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City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez was on the job for less than a week when Mayor Ted Wheeler handed him a gift basket of city bureaus in crisis: the fire department and the bureau that handles 911 calls.
It’s an apt reward for a politician who campaigned on a platform of cracking down on crime and unhoused camping. The mayor didn’t give him the Police Bureau—few mayors relinquish control of the cop shop—but Wheeler placed Gonzalez in charge of the city’s emergency dispatch desk and many of its first responders. Firefighters are also reeling from a rise in fires that begin in and around homeless camps: As WW reported last year, camp fires now constitute half the fires in Portland (“Camp Fires Everywhere,” Nov. 2, 2022).
What’s more, Portland Fire & Rescue contains a 2-year-old program called Portland Street Response that sends unarmed crisis teams to people in mental distress. That means Gonzalez partly controls the direction of an innovative program crafted and championed by former Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the incumbent he just vanquished. The police union, which endorsed Gonzalez, has been reluctant to cede work to PSR. During the campaign, Gonzalez expressed trepidation about expanding the program wihout more in-depth data about its effectiveness.
Last week, WW visited Gonzalez’s makeshift office downtown, in a building adjacent to City Hall while his permanent office is being repainted beige, to ask him how he plans to lead his bureaus for the next two years. We discussed how firefighters’ job descriptions have been complicated by the homelessness crisis and what he plans to do about PSR.
Here are excerpts from that interview. Responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
WW: Talking to the fire union and Fire Chief Sara Boone, what do you see as the biggest issues confronting the bureau right now?
Rene Gonzalez: Certainly staffing versus volume they face is a gigantic piece. I think that the forced overtime, which was a response to the realities they’re facing—too many fires and not enough staff—is really beating down that workforce. I think at times there’s almost a sadness and depression about our inability to address unsanctioned camps.
When you’re putting out a fire [at a structure] built to code, the risk factors are understandable. In unsanctioned camps, you don’t know what you’re walking into. It’s deeply unpredictable, and I don’t think most fire professionals enjoy putting out a cooking or heating fire as human beings. There’s nothing fun about that.
Do you think firefighters should be first responders to chronic callers?
I think part of it is sanctioned versus unsanctioned camps. As a city, we have to move toward sanctioned camping, and that means a place with basic rules and fire safety. The fire bureau gave me this number: Since mid-2019, the fire bureau has been tracking fire calls among the houseless. Of those, only six were in sanctioned camps versus 2,554 in unsanctioned camps.
Don’t you think that’s because we have so few people in sanctioned camps, that it’s just a result of proportions?
We have a lot more unsanctioned camping than sanctioned camping. But the bottom line is: You talk to the fire marshal, and they think this is a big deal. There’s no rules in unsanctioned camps, and it’s driving a substantial amount of these fires. We just have to get folks into sanctioned camping where there’s reasonable public safety steps being taken, including fire suppression.
Let’s say these camps aren’t built for another year. What could we do in the interim to partially relieve that burden on firefighters?
I think we have to get shelter up as quickly as possible. Whether we get multiple hundred- or 50-person sites, whether that takes 18 months or not, we have to show progress on that. I wonder in the interim what we can be doing further on things like proactive fire safety.
Will you expand and give more funding to Portland Street Response?
Right now, if I were to say where I’m inclined to push further funding, I would prioritize fire bureau staff. I want us to be aggressive in evaluating outside funds for PSR.
The police union has historically pushed back against sending more nonemergency calls to PSR. Would you go against the police union in that way?
I didn’t know the police union was opposed to more of those calls going to PSR. If more calls are appropriate for PSR, absolutely. I don’t know if any public safety bureau should have a veto on what makes sense. I want to understand more about the police’s opposition to that.
Over the summer, the union asked Commissioner Hardesty for double pay for overtime hours worked. She said it was fiscally irresponsible. If the union came to you and asked for double pay, how would you respond?
I would look to Chief Boone first on that. I don’t think we can take it off the table as a solution, particularly because 911 responders ended up getting it. I don’t know that fire should be excluded from that possibility if we’re giving it to other public safety employees. But we’re all facing budgetary restrictions.
So you’d defer to Chief Boone?
Yes.
You’ve talked a lot about what others have said to you about how to remedy some of the fire bureau’s issues. Do you have any concrete policies that you plan to implement?
I want to look at staffing as a priority. The training facility and the logistics facility that they opted not to go forward with as a bond, those are really old buildings. If you want to call that a policy, I don’t know, but we have to evaluate how we go forward with things.
Would you ask for a bond right now from voters?
I would first evaluate what other funding sources are out there for that before I go to voters for anything in this environment. I’m very reluctant right now to ask for anything in the short term, unless we’ve got our ducks in a row for return on investment for voters.