A homeless encampment has sprung up on a stretch of shoreline in Portland, Oregon, amid a lack of clarity over which entity is responsible for the land.
KOIN reported that a number of structures housing homeless people have been built along a shoreline — leaving the area covered in garbage allegedly left by the residents.
One neighbor, Ric Scaramella, told the outlet that the structures appear to be permanent domiciles, “not tents.”
However, KOIN noted that uncertainty about who actually owns the land has prevented any one entity from addressing the issue.
Citing property records, KOIN reported the land seems to belong to the Union Pacific Railroad, but a statement provided to the outlet by the railroad painted a more complicated picture of the land’s ownership and who is responsible for managing it.
Tents line the sidewalk on SW Clay St in Portland, OR, on Dec. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)
“Union Pacific Police regularly patrol our property and enforce trespassing laws; however, this area is particularly challenging to enforce, because cabins are near the water’s edge, ”the railroad said in the statement. “Under Ordinary High Water Mark common law, the boundary separating public land from private land is determined by natural fluctuations of the water, making it a legal gray area.”
Similarly, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of State Lands told the outlet via email that the property’s ownership is unclear, as is the department’s role in tending to it:
The bad news is, at this point it’s hard to say if we have a role. Where public ownership of the riverbed/bank ends and upland ownership begins is complicated. Sometimes it’s to ordinary low water, which probably wouldn’t include the land the structures are on, and sometimes it’s to ordinary high water, which might include the land the structures were on but we wouldn’t be able to say definitively without our property experts reviewing the ownership records and visiting the site.
KOIN noted that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers have also disclaimed responsibility for the property and its upkeep, but the City of Portland, the Oregon Department of State Lands, the Oregon Marine Board, Metro, and the Port of Portland did coordinate to remove some of the debris from the area after the outlet initially filmed there.
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