A couple days ago, a picture was ricocheting around Twitter of two people having sex in a doorway on the North Park Blocks. I'm not gonna post it. You can imagine what it looked like.

It's an unwelcome image, obviously—both because it's not a good thing for people to be having sex in public in broad daylight, and because it's the sort of thing that can be used to leverage an outsized hysterical response to the visible homelessness that's been so prevalent in Portland of late. That homelessness hasn't been eradicated or made less visible by the weeks of sweeps Portland police carried out earlier this summer, even if it has been pushed around some.

There's not enough affordable housing. There's not enough shelter space. Lots of people don't have another place to go. The sweeps the city's carried out this year have focused on "low-impact" homelessness—convincing people not to put down roots, but instead pick up their belongings and move along come morning. Even if it worked in its limited range (I've not seen proof either way), the problem festers.

So you should pay attention to an announcement Mayor Charlie Hales is planning early this afternoon. For months, the mayor's office has said the city needs a new tack for dealing with homelessness. Hales has been pushing to move the self-managed homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too out of downtown and into the Central Eastside (and been met with stiff resistance), and has said he'd consider allowing more organized camps around town.

The mayor's also put major money toward something that's only been vaguely outlined so far—and which sources say he's planning to fill out later today. As part of this year's budget, Hales gave more than $1 million in one-time money to the Portland Housing Bureau, for what he called an "intensive street engagement and clean-up initiative." Here's how the city's adopted budget describes it:

The initiative will fund services provided by community-based organizations. Mobile trash pick-up will account for approximately $101,306 to fund a full-time two-person crew, as well as materials
and supplies. The remaining $923,694 will support a collaboration between police and social service providers. This collaboration proposes to serve 50 households through three housing placement staff ($195,000), housing subsidies ($500,000), and additional support services ($228,694).

Hales and his staff have offered a few more details in the past, suggesting that the city should be more actively aiming social services at problem camps. Mayoral staffers have also said targeting people who are "ringleaders" of problem camps for intensive services like housing placement could help disperse the city's largest homeless camps. Portland has thousands of homeless people, so 50 households isn't much, but it'll be interesting to hear what Hales has up his sleeve—and how this new effort will commune with run of the mill police enforcement and the city's ongoing campsite cleanup program, which is in the midst of changes of its own.

Hales is planning to appear today with Derald Walker, CEO of Cascade Behavioral Health. A press release from the mayor's office says: "The new partnership is designed to focus services for some of the city’s most at-risk community members."