PORTLAND, Ore. -- At one point, Pastor Steve Kimes decided his wife and two children, both under the age of two, should be homeless.

As the leader of a local Mennonite community, Kimes had been working with Portland’s homeless population for a few years and felt there was no better way to understand their plight.

He spent the better part of the next year sleeping on the street, while his family couch-surfed between friends.

20 years later, the experience sticks with him.

“Jesus said ‘Blessed are you who are poor,’” he said. “You look at different parts where Jesus says you need to help the homeless and help the people who are most destitute, and we look at our city and our situation, and the people who are the most destitute, the most outcast in our current context are the homeless.”

Late last year, when Kimes heard about the growing community at Hazelnut Grove, the self-established homeless camp in North Portland, he was intrigued.

In January, when he heard the site was overwhelmed and dozens of residents from the neighboring camp ‘Forgotten Realms’ were being evicted, he decided to help turn the idea into a movement.

“I met with the leadership and just said ‘Okay, let’s get organized. Let’s go to the mayor, and let’s talk about setting up another camp in the same way Hazelnut was.'”

Kimes, with the help of other advocates, searched Portland maps for empty lots and found one along North Kerby Avenue, near Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.

He said they looked for lots owned by specific city departments. The one near Legacy, for instance, is listed under the city’s Facilities Services, as Kimes showed us on his smartphone.

Within days, close to two dozen people moved in, set up camp and dubbed themselves, again, ‘Forgotten Realms’. The city has since paid to put up a fence around the camp and provided residents with porta-potty and garbage services.

“We ended up here, and it worked out,” said Kimes.

It worked out so well, points out Kimes, that the city wrote such camps into its new list of camping options for the homeless. Released Monday, the plan calls for such camps to be managed by a contracted employee and affiliated with a non-profit.

Josh Alpert, chief of staff for Portland Mayor Charlie Hales, said via email Wednesday the city will allow such camps to take shape, under the new plan, on a case-by-case basis. At this point, he says, there is no estimate as to how many camps the city will allow, though it’s “…closer to 10 than 100.”

Kimes said there are far more than ten plots of land sitting vacant throughout the city, but he doesn’t know of any current plans to form another camp.

“The neighborhoods have homeless folks living in them right now,” he said. “The question is, can we help to organize the homeless folks and have them involved with our neighborhoods, have them come to neighborhood association meetings, have like what Forgotten Realms did - have them participate in trash pickups in the neighborhoods - or are we going to see them as outsiders?”

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