District 3 candidate Angelita Morillo, who faced homelessness as a college student, released a social media video expressing disappointment in Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell’s decision to start booking individuals charged with violating Portland’s anti-camping policy. Morrisey O’Donnell had previously declined to do so, stating that jails should be used as “a place for people who pose a genuine danger to the public, and that does not include individuals whose only offense is living unsheltered.”
“I am really disappointed to see that Sheriff O’Donnell went back on this statement,” said Morillo, who had praised the sheriff’s original decision.
“I thought it was a very powerful statement. As someone who has been formerly houseless, I thought it was exactly what was needed in the moment,” she added, speculating that business interests may have influenced the change.
“I don’t know if some business interests got involved and intimidated her behind the scenes, but you don’t stick your neck out like that and then rescind your word suddenly—unless something happened behind the scenes. I think there’s more to the story, but I think this is the wrong move, and I am really disappointed to see that.”
Morillo further elaborated on the concept of “service resistance,” a term commonly used to describe people who decline the offer of shelter. She noted that some shelters are poorly run, but individuals fear reporting potential violations due to possible repercussions from staff.
“Unfortunately, most houseless people do not feel safe reporting to any authority about what is going on inside shelter systems because they are afraid of losing what little support is being offered there,” she said, adding that jails are also unsafe places due to the number of deaths reported in recent years, something she attributed to inmates not receiving adequate medical care.
“So when we are telling houseless people that their two options are to go to a shelter bed, which is usually nonexistent or very hard to get into—or to go to jail, where we have these mysterious deaths that we haven’t figured out why they’re happening, we are telling houseless people that they are going to have to go to jail and possibly be harmed or even be killed for the crime of being poor. That is unacceptable in one of the wealthiest countries in the entire world,” Morillo concluded.
