Gamers around the world are becoming familiar with the name of a city-sanctioned Portland homeless community.

Grand Theft Auto V, released Sept. 17, features a homeless camp called Dignity Village -- the name that

claimed more than a decade ago.

Nancy Mottaz, who identified herself as the camp's CEO, said the non-profit is looking into the situation with an attorney, but declined to comment further.

, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto V, has not returned requests for comment. The story was

, a Portland newspaper focusing on homeless issues.

A YouTube video that a

shows a homeless camp at the edge of a city, near a freeway that runs along a coastline. Portland's Dignity Village is a half-mile south of Northeast Marine Drive, which runs parallel to the Columbia River.

At the Grand Theft Auto camp, the name "Dignity Village" is prominently painted on a banner; a "Dignity Village" banner also hangs outside the real-world camp.

Like the Portland Dignity Village, the camp in the game includes fairly sturdy, permanent shacks, said Taylor Holcombe. The 20-year-old, who works at GameStop in Clackamas Towne Center, has played all five Grand Theft Auto editions.

In Grand Theft Auto, Holcombe said, the camp doesn't have any connection to the main game. There are no missions there. It's just a feature to make the world of the game seem more real, he said, which is typical of the game's developers.

"It's just something to add oomph," Holcombe said. "Rockstar has always done things like that."

Grand Theft Auto is an open-world game, he said, which means players can do anything they want, such as shop, eat or explore. He happened upon the game's Dignity Village while exploring.

He saw 20-30 animated characters sitting around or playing the banjo in the game's camp, he said, which unlike Portland's Dignity Village is built on bare earth instead of asphalt. There is graffiti painted everywhere in the game's camp, he said, almost all of which pertains to conspiracy theories.

Portland's Dignity Village is home to 60 people at any given time. The city formally recognized the site, which settled on its current location off of Northeast Sunderland Road in 2001, nearly 10 years ago.

Photographs of the game's village are available on

.

-- Melissa Binder