grove" have been working with the city to get rid of their neighbors, citing drug and alcohol use, as well as instances of theft and violence.
Hazelnut Grove, which is currently waiting for the city to draw up a use-permit for the site, has a strict code of conduct, prohibiting drugs and alcohol. Heads there say camps like Forgotten Realms were giving them a bad name.
“When you get so lost in addiction, more times than not you lose respect for yourself and therefore lose respect for everybody else,” said spokesman Raven Justice. “If you stop taking care of you, you're going to stop taking care of where you put your trash.”
Justice stood next to other Hazelnut Grove residents Wednesday and watched as the mess piled up, item by item, into a green, metal dumpters.
“This is monumental,” he said.
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