5:08 p.m.: A man who called himself Mohawk was one of two campers who remained by mid-Thursday afternoon at the big homeless camp along the Springwater Corridor called Lambert Field. He was shirtless, sweaty and resigned

"You wouldn't believe what I left back there, he said. "Tools, jackets. Screw it."

He walked out with a pair of duffel bags filled with clothes, his identification card and a Social Security card. He carried a cooler filled with what looked like a dozen various cold sodas.

He approached a single homeless advocate still at the site with two park rangers. Without saying anything, he placed his cooler on the ground and handed out three drinks to the three men, a grateful gesture for their help.

"Thank you, buddy," he told advocate Dirk Asbury.

Where does he plan to go?

"Gonna hit skid row," a reference to Old Town Chinatown.

EMAIL CHARLIE HALES AND TED WHEELER

Mayor Charlie Hales' office oversees the city's response to homeless camping, including the cleanup of the Springwater Corridor. City officials were unable to say Thursday how many campers were provided options for shelter. Nor could they say where the campers would sleep Thursday night.

4:15 p.m.: From 70 to 100 homeless campers voluntarily left a notorious stretch of the Springwater Corridor on Thursday as the city of Portland began a coordinated sweep that will continue indefinitely.

Police made no arrests and only a handful of campers remained on a large field near Southeast Lambert Street as cleanup crews and homeless advocates went home Thursday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for Portland Mayor Charlie Hales, who reluctantly approved the sweep because too many campers had congregated in the area, all but declared the first day a success.

"Everything went super smoothly," Sara Hottman told reporters during a 3 p.m. news conference at City Hall. "Everything was quiet and went according to plan."

City officials were unable to say, however, how many of the campers displaced were provided options for overnight shelter. Nor could they say where the campers would be sleeping Thursday night, although officials acknowledged some will likely move into more visible portions of the Lents neighborhood.

Crews will return to the area Friday to continue cleanup. Work will extend through the weekend, and officials offered no timetable to complete their efforts.

3:46 p.m.: Shelter operators reported more demand from the Springwater sweep.

At the Rose Haven day shelter in Northwest Portland, more calls have come in asking about services, but that hasn't translated to an increase in people -- yet, said community outreach director Katie O'Brien.

"My guess is most people are packing up and figuring out what resources are available and how to get there," she said.

The lull at the shelter probably will end Friday, when it expects to be busy, she said.

Saint Andre Bessette Catholic Church's day shelter on West Burnside had an influx of people and is past its capacity -- serving 125 people when it's set up for 120, said office manager Andrew Rakestraw.

It's unusual to reach the limit during the first few days of the month, when people have housing vouchers and food stamps, Rakestraw said. "I would anticipate that we'll hit capacity through the month of September," he said.

In the past few weeks, more new people have come in, likely in part because of the Springwater cleanup, Rakestraw said.

Other local resources for homeless people have been hit hard as well, Rakestraw said. A volunteer from the Sisters of the Road on Northwest Sixth Street told Rakestraw that the cafe was overwhelmed with people Thursday, he said.

"There's going to be some strain for supplies and resources," Rakestraw said.

2:50 p.m.: Lents neighborhood residents say because of the homeless population living along the trail, they've dealt with an increase in theft and vandalism, they've seen harm to the environment and they've experienced neglect by officials, who have failed to listen to their concerns.

Robert Schultz, public safety chairman on the Lents Neighborhood Association, said many neighbors are happy about the cleanup.

Schultz hit the trail Thursday morning about 10 a.m. to check on the progress. He spoke to dozens of campers as they packed up their belongings, attached trailers to bicycles and raked trash into piles along the corridor.

He asked each person if they had a place to go. Nearly everyone said no.

One man replied: "Kinda sorta. I don't particularly know what I'm going to do."

Dozens of people along the trail were laboring Thursday to pack up and move out. The feeling, Schultz said, was similar to breaking camp on the last day of an outing in the woods.

Many people packing up recognized Schultz. He's walked the corridor often since 1992, and he'll talk to anyone willing to talk to him. He listens to the homeless and housed alike in Lents and has tried to bridge the gap between them.

Stopping near the trail to speak with a church volunteer from Gresham who was delivering water to homeless campers, Schultz explained his purpose. "I think I owe it to my community to bear witness to it," he said.

12:28 p.m.: Robert Stroup, 51, and Ali Beene, 41, stood outside the Clackamas Service Center contemplating their next move Thursday around noon.

The couple, engaged to be married, had been kicked off the Springwater Corridor earlier in the day and, despite the fact they had been told to leave, both were in good spirits given the circumstances.

"We were ready to go," Stroup said as he stood next to two fully loaded shopping carts. "We had all our stuff packed up because we knew it was coming."

Stroup said the folks who swept through the camps on the Springwater were "real respectful" and there were a number of resources available to the displaced campers.

The pair had been living along the multi-use path for six months, Stroup said, after he lost his job and Beene lost her home in Gresham. Life on the Springwater treated them well enough, he said, though the clamor of late-night arguments along the corridor and living out in the elements had been less than ideal.

Stroup needed to get identification to pursue a job after losing his while he was incarcerated a few years ago. He's been in contact with officials but hasn't yet been able to get his hands on the document.

"We're just waiting for some real housing to come through," Beene said as she waited to see a doctor at the Outside In truck next to the service center, where health professionals offer free services to those in need. "We're on several waiting lists, but you really never know."

The couple had been able to secure a few nights at a local motel through a housing advocacy organization, but after that it was unclear where they would go.

"All we can really do is hope for the best," Stroup said.

11:54 a.m.: Roger Goldingay owns Cartlandia on Southeast 82nd Avenue just off the Springwater Corridor. He's had a lot trouble with homeless campers adjacent to his property that fits 32 food carts, he said. Revenues are down this year.

"We've had almost zero bike traffic this summer, which is a big part of our business," Goldingay said. "We've constant had theft, people going through our trash, panhandling off of customers, threatening cart owners, stealing on a daily basis."

He's a bit relieved to see the cleanup sweep begin, he said.

"It's very gratifying to see it happening. I think this has been disastrous for so many people including the homeless and the neighborhoods."

Still, he's hired extra security during the sweeps. He installed $6,000 worth of security cameras that recently caught two car break-ins, he said.

"We had a white supremacist gang hurling racial slurs at some of the cart owners," he said. "And of course these guys are feeling pretty vulnerable becaue they have to leave their carts, and these guys are living 20 feet away."

Will the sweep work?

"I hope so," he said. "I think they have to continue the enforcement. They can't just do it for a day or two and just leave."

11:30 a.m.: Debra Mason, executive director of the Clackamas Service Center, said she hadn't seen a significant uptick in people seeking resources even as officials worked to sweep homeless campers a few blocks away.

She cautioned, however, that the fallout could take days or even weeks to fully materialize.

Mason said that since the sweeps fell on the first of the month, some people may have just received government assistance checks, which could tide them over for the time being. But when that money runs out, people with few resources could find themselves in dire situations.

"Is it going to be tonight? Tomorrow?" she asked. "But there are going to be some issues. As people relocate, because they have to go somewhere, there are going to be some problems."

In the days leading up to the sweep, Mason described the mood among her clientele as "scared, anxious and nervous," but she said there were some upsides to the cleanup.

The center hosted two "resource fairs" in the weeks before the sweep, which brought together a host of agencies to offer help to people living on the trail including food, mental health outreach, housing coordination and assistance getting government identification, often the first hurdle faced by those looking to uplift their situation.

"I think 68 people got their IDs and a ton of people got help and are now on waiting lists for housing," she said. "I know that doesn't sound optimistic, but that is a huge first step."

Three mental health workers were stationed at the center on Thursday morning, which sits on a dead end street just off Southeast 82nd Avenue, along with a mobile shower station, a large storage container meant to house whatever belongings those kicked off the trail couldn't carry with them. Doctors from Outside In, a service that provides health and social services to homeless people, stood by ready to help.

Hopefully, Mason said, the renewed focus on the problem of homelessness along the corridor would have a lasting impact on the population that lives there. She said the center would continue to host resource fairs and that an outreach worker who focuses specifically on the Springwater, who had been working on a volunteer basis, had just been hired full time as of Thursday morning.

Her attitude toward the success of the sweeps, however you define it, was one of cautious optimism.

"We're just going to have to wait and see," she said.

10:15 a.m.: Contracted cleaning crews arrived at the corrider with park rangers about 8:30 a.m. The crews told homeless to take their time packing their belongings and to take what they wanted. After campers would leave particular areas, the crews put up yellow caution tape around whatever was left behind, indicating the site was ready for cleanup.

At one point, crisis managers converged quickly on a man with a machete who was having a mental health crisis. But the counselors talked to the man and de-escalated the situation, helping him leave safely.

Steve Kimes, the homeless advocate, said things are going smoothly. He said he is pleased that the homeless weren't being pressured to leave in a hurried manner.

"They're allowing us advocates to do what we do," he said. "Actually, it couldn't be much better."

8:57 a.m.: Sara Hottman, spokeswoman for Portland Mayor Charlie Hales, says the cleanup of the Springwater Corridor is "going very smoothly." The city plans an official update at 3 p.m.

7:58 a.m.: Vic Sielski has lived on the Springwater Corridor for seven years, the past four months at the Lambert Field encampment. He's known as the campsite leader, and some call him Dad.

He was asked Thursday morning how he feels about the city beginning a dayslong effort to clear out the corridor.

"It hurts," he said.

Sielski's tent was the first stop for homeless advocates coming to help campers as the sweep began. He is one of 11 homeless people named in the Oregon Law Center agreement with the mayor's office to delay the sweep from August to Sept. 1.

He and his wife's campsite consists of three tents covered in tarps. He has dozens of bicycles, parts and tools that he's trying to hang onto through the cleanup. He says he gets the parts from trash cans and junk yards, and some people bring bikes to him. He goes to a local bike shop to look up serial numbers to make sure they're not stolen, and if they are, he returns them to police.

When he rebuilds the bikes, he gives them away to homeless people. "I'm just giving them a hand up, not a handout," Sielski said.

Lambert Field has developed into a community with a council that enforces rules. When Sielski is away, he looks forward to returning to his community.

"You get a sense that 'I'm coming home,'" he said. "Now instead, I'll just be going to a tent or a campsite."

About 12 people remained at Lambert Field at 8 a.m., said Lisa Lake, director of Advocacy5, a nonprofit group that funds four others groups providing meals, crisis management, basic health care and other services to the campers.

Homeless advocates are now redirecting their efforts to help people at a camp near Southeast 92nd Avenue, where it intersects with the corridor. They expect that will be the focus of the cleanup Friday.

6:31 a.m.: About 20 campers remain Thursday morning at Lambert Field, according to Steve Kimes, a pastor who helps the homeless. Advocates are assisting the campers, who say they are stressed because the city's plan to move them is scheduled to start at 8 a.m. The camp, south of Southeast Lambert Street along the Springwater Corridor just east of Southeast 82nd Avenue, is the first homeless encampment planned for Thursday's sweep to move homeless off the corridor.

***

The deadline is now.

Mayor Charlie Hales gave homeless campers until Thursday to leave the Springwater Corridor - Portland's popular playground trail that has turned into a gauntlet for walkers, runners, cyclists and Southeast Portland neighbors alarmed by a proliferation of tents and trash.

But where will the campers go?

Hales freely admits that the city doesn't provide enough options and is working to find more beds and other help for the campers. Residents are worried about finding homeless people moving onto their blocks. And the outcasts themselves want the dignity of having a place to lay their heads.

That stew of conflicting interests will play out in the next 24 hours and beyond.

The city has hired cleanup workers. Social service agencies are at the ready. And Portland police are on standby.

Tony Hernandez and Emily Smith lead a group of Oregonian/OregonLive reporters filing updates from the field for a running report of what's happening along the corridor's 14 miles through Portland.

Check back here for the latest news.

Read recent coverage:

* Portland City Council poised to extend 'housing emergency' extra year

-- Tony Hernandez, Emily Smith, Brad Schmidt, Kale Williams and Samantha Matsumoto

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