Rix Miles Chapman estimates that he's paid landlords enough in rent throughout his life to equal the full mortgage on a house or the price of a mid-sized apartment building.
So seven years ago, the 47-year-old said he got tired of making the monthly payments and tired of being told he plays his drums too loud and decided to live on a boat.
He's lived mostly on the Willamette River since then. The one boat he bought for $1,500 and painted black and yellow is now a makeshift flotilla comprising a raft and three smaller boats featuring a couch, bike wheels, a generator, a slide and an assortment of other adornments he said he either picked up on Craigslist, fished out of the river or found on land.
Workers from the Oregon Department of State Lands paid Chapman a visit Wednesday at his floating home south of the Hawthorne Bridge and issued him a trespassing notice.
The agency contends that he's on
and that he has to move or risk being fined and possibly have his vessel towed away.
Chapman, who answers to "Finger" and wore a life vest with the nickname airbrushed on back, said he was issued a similar warning last year and complied. But he said he soon noticed other people living on boats in the area were in the same spots when he returned months later.
And though he'll move for such events as the annual Fourth of July fireworks display or a
, Chapman said he expects to stay put otherwise.
"They're mad that I don't have to pay anyone anything," he said. "This is public water, and I'm not bothering anyone. What they told me is that I'm breaking an administrative rule. Issue me something that says I'm breaking the law, and maybe I'll go."
"Otherwise this seems like a frivolous waste of money to me."
Chapman was one of 14 boat owners along the Willamette River between the Sellwood and Hawthorne bridges given trespassing notices on suspicion of living along state-owned waterways for at least 30 days.
The boaters have 20 days to either move to another water spot at least five miles away and not return for a year, move to a marina or other areas where long-term docking is allowed, leave the water entirely or contest the citation. If they don't comply or request a hearing, they can be fined $100 a day until they move or their boats will be seized.
Lori Warner-Dickason, the state department's operations manager, said this is the first full sweep of boaters since the agency began tracking the number of people living on the water and brainstorming ways to tackle the issue in 2014. Back then, the agency found there were 75 boaters in the Portland area, but some vessels have left the water or sunk since then, she said.
The count now is about 50 boaters spread out from Willamette Cove to past the Fremont Bridge, Warner-Dickason said. She said the agency tracks the movements of the boaters to ensure they're in compliance with the 30-day "transient use" rule.
"We started near the Hawthorne Bridge because we found a high concentration of unauthorized use there," she said. "Our goal is to manage the waterway to protect the public trust values for all Oregonians."
Warner-Dickason said agency officials feel compelled to act because they believe living on the water can present environmental and safety hazards for those who use the river recreationally, as well as live-in boaters. Some of the boats are in poor condition and have no engines, making them difficult to move quickly in the case of an emergency, she said. There's also a risk of pollution because most of the boats don't have sanitation.
The state lands department and Oregon State Marine Board have spent $60,000 since 2014 removing 24 boats from the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Warner-Dickason said. All but two of them, which had been abandoned or at risk of sinking, were removed last year at a cost of about $53,000.
The state lands department planned to start issuing trespassing notices last year, but ultimately decided against it to develop an enforcement process that was "more fair and sensitive to housing issues," Warner-Dickson said. She said the state department plans to put people in touch with housing services if they request it and are eligible.
-- Everton Bailey Jr.
ebailey@oregonian.com
503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey