Victoria Swink has tried everything – she's asked people not to throw cigarette butts in her yard in Montavilla, she's tried shooing away others as they use the bathroom on her property only to get a middle finger in return.

So Swink was upset when the Montavilla Neighborhood Association passed a resolution that asked Mayor Ted Wheeler to stop sweeping homeless people from the Southeast Portland neighborhood.

Swink was among a packed room of more than 100 residents and homeless advocates at a meeting Monday night called by the association, a nine-member board more used to planning community events and the Montavilla Jazz Festival than answering angry critics.

"We've had to cut our bushes down because people are pooping in our front yard," Swink said. "They're throwing needles in our front yard."

If you go

The Montavilla Neighborhood Association is hosting a town hall at 10 a.m. July 29 for residents to learn more about homeless issues and discuss them further. There's limited seating available, so RSVP early if interested in attending. Call 971-220-6621 for more information.

The resolution was symbolic, and Wheeler said he wouldn't order the Portland Police Bureau to stop moving homeless people from where they're camped on sidewalks and in parks.

"We have an obligation to respond to the concerns of residents. We have a process for evaluating which locations we're going to clean and it's based on the most immediate public health and safety risks," said Michael Cox, the mayor's spokesman.

The city puts priority on clearing areas where a large number of residents have complained. The city often receives more than 500 complaints a week about homeless camps and people living out of their cars. Last week, about 25 came from Montavilla residents. Work crews and police clean up about 12 sites a week.

Since May, the only cleanups in or near Montavilla's boundaries – between Interstates 84 and 205 and Mount Tabor – were along the I-205 multiuse path.

The 128-year-old neighborhood association board met in a community room of the Montavilla United Methodist Church. The board members didn't have microphones and people sitting at the back of the room struggled to hear what everyone said.

Chairman Jonnie Shaver announced that it was his first night running a board meeting and he was going a little off the agenda to allow people to speak. Usually five to 10 people come to the sessions, Shaver said, and that's being generous with the attendance numbers.

But this was an unusual circumstance, said many of the critics.

"We have a neighborhood association that is acting grossly over what I would expect from the oldest neighborhood association in the city," said resident Angela Todd, who runs her interior design business in the neighborhood.

She asked the board to call an early election, so she and opponents to the resolution could try to oust the members. Shaver said the board plans to stick with its already scheduled October election.

After nearly an hour of allowing a critic to speak for one minute and then a supporter to speak for a minute, back and forth, Shaver wrapped up the meeting with an admonition that this isn't a new issue for the board.

Board members organized a warming shelter that held 160 people during this year's brutally cold winter, have held food drives and formed a neighborhood committee months ago focused on housing and homelessness issues, Shaver said.

He said he has spoken with City Hall and Multnomah County to figure out how to get better needle disposal and bathrooms for homeless people, reached out to Central City Concern for trash pickup in the neighborhood through the nonprofit's Clean and Safe program and volunteered to start a dialogue between homeless people and homeowners.

"We have to work on the issues, and I'm trying to do that," Shaver said. "I'm sorry the resolution came as a surprise to some folks but I haven't been working on this in private."

The Montavilla resolution comes at a time when many neighborhoods are asking for more sweeps and patrols. Wheeler directed $1.5 million in his current budget toward livability issues of health, safety and hygiene in areas with large populations of people sleeping outdoors.

The resolution disputes that moving people off streets and sidewalks and out of parks – sometimes causing people to lose their belongings and identification cards and making it harder for outreach workers to find them -- significantly reduces crime and trash.

"We believe this waste of taxpayer dollars could be better spent by investing in long-term solutions to reducing the homeless population through increased shelter beds, transitional housing, and mental health and substance abuse treatment," the resolutions says.

"Finally, we point to the recent 10 percent increase in the homeless population based on a count performed by the city of Portland and Multnomah County which demonstrates the ineffectiveness of sweeps," the resolution says. "We also point out that as a neighborhood association we represent all members of our neighborhood association regardless of their housing status including the homeless living within our neighborhood boundaries."

Some of those neighbors showed up at the meeting, as well. Several dozen people with signs that said "Montavilla for houseless human rights" lined the back wall of the room and clustered throughout the room.

A few spoke about being homeless in the area and feeling terrorized by the sweeps.

"I feel blindsided when I'm swept. It makes it hard to go to school and get a job," said a young man in a bear hat. "To say that it's unfair to the neighborhoods that are upset by the sight of us -- I guess that's what it is, they don't want to see us -- it's unfair to houseless people that just want to get by."

-- Molly Harbarger

mharbarger@oregonian.com

503-294-5923

@MollyHarbarger