The Climate of Injustice: How Local Environmental Crises Collide with Policing and Housing

Introduction

Imagine you’re walking through Portland, Oregon and you see someone living under a freeway overpass. No insulation, no real sanitation, and every time the authorities arrive, that person is told to move. Now imagine that spot is next to a former industrial site with soil and groundwater contamination, or in a flood-prone area that’s increasingly risky because of climate change. Sound absurd? Sadly, that scenario plays out far too often. I’ve studied the intersection of environmental neglect, homelessness, policing and housing instability—and IMO, we simply aren’t treating these as the deeply entwined issues they are. Let’s talk about why that matters (and why it’s going nowhere good unless we shift gear).

H2: Environmental Risks Amplified for the Houseless

H3: Exposure to Contaminated Sites & Poor Infrastructure

In Portland, many unhoused people end up in places that weren’t designed for human habitation. For instance:

The city defines “brownfields” as land where contamination or the possibility of contamination complicates reuse. (Portland.gov)
One study noted that the stretch of the Willamette River between the Broadway Bridge and Sauvie Island is a federal super-fund site with heavy metals, diesel fuel and other toxic contamination. People living nearby or camping there face disproportionate risk. (opb)
A proposed shelter site on N. Portland Road had to undergo soil‐vapor testing, methane monitoring and protective capping before reuse because of contamination. (Oregon)

So when people are displaced from visible public spaces, they’re often forced into spots adjacent to or on top of hazardous infrastructure. That means the environmental risk is not incidental—it’s structural.

H3: Climate-Related Hazards & Lack of Infrastructure

Now add climate dynamics: flooding, heavier storms, increased heat. The city’s survey found that while many Portlanders rate parks and natural areas as “good to excellent,” street maintenance and drainage were rated far worse. (Portland.gov)
For someone living unsheltered that means:

No reliable shelter from flood/rain events
No basic plumbing or sanitation (which increases disease risk)
Exposure to extreme heat/cold without insulation

One project focused specifically on water access among unhoused individuals in Portland tied in environmental justice themes: inability to wash hands, limited water points—yet high exposure to contaminated environments. (PDXScholar)

Bottom Line

Houseless individuals aren’t just facing a lack of home—they’re facing ecosystems hostile to human life, engineered by disinvestment. That’s the “climate justice” piece: the same people least equipped to cope are getting pushed into the worst zones.

H2: Policing and the Criminalization of Survival

H3: Camp Sweeps & Displacement

You’ve likely heard about “encampment sweeps” in Portland. These are often framed as public‐safety operations, but in practice they function as repeated evictions.

The city’s “Campsite Removal Policy” states that removal decisions will consider “environmental impact on natural areas and/or the presence of hazardous materials”. (Portland.gov)
Yet advocates report that when individuals protest environmental hazards (e.g., contaminated sites) in their encampment, they may face eviction rather than remediation.
According to data, about half of arrests made by the Portland Police Bureau involve people experiencing homelessness. (opb)

“Police say they’re helping the homeless, but they’re just throwing us in handcuffs and jail.” —a woman who had been arrested multiple times for camping violations. (The Guardian)

What this shows is that enforcement is the default, not offering safe alternatives.

H3: Outcomes of Displacement

Every time a camp is cleared:

People lose their belongings (often never returned). A Portland contractor was ordered to pay after disposing of belongings during a sweep. (Portland Mercury)
People get relocated to worse conditions: farther from services, transport, daylight, and into higher-risk environmental zones.
The underlying issues (mental illness, addiction, trauma) remain. A city audit found the local shelter system had long wait lists and limited success at moving people into stable housing. (Portland.gov)

Bottom Line

Policing does not substitute for housing or environmental remediation. Sweeps shift the problem—they don’t solve it. And they shift vulnerable people into riskier situations.

H2: Housing Instability, Evictions & Structural Gaps

H3: The Role of Eviction and the Houseless Pipeline

For many Portlanders, the move from housing to homelessness follows eviction or non-renewal of leases. While Oregon has tenant protections (e.g., notice requirements), those protections don’t apply once you’re already unhoused. Also:

Anti‐camping laws and right-of-way enforcement act like de facto evictions for people without housing.
The “by‐name list” for unsheltered individuals shows several thousand people sleeping outside in Multnomah County alone. (Multnomah County)

H3: Disinvestment + Low Vacancy + Rising Rents

Portland’s vacancy rate has been among the lowest in the nation; rents have doubled; affordable housing has shrunk. That means:

People get priced out → move to weaker neighborhoods → risk losing housing → becoming unhoused.
Once unhoused, you enter a cycle: policing, poor health, environmental exposure.

Bottom Line

Housing instability is the root of the cycle. You can’t just clear camps and expect the problem to vanish—unless you replace the housing piece.

H2: The Overlapping Crisis – Social Justice Meets Climate Justice

H3: Race, Disability & Unequal Burdens

These burdens don’t fall evenly. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and disabled persons are overrepresented in unhoused populations due to historic discrimination in housing, policing and employment. When you compound that with living in toxic or flood-prone zones, you get:

Higher exposure to contaminants
More frequent police interaction
Lower access to services

H3: Remediation vs. Removal

Here’s the kicker: the city often opts for removal (i.e., sweeps, displacements) instead of remediation (i.e., cleaning the environment, building housing, infrastructure). Environmental‐justice frameworks say: you must clean the hazard, build the housing, stabilize the community—not just push people elsewhere. The brownfields program in Portland is a rare positive example: It aims to turn contaminated properties into housing or greenspace. (Portland.gov) But it moves slowly and doesn’t prioritize unhoused individuals being relocated to safe zones first.

H3: Climate Change as Amplifier

Extreme weather, flooding, heat events: these don’t happen uniformly. They hit weakest infrastructures hardest. So those with no home or inadequate housing get punished twice: by the conditions and by the systems. If your only shelter is a tent under a freeway ramp, you’re the one taking the hit when floodwaters rise or toxic soil gets stirred.

Bottom Line

What looks like separate issues—environmental hazards, policing, housing instability—are actually one web of structural injustice. If we treat them separately, we keep doing damage.

H2: Key Examples & Local Evidence

One piece of reporting shows that the Willamette River’s pollution and the displacement of camps into remote wild zones go hand in hand. (opb)
The city audit of the Joint Office of Homeless Services found that many people remain unsheltered or stuck in waitlists, meaning the housing side of the equation is failing. (Portland.gov)
Policies intended to clear camps frequently cite “hazardous materials” or “environmental impact” as reasons for removal—but seldom accompany that with cleanup or alternate housing. See the campsite removal policy criteria. (Portland.gov)

These aren’t isolated anecdotes—they form a pattern.

H2: Policy & Justice Considerations (with My Opinions)

H3: What’s Being Done

Positive steps:

The city’s Homelessness Response Action Plan sets goals: e.g., shelter or house 2,699 people sleeping outside by end-2025. (Multnomah County)
The Brownfield Program is investing in contaminated lands with affordable housing or green uses in mind. (Portland.gov)

H3: What’s Missing (and Where It’s Mis-aligned)

Here’s where I get blunt: They’re doing some things, but it’s too little, too late.

Too many sweeps, too few safe, clean places to move people before clearing them.
Too much emphasis on removal/enforcement and not enough on remediation/housing.
Climate justice is still an after-thought: “Okay, flood happened, now we’ll respond.” Instead, we should plan before hazard hits.
Resource allocation is skewed: large budgets for sweeps and temporary shelter, smaller for permanent supportive housing or cleaning contaminated sites.

H3: My Strong Recommendation

To fix this, Portland (and other cities) should:

Map every current unsanctioned encampment for environmental hazard (flood risk, toxic soil, air pollution).
Prioritize relocation of people from highest risk zones to safe housing, not just “new tent zones”.
Increase investment in permanent supportive housing, especially for BIPOC, disabled, veterans—those most vulnerable.
Make enforcement a last resort, not a first response. Provide services before displacement, not after.
Integrate climate planning into housing policy: we should expect extreme weather/flooding, so design housing and settlement accordingly.
Build transparency: disclose where relocation happens, where people are moved to, and what the hazard levels are.

Conclusion

Here’s the takeaway: the so‐called homelessness crisis isn’t just about tents on the sidewalk. It’s a profound interplay of housing instability, environmental hazards, policing and criminalisation, and climate vulnerability. In Portland, we see all the pieces: contaminated sites, enforcement sweeps, the uprooting of people into worse conditions, and weak housing pathways.

If we don’t shift from reactive removal to proactive remediation—if we keep displacing without rebuilding—we’ll keep circling the same problems. And IMO, that’s unacceptable in a city that claims to lead on sustainability and equity.

So, what can you do (yes, you reading this)? Next time you hear about a sweep, ask: where are these people going? Next time you hear about housing, ask: is it safe from flood/toxins? If we treat this as separate systems we’ll keep losing people. But when we treat it as one interlocking system—housing+environment+justice—we might just make real change happen.

Thanks for sticking with me through this (yes, it got heavy). If you’d like, I can dig up 10 specific case studies of relocation into contaminant zones in Portland and we can map them. Want that? 😊