Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Tuesday that the statewide “stay home” order applies to every Oregonian, including people without homes.

Wheeler’s comments Tuesday were the first to clarify whether the more than 4,000 homeless people in Multnomah County could be fined or arrested for not following social distancing guidelines.

Portland Police Chief Jami Resch said that those measures will be a last resort.

Police will first try to educate people about what Gov. Kate Brown’s order says and then try to provide resources and get voluntary buy-in to stay six feet from neighbors and not cluster in groups.

“We will work with all our resources available to make sure they can do proper social distancing,” Resch said at a press conference.

States, such as neighboring California, with large homeless populations carved out specific exemptions for homeless people in their orders to shut down all “non-essential” travel to try to keep people in their homes.

Gov. Kate Brown did not.

Late Monday, a spokesman for her office said that Brown would “discourage” police from punishing homeless people for violating the order, but she did not prohibit it.

That leaves cities and counties to decide on their own how they will approach enforcement of the stay-home order.

Resch said that Portland’s system will rely on complaints. Weeks ago, police announced that they will not be patrolling or responding to calls about homeless encampments as usual.

Enforcement of the governor’s order will be similar. If someone sees a potential violation -- a group of people playing touch football in a park, for example -- that can be called in to police and an officer would respond.

Monday, several people living outside said they were worried that would lead to homeless people being disproportionately targeted, since the majority of 911 calls prior to the coronavirus pandemic were complaints around homeless people or people in mental health distress.

-- Molly Harbarger

mharbarger@oregonian.com | 503-294-5923 | @MollyHarbarger

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