PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Tensions are rising within the confines of city hall as Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s self-made deadline to end unsheltered homelessness reaches its home stretch.

On Wednesday, Portland City Council is expected to vote on a budget amendment proposed by Councilor Angelita Morillo that would reroute the city's Impact Reduction Program funds toward housing, food assistance, and immigrant relations.

The amendment — if approved — would cut $4.3 million from the city’s program that cleans and removes homeless encampments and transfers $1.5 million to Morillo’s efforts. 

According to Mayor Wilson, the program has removed 12,400,000 pounds of hazardous garbage from Portland streets and public spaces in the past fiscal year.

In a newsletter sent to the public on Sunday, he said defunding the program could be “devastating for every neighborhood as upwards of 4,000,000 lbs. of biohazard materials could be left uncollected,” and urged Portland residents to contact their city council representatives to preserve the program’s funding.

“Perhaps most painful of all, we would be forced to lay off up to 100 workers, including those in successful workforce development programs that prioritize hiring workers with lived experience of homelessness or prior incarceration,” he said in the newsletter. “That's not all. The amendment also takes away funds from domestic violence victims, more than a million dollars from our parks, $873,368 from the Portland Police Bureau, $251,363 from the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, $428,950 from the Portland Fire Bureau, and millions from our critical economic development efforts.”

In response, Morillo took to social media Monday morning, stating that her amendment does not cut trash abatement. She also criticized Wilson, claiming he “could’ve called me to clarify and ask questions before blasting us in a newsletter, but of course he has to find a scapegoat when he doesn’t magically end homelessness on 12/1 by warehousing people.”

She also added, “Never seen an executive with such an aversion to picking up the phone to talk through policy, avoid spreading misinformation, and do right by Portlanders, but here we are.”

Morillo then posted a video in which she claims Wilson’s newsletter “mischaracterized” the amendment, stating that “What my amendment does it it reallocated some money from sweeps, which is displacing people from sidewalk to sidewalk without ever actually getting to the root of the problem — and we are spending millions and millions of dollars to do that — in order to allocate that to rent assistance, food assistance, and help for immigrants in our community.”

She further stated that her amendment does not take funding from helping unhoused people find jobs or trash abatement, instead urging nonprofits to contact her directly.

“I really haven’t aired out dirty laundry in an attempt to build rapport with my colleagues, but if my name is going to be smeared on a massive list serve you leave me no choice but to respond,” she said. 

The amendment is set to be discussed in a City Council meeting on Wednesday morning.