Councilors Morillo and Green Introduce “Morillo 1” Amendment to Reduce Sweeps, Fund Real Solutions

November 10, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Maria Sipin, Chief of [email protected]

Councilors Morillo and Green Introduce "Morillo 1" Amendment to Reduce Sweeps, Fund Real Solutions

City Council will vote to adopt the FY 2025-26 Fall Supplemental Budget and make other budget related changes. The Morillo 1 amendment will be among the items to be discussed before the vote.

PORTLAND, OR - Today, City Councilors Angelita Morillo and Mitch Green introduced the "Morillo 1" amendment to the Fall Technical Adjustment Ordinance (TAO), a measure that seeks to change Portland's direction on homelessness by redirecting a portion of funding on a one-time basis for the costly and cruel practice of encampment sweeps to reinvesting in proven, life-saving services instead.

The amendment comes just days after Mayor Keith Wilson began enforcing a camping ban and intensifying sweeps on November 1st amid sharply increased ICE activity targeting immigrants in communities across the metro area.

"The Mayor's plan to continue sweeping our unhoused neighbors is not only morally bankrupt, it is empirically a failure," said Councilor Angelita Morillo. "Do we want to further traumatize and destabilize people, or do we want to stabilize them with the direct aid they need right now?"

Morillo 1 would redirect some funding away from forced displacement and toward rental assistance, food aid, and resources for immigrant communities.

"At a moment when the federal government is targeting vulnerable groups, I find it outrageous that some people in our city government want us to do more of the same. We must protect all Portlanders," said Morillo.

The amendment specifically redirects all General Fund allocations currently designated for sweeps into three areas: emergency rental assistance, food aid, and resources for immigrant rights groups.

"Portland cannot sweep its way out of this crisis," said Councilor Mitch Green. "Attempts to police our way out of poverty have been a catastrophically poor investment. City, county and state agencies have spent millions of dollars on sweeps and temporary shelters in recent years, and the result is more death, more suffering, and more people on the streets. It's become clear that the Mayor's plan is more of the same. I can't in good conscience continue to vote to fund this approach. "Morillo 1" finally aligns our budget with what service providers and public health experts have demanded for decades: stop the harm and fund what works."

The amendment contains precise legal language to ensure the reduction of harmful practices while protecting vital services. It specifically targets cuts to programs whose primary purpose is the forced displacement of persons or the seizure of their property without consent. It also explicitly protects funding for programs that provide voluntary trash cleanup, sanitation services, and other public health measures that offer dignity to people living outdoors.

This shift delivers on a long-standing demand from homeless service experts and public health researchers, who have documented that sweeps increase the risk of overdose death by up to 22%, sever connections to medical care and medication, scatter people away from life-saving services, and simply move campers from one neighborhood to another.

Councilor Green added that while this amendment takes steps to address the immediate crisis, he sees affordable housing as the only long-term solution. "We need to move Portland aggressively toward a Social Housing model, with high-quality, permanently affordable housing that will serve the broad majority of Portlanders-from the un-housed to the middle class", he said.

The vote on the "Morillo 1" amendment is scheduled for Wednesday, November 12th. The updated amendment language is now available on the City Council agenda.

Agenda item:https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/fy-2025-26-fall-supplemental-budget

Morillo 1 amendment:https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/council-documents/2025/2025-403-Morillo_Fall_TAO_Amendment_0.pdf

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