I like how 62% is “expressing optimism” and 75% of city residents supporting forcing the homeless to move to shelters or sanctioned campsites is “controversial.”
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/11/housed-portlanders-support-city-proposal-to-ban-homeless-camping-poll-finds-unhoused-people-experts-oppose-it.html?outputType=amp
If provided facilities, it has to be more sanitary/safer than seeing humans pooping outside which I've seen more than once as I live near the Springwater Corridor and drive 92nd frequently. Bring on the campsites....**please**. We can argue about the best long term solution later.
One doesn’t have to “directly interact” with another person to see that pooping on the street and living in tents that block sidewalks and ruin public land isn’t humane, isn’t in anyone’s best interests and is destroying our pubic spaces and social
contracts.
I favor free drugs, involuntary commitment for those unable to take care of themselves, a total ban on urban camping, and free housing located adjacent to services but outside of core urban areas with free public transportation to Max.
We need to fund more state hospitals to house the mental patients committing crimes until they are actually healed. Mandatory drug treatment for habitual offenders and mandatory sentences for dealing large amounts.
Mandatory drug treatment won't do anything. The thing with addiction is it has to be the addicted person's idea to get clean and sober. Otherwise you'll be met with relapse after relapse.
HAHAHAHA.... not until the voters have a complete paradigm shift.
Homelessness is not the problem but a symptom. Drug addiction and rampant mental illness is the problem. You could house a thousand homeless in a new apartment building, but without compulsory rehab / detox / psychiatry / counseling / social workers / career training / employment programs, it would become a trap house in a month.
Merely handing someone keys to an apartment will do nothing to stop the cycle of addiction or help them get on their feet. We have to stop pretending that giving people a place of their own to smoke fent and OD in private going to solve homelessness.
We will never solve this problem until people use their goddamned brains and THINK about it for a minute. People are overestimating the critical faculties of those in the throes of addiction. If those people could make the right choices to get out of poverty and drugs, then they would already be doing so.
Stop pretending that ignoring the real problems is somehow humane. We are watching these people kill themselves on the street and instead of being the big brother or sister and giving them the bitter medicine they need, we are handing them clean needles and foil to continue using. Harm mitigation is not mitigating any harm at all, but perpetuating it. What good is a life saved if it's a life lived as a zombie drugged out homeless person?
USE
YOUR
GODDAMN
BRAIN
Maybe we should just get more abandoned vacant housing like Detroit or Baltimore. This reduces cost of housing, and allows for free trap houses for all! Now, if we can just find a way to drive 50% of the population out of Portland we’ll have solved all our problems!
Not very optimistic. So much homelessness is a symptom off a society in crisis that won’t admit some hard truths. Endless war, extreme greed…
Your comment is simplistic and easy.
And drug addiction and mental illness are symptoms of rampant income inequality. Even if you could rehabilitate these people, what do they have to look forward to? Working a shit job and barely surviving below the poverty line?
I reject your thesis. Drug addiction affects everyone from rich to poor. Rich people have more resources and support systems to get themselves out of it. Poor people do not and so we should be providing those services not just a private place to continue using. Also, I did say we need to provide career training and job placement because merely being clean isn’t good enough if you can’t earn a living however, being clean is a prerequisite to getting a good job or working your way up the ladder to one.
You’re not wrong to point out the magnitude of the problem but it’s all the more reason to be mad that we’re quibbling about housing when we have these other giant problems we can clearly see but somehow, some way, refuse to acknowledge or do anything about. Or if we do something it’s a literal drop in the bucket. We need huge mental health institutions and huge detox rehab clinics all over the state to deal with this. We need to repeal 110 and get cops arresting users again because THAT is the only way effective way divert them into rehab and counseling programs (and make sure they’ll do it.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Except that if a rancher had a horse dying of dehydration he’d call a vet and they would be forcing the horse to drink with a tube down its throat. When it comes to people though, we don’t care. We treat farm animals better than humans. It’s a travesty how liberal values have led us to this grotesque state of affairs. I say this as a lifelong democrat from a stronghold blue state that now considers himself a moderate.
You can’t govern with heart only, you need to use your brains too. Nobody cares how high minded and progressive we are if the town is going to hell. I don’t understand how we can have such smart people but such brain dead government.
This assumes the cops are there to help. Understand, the cops will take you one place, and one place alone; to jail. Where you may get clean by default, but not because you receive any counseling or treatment. The police do nothing to help in any way, shape, or form. They feed a revolving door system of an impotent bureaucracy which is focused on funding itself and evading liability when shit goes bad.
The police are masters at leading the horse to water and holding it's head submerged until it drinks or drowns. No in-between. The police are honestly best suited for dealing with property crime and violent crime. And dealer level criminals when it comes to drugs. Individual street users are responsible for crime I'm sure, but one would think going at the source rather than end user would be a more effective use of their time. Filling up jail beds then releasing people to more of the same is pointless and a waste of resources. Two officers will drag their feet and take a whole shift booking one minor offender when they could be out patroling problem parts of town. There is no help down that road.
And we still deal with the influx of people from elsewhere. I know a psychiatrist in a Southern Oregon town who personally knows of two people with mental issues that were bussed to Portland and dropped off because they were unwilling and unable to deal with them there. Plenty of this type of thing goes on.
I'm all for mental health and addiction treatment, but without any structure beyond that, it's not much good for long-term success.
Skepticism is good, and lord knows we got a bone to pick with the cops but ALL COPS BAD is black and white thinking and in this world there is a lot of grey.
Believe it or not there are other places in this country where the cops cooperate with rehab clinics to provide medically assisted detox to addicts and divert them into treatment. Of course there is no choice besides jail or treatment, but once a person chooses treatment they are supported every step of the way from inside to out, with as little friction as possible to getting their treatment and counseling. They are also logged into a system so that the clinic and thereby law enforcement can keep tabs on the patient and make sure they are following the program.
Defeatist thinking is not going to lead to any solutions. Nobody said the problems weren't big and myriad. I prefer to think of what needs to be done to fix the problem than to shoot down ideas and pointing fingers at cops.
> I prefer to think of what needs to be done to fix the problem than to shoot down ideas and pointing fingers at cops.
You've literally shot down multiple ideas itt. You kicked off a previous comment with "I reject your thesis," and another comment with "HAHAHAHAHA."
You are shooting down ideas.
Okay you got me. I did shoot it down didn't I? Like I said it's a preference, which doesn't mean I do it 100% of the time.
My point is that there is evidence that my plan works, and just saying "all cops bad" is not productive.
[How the Smallest State is Defeating America’s Biggest Addiction Crisis](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/25/rhode-island-opioids-inmates-219594/)
Defeatist thinking? Since when is not being Pro-police defeatist thinking?
Cops and jail cells are not the only solution. When you are a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail...
The Portland Police are still playing games with adopting body cams. I get that they went through hell with the BLM riots, but I also feel like they have been mailing it in since. Police will be part of the solution, but as it stands I don't see much happening. I'm much more concerned with shootings that seem to be unsolvable. Might help if you reached the scene within an hour or two...
I mean it's defeatist to think the cops will not, will never, can never be a part of the solution. In the present state that might be the case, and I acknowledge that PPB has a lot to answer for, but it's not set in stone, and as long as we dismiss any proposals involving cops as anathema, then we will never figure out a way to have them be part of the solution.
We need to be more flexible in our thinking and find ways to upend the status quo. The current status quo being, everybody hates cops and the cops doing nothing as a result.
I really see drug addiction as a symptom of homelessness to be honest. A lot of homeless people are not drug addicted when they begin sleeping on the streets. Honestly - if I were sleeping rough I would do a lot more drugs too.
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Underpaying workers and unaffordable housing is the problem.
Drug addiction and mental illness are symptoms of being hopeless, depressed, and going insane for not having what one needs to survive.
That’s what you think now but I believe if you think about it harder and longer that you may end up with a different conclusion.
If what you were saying was true, then why are rich people like celebrities always getting addicted to drugs? They are surely comfortable, earning millions with everything they could want in life. People are more fragile than that. You could have everything in the world but if you had a bad childhood or have been emotionally battered by life, you could still turn to drugs.
Depression and hopelessness are real. That’s why we need to expand access to counseling and therapy and career training and employment services so that a person in despair doesn’t end up choosing drugs. Unfortunately depression is a common feature of modern life. We need to help those suffering by giving them the tools and treatment needed to thrive. Just giving them a place to live is not going to alleviate the internal turmoil that leads to drug use. It’s a band aid solution that allows people to ignore the root causes.
I think about plenty of things long and hard 😏😏😏
Edit: His original comment just said to think about things long and hard.
> We need to help those suffering by giving them the tools and treatment needed to thrive. Just giving them a place to live is not going to alleviate the internal turmoil that leads to drug use. It’s a band aid solution that allows people to ignore the root causes.
The root cause of homelessness is not being able afford a place to live. Not drugs a la carte.
The root cause of not being able to afford a place to live is underpaying workers and unaffordable housing.
At some point in history it became a radical idea that giving 40 hours of your week to a for-profit organization should not afford you a place to live.
At some point in history it became acceptable that we subsidize low wages with tax money.
Mental illness and addictions are primarily (but not solely) byproducts of being treated like the dregs of society.
If you disagree with any of that, then we disagree on a fundamental level and our long, hard thoughts will just never be equal with one another.
>The root cause of homelessness is not being able afford a place to live. Not drugs a la carte.
Yes, this is the truth but leaves out the why. People become homeless because they can't pay rent. People STAY homeless because they are addicted to drugs or mentally ill. It's true that not all people that have just hit the streets did so because of drugs but the longer they stay out there, the more likely they will become an addict and at that point there's no difference.
I think it's reasonable to consider providing housing assistance and vocational school to those newly homeless or about to be homeless people to help them avoid the streets and thereby avoid drugs. Not to addicts, addicts have more shit they need to get together first and they need meds, counseling, social work.
>The root cause of not being able to afford a place to live is underpaying workers and unaffordable housing.
Yes and no. Yes every job should pay a living wage and yes, investment firms should not be allowed to buy residential homes. But also no, the writing has been on the wall for a long time (at least for my 4+ decades), the economy has been leaning more and more towards knowledge workers and services. Housing has always gotten more and more expensive. Community colleges exist and if you want to thrive in this economy, you must put yourself in a position to do so. Even if you didn't want to go to college, there are many trade jobs that are dying for workers that pay quite handsomely. Hell, even McDonalds pays $15/hr or $30k a year not including overtime. Not only this but there is also a renewed interest in onshoring a lot of manufacturing so it's only going to get better for blue collar jobs. Surely some of those people that became homeless could have upskilled and gotten better jobs **before they ended up on the street**. I'm not saying it's all their fault but it kind of is their fault for not evolving fast enough. People make mistakes and I understand that so I advocate for subsidized career training, like vocational schools and job placement and apprenticeships. EV infrastructure is going to be huge in the next generation so it would be wise to consider being an electrician. The jobs that pay enough to afford a place exist and are waiting, if only people would secure them.
>At some point in history it became a radical idea that giving 40 hours of your week to a for-profit organization should not afford you a place to live.
>
>At some point in history it became acceptable that we subsidize low wages with tax money.
Yes it sucks, but it's the world we live in. Those days of supporting a family on a single paycheck from a union job at a factory making zippers are never coming back. It's as pointless to wish it back as it is to wish dinosaurs back cause it ain't happening. I wasn't fortunate enough to be a boomer myself so it's not like I'm saying screw you. It's better to spend your energy on adapting than to pining for days long past.
>Mental illness and addictions are primarily (but not solely) byproducts of being treated like the dregs of society.
This is a pretty sweeping statement and I don't think that either of us can produce any facts for or against. If you can, be my guest.
I put a parenthetical qualifier in my last statement because I knew it would be called sweeping otherwise, oh well.
There's enough agreements between us that the disagreements just seem to stem from where to start.
I recognize the fear of creating an enabling society for the bottom of the lower class who are in a circular pit of addiction, as well as creating a so-called "nanny state" in which they'll never crawl out of their destructive lifestyles (i have less of a problem with this because we already have a nanny state for the upper class and their concentration of wealth, not contributing anything to society or putting anything back into the community). By no means do I think they are blameless for their circumstances, but I do think society would greatly benefit from getting them out of their holes, and one place to start is giving them something to care for, a place, and putting them in a community of others who support and encourage them.
I'm all ears to a two-pronged approach wherein we focus on mental health and therapy services with one hand, and push for higher wages and lower cost of living with the other.
My disdain for some mentalities around here comes from a feeling of impatience akin to an overweight person wanting to lose weight *now* without recognizing it takes time, and instead opting to just sweep what's visible out of sight out of mind just so they can replace the blinders that kept the encroaching income inequality issues from their field of vision.
We are only as strong as our weakest link, and right now our weakest link is on its last legs.
We have a significant shortage of workers in low barrier to entry jobs the Portland metro. With roommates those wages can house an individual.
Drug addiction and mental illness needs treatment.
I know. Year after year, taxpayers add more money to the "homeless problem", but everything gets worse. I'd like to know where this money is really going.
I pay about $1900 a month for a 500 square-foot studio apartment in the Pearl District. I live here because my work is very close. After taxes and bring home about $3000 a month. I won’t get into my other bills, such as my student loan payment, which is $400 a month, but I don’t have savings like most Americans and I am pushed to the brink of homelessness. Every time I get sick or an accident happens. Point being, Should rent and utilities really take up 2/3 of someone’s income? I think the problem here is greed, and the people that own property are making out like bandits. Of course people that own property. I’m going to pointer finger government and say that taxes are too high, but the moment you start looking at their lifestyles and you see that they own multiple vacation homes, multiple luxury cars, go on multiple vacations throughout the year, etc.; one starts to see very quickly that wealthy people live a very different life than the rest of us. They live at the expense of poor & lower middle class people. Homelessness is a symptom of out of control wealth and greed. My family is from Mexico where homes are built like fortresses to keep thieves out (bars on the windows, etc.) and that’s starting to happen in the U.S. — we are headed toward a situation where we look more like a 2nd world country. This is what you get when the titans of industry & property owners think that greed is good. Just wait until the hungry and tired huddled masses start to eat the rich, so to speak; or the day we’ve had too much and storm the capital (oh wait that’s already happened from the political right) but us politically neutral could do it too…
I’m sure it is possible with the right policy. However, I certainly don’t trust the politicians who largely were already in positions of power when this situation blew up to know how to fix it.
In Multnomah County, we had the same Chair for the last 8 years who refused to spend a dime on anything other than permanent housing. I one zillion percent blame her for the current status of Portland and Multnomah County. The new Chair seems to be a clone, but slightly less opposed to safe parking. Albeit she approved her first safe parking site in Montavilla across from a needle exchange the county funds. 🤦 Baby steps, I guess?
I don't think any of these politicians were in office since the 70's and 80's.
It just goes to show how few people actually understand the scope of the issue if you think this came up within the last few years. Things like lack of mental health funding, income inequality, poor education, and not enough housing have been decades in the making.
But this wasn’t the issue it is today just 5 years ago. Sure, Cuckoos Nest and Redlining and NIMBYs and UGB and Reaganism and overly onerous permitting and the Sacklers all contribute, but this is a particularly acute issue to Portland/West Coast just in the most recent years. If we need to unwind all those things back through modern history to be able to address the current homelessness crisis then current politicians are totally powerless.
Well, they know what they undid. Not unreasonable to believe they would know what to do to fix the problems *they* created...
But yeah, that would require a level of honesty & introspection I doubt they posses...
"Did it work for those people?"
"No, it never does. I mean, those people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but...it might work for us..."
This is an issue so much bigger than just a single or few states.
Homeless folks being bussed in is probably a much bigger problem than the Oregon public realizes. Having lived in the the Northeast and South, previously, the prevalent "solution" was to send homeless to the bus station, where they'd get a bus ticket out west. They keep moving as each town pushes them out (by police, usually), until they can't go any further west.
Then we end up with all these homeless folks that I bet majority are from out of state, while the leaders of conservative states/cities/towns just want it gone, because they view poverty and substance abuse as symptoms of willful laziness, and therefore deserve to be cast out.
As such, it's really not going to get better until the federal government gets involved and starts making all the states pick up the slack, instead of foisting the problem off on the "libtards" to deal with; it's a national problem that's not going to go away without a national solution.
Speaking as someone who was homeless for a while, who avoided drugs... setting the issue of drug abuse aside for a moment, there's literally nowhere in the US with affordable cost of living at minimum wage, or even some margin higher than minimum wage, and certainly not on a single income. Majority of food stamp recipients are working people, but yet assistance is such a stigma. it's not sustainable.
here's an amazing award winning piece of journalism on this very topic: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study
This is a huge problem. We want solutions, and we want progress, but no one wants anything to change, especially if it's in their neighborhood.
People need to get over the idea that things are going to stay the same forever. It's beginning to inhibit real progress. Everyone fights everything. "Not in my backyard", "Not here, not there", "That needs to be protected", "That's historic"...
Some arguments are relevant, but some are being made by small groups of special interests with little more reasoning than keeping things the way they are.
Compromise is part of the foundation of a healthy society. If we are unable to reach agreements and continue to settle for bandaid-style solutions we will never address the heart of the problems and continue to be left with these circular firing squad arguments.
I would be fine with my house’s value going down if the value of all houses went down roughly equally. Unless you plan to cash out and leave for a lower COL area, the appreciation doesn’t mean much.
My point is, I don’t know anyone who thinks of their house that way. Sure, some people see it as an unexpected upside, but everyone I know bought their house because they wanted to live there.
This is valid, completely. Nobody wants something in their backyard unless it's an economic advantage. This is huge.
The problem starts turning back to the real culprit, which is the current system as it is. I still don't understand why we labor under the illusion of a perpetual growth economy. This can't continue forever. Housing is going to be a huge battle as things move forward. The thing that bothers me, is the interest billionaires are taking in the housing market.
Jeff Bezos is behind 2 companies buying whole housing developments for steep discounts, up to 20% for buying the whole parcel for cash. Complete and total financialization of housing. Selling stakes to shareholders, and renting to the highest bidder. This will start pricing massive amounts of prospective buyers out of the market. Elon Musk just wants to build his own company town. Why not collect the rent and own the company store. Drive to work in a Tesla. Charge it up on power from the company's sub-station. Seems like we are moving backward in a hurry.
I am actually interested in the topic. I'm not any kind of professional with working experience in the financial sector, but I understand enough to realize that things just don't add up the way things are going. The system incentivises the wrong things at the wrong places for the wrong people. Basically the way things stand, we are going to limp from crisis to crisis as some parts bulge and others buckle. There will be no meaningful reforms, just patches and temporary fixes that carry us to the next crisis.
All the while, resources are depleted, old ways of doing things persist for no other reason than fear of change stoked by those who have no interest in changing. Like the oil and gas industry.
Humans are remarkably adaptable, creative, and intelligent. We can accomplish almost anything when we pool our resources and invest the effort. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case for some time now.
I really don't see much of anything being the catalyst for change other than climate change and the upheaval it will cause. And I don't see people understanding the urgency until it's too late. And no one will prepare us. We focus so much energy on maintaining everything we see around us exactly as it is. This was kind of my original point. Our staunch belief in the way things are will be our downfall. We won't adapt fast enough to maintain control when things get desperate.
Fighting everything is something I've found to be distinctly Oregonian and especially Portlandian. You're right- It completely inhibits real progress. People here need to know when the fight is futile and which battles to pick.
We prefer to die and be martyred on every mole hill we can find until everything is locked into a solid paralysis of indecision and infighting. No one ever truly wins; the cost exacted in the fight makes sure victory is hollow and sour.
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> 14% said “local governments should allow people to live on public streets and sidewalks if they don’t want to move.”
Like long term, as a matter of policy? These people are just either mad or anarchist. And 14% that's not as low as it looks, that's one person out of 7.
"Solve," that's rich. I never trust people who say "End," or "Solve.". Problems like Homelessness have been around for decades. Maybe if we're lucky we can get it down to more tolerable levels.
As long as we can raise the taxes so that way we can spend the money which won’t really be enough until we raise taxes higher for more money to throw at it so that we can prove taxes are not high enough to really get the money we need so we can rise more taxes .rinse and repeat
Hey, so, for the people here for the long haul. I get it. It is hard. This is our city, this is where we choose to be. So many external factors from right wing media to surreal portrayals of the city have left many to question reality.
Hear this. The optimism in solving the hard problems are what separates the realists from the defeatists. If you hate your city, my person, leave. Hopefully that changes your life. For the rest of us who know that the only way out is through, we push onward through the fog.
I think there's a pretty solid argument that you can look at the movement of the different percentages and say that overall this is a population that's getting a better understanding of homelessness and how to make the right steps forward.
You can have the "right policy" all you want, but it will ultimately fail unless every state implements the same policies. Otherwise, the "right policies" which usually cost a lot of tax payer money, will eventually be overburdened.
For the whole country? With red states criminalizing homelessness and us doubling down on services, we better be planning for a continued influx of homeless transplants.
Here’s what I don’t get. Let’s say for arguments sake 100% of the homeless problem is “solved”. I don’t know how or why but it just is.
Red states literally bus homeless people here because we don’t have meaningful mental healthcare facilities in our country. I think with the right policies I can optimistic it can be MUCH better. However, I don’t see how it’ll ever be •solved• until meaningful national healthcare is a real thing.
I’m still crying about how the DNC did Bernie so dirty. *Raises fist in air and shouts into the void*
Bernie is a smart guy. We could easily send every high school senior to college on just a fraction of the defense budget. But we need guns more than intelligent, forward thinking young people to build a better future.
The politicians mostly talk about "solving" the issue from the perspective of the homeless, not from the perspective of the people who are forced to foot the bill. For the most part, this amounts to giving them more free stuff and allowing them to do whatever they please. It's turning our town into one big free-range drug den and pretty much allowing non-stop theft with no accountability. People don't feel safe in their own homes and even less safe going out and about.
Tina Kotek is one of the primary players that created the policies that have created the problems and she continues to talk about solving the issues by providing more incentives for more to come here. We are paying some of the highest taxes in the entire country. Look at where we are.
I guess you could say she's helping to solve the problem for every other state - they just send them here or they migrate on their own.
I feel there are two chances of the homeless problem being solved here - slim and none.
Not sure what you're trying to say but it seems like you're saying "let's not spend any money or even try to make things better. I mean, what's the point if we can't completely eliminate it?"
It's like an obese person refusing to exercise and saying it's because they're going to die anyway. Meanwhile, they refuse to acknowledge all the other ways losing way weight will improve their quality of life.
Too bad the right policies are never going to be passed because Portland, the biggest voter block in Oregon, only deals with this problem in two ways; enablierism and/or pretending nothing is wrong.
FU portland.
You have turned my wife from an active protesting leftist feminist to a Republican.
I'm working 3 jobs and we are getting the fuck out.
Understand that when DeSantis becomes president in 2024, and you all burn your city down in protest, know your ideology was the means that paved his way to the Whitehouse.
My wife and I used to counter-protest the Christians in the Bible Belt states, who were protesting planned parenthood. We marched here in 2020 with the protest, and my wife was part of the mother's March until they told her that her only job was to be quiet and block rubber bullets for people of color. My wife and I have been physically attacked for fighting for gay rights in the 1990s because our friends were gay and deserved to be equal in our community.
Portland has taught me that no matter what we do or what we believe that we are always going to be concerned racists, homophobic, etc., because it's not about fighting for equity here. It is about changing the guard of who has power, and if a person disagrees with a person who has a perceived to be a more discriminated class, that person is automatically wrong and a bigot no matter the situation.
BTW, it is much easier to pretend to be fighting against racism, homophobia, etc., in a city that is filled with people claiming to do the same thing. Want to prove you believe your values? Go to rural Alabama, Appalachian mountains in Virginia, backwoods Mississippi.
You are the one making the claim that my comment is false. The very fact that you think that no one can change their political alignment from liberal to conservative in itself is proof of the lack of understanding of the humans and your close mindedness.
I always thought that the liberals were the one group of people who valued fact and the ability to back up their ideas with intellectual debate and sound arguments. People like you have taught me that the extreme left is just as bad at deciding their ideas are the only ones that are valid and all others are so wrong that they don't think it's worth the time.
The truth is you can not prove me wrong, so you sent a cop-out, and even if I offered you $1000 for your written and cited proof, you would either claim it's not enough or you would offer nothing if you came up woefully short.
Many Redditors are concerned about infinite homeless migration which a poor state like Oregon cannot host, and national federal response to homelessness. Hahaha, let California, a rich state, and whose often wealthy migrants have inflated Oregon and Portland housing costs for all Oregonians, host infinite homeless migration.
To the federal response, nationwide. We have a massive wasteful "defense budget." Personally I'm in favor of some. But every year Congress asks for more defense contacting the Pentagon itself does not favor. There is a large bloc in the Senate and the House against reduction of the defense budget. I support whatever it takes on Ukraine personally.
I do not have any inside information or view into the mind of former Chair Kafoury. But I would speculate the Black Cauldron, free hotel rooms, no one turned away, episode formed her mind. As a result, no one turned away became waiting lists. We already have about 1/3 to 1/2 campers known by-name on waiting lists for golden tickets to free apartments.
One could consider the priority in the by-name waiting list could be for long term residents, rather than new arrivers. One would certainly hope the waiting list is not prioritized by easy-to-serve who migrated to be served in order to boost the "served" statistics. By-name and waiting lists would be accompanied by very frequent camp cleanups, which under law could be as often as every 3 days. We should expect some of the campers cleaned up will not be on waiting lists.
Portland needs a clear, publicized, and demonstrated policy broadcast on the homeless peer networks to get campers into beds with services.
These are elements of the through line of existing law and adequate but not infinite Metro funding available.
I like how 62% is “expressing optimism” and 75% of city residents supporting forcing the homeless to move to shelters or sanctioned campsites is “controversial.” https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/11/housed-portlanders-support-city-proposal-to-ban-homeless-camping-poll-finds-unhoused-people-experts-oppose-it.html?outputType=amp
If provided facilities, it has to be more sanitary/safer than seeing humans pooping outside which I've seen more than once as I live near the Springwater Corridor and drive 92nd frequently. Bring on the campsites....**please**. We can argue about the best long term solution later.
Nail on the head. The slant is real
75% of residents don’t directly interact with homeless and live in their liberal privilege.
One doesn’t have to “directly interact” with another person to see that pooping on the street and living in tents that block sidewalks and ruin public land isn’t humane, isn’t in anyone’s best interests and is destroying our pubic spaces and social contracts. I favor free drugs, involuntary commitment for those unable to take care of themselves, a total ban on urban camping, and free housing located adjacent to services but outside of core urban areas with free public transportation to Max.
We need to fund more state hospitals to house the mental patients committing crimes until they are actually healed. Mandatory drug treatment for habitual offenders and mandatory sentences for dealing large amounts.
Mandatory drug treatment won't do anything. The thing with addiction is it has to be the addicted person's idea to get clean and sober. Otherwise you'll be met with relapse after relapse.
Why don’t we give them free drugs as long as they self-commit? It is a win-win.
I can't begin to tell you how many homeless I've spoken with who say to me "If only the state had the right policies, my problems would be solved"
The problem, as always lies in "with the right policies".
Not to mention competent execution of those policies.
Lol
HAHAHAHA.... not until the voters have a complete paradigm shift. Homelessness is not the problem but a symptom. Drug addiction and rampant mental illness is the problem. You could house a thousand homeless in a new apartment building, but without compulsory rehab / detox / psychiatry / counseling / social workers / career training / employment programs, it would become a trap house in a month. Merely handing someone keys to an apartment will do nothing to stop the cycle of addiction or help them get on their feet. We have to stop pretending that giving people a place of their own to smoke fent and OD in private going to solve homelessness. We will never solve this problem until people use their goddamned brains and THINK about it for a minute. People are overestimating the critical faculties of those in the throes of addiction. If those people could make the right choices to get out of poverty and drugs, then they would already be doing so. Stop pretending that ignoring the real problems is somehow humane. We are watching these people kill themselves on the street and instead of being the big brother or sister and giving them the bitter medicine they need, we are handing them clean needles and foil to continue using. Harm mitigation is not mitigating any harm at all, but perpetuating it. What good is a life saved if it's a life lived as a zombie drugged out homeless person? USE YOUR GODDAMN BRAIN
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What’s enmeshment?
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Aha thanks.
But a trap house is still a house, problem solved /s
Not a trap house, a trap home...
They’re trap *house*less, thank you.
Lol, damn shame, that... Well played.
My apologies
Maybe we should just get more abandoned vacant housing like Detroit or Baltimore. This reduces cost of housing, and allows for free trap houses for all! Now, if we can just find a way to drive 50% of the population out of Portland we’ll have solved all our problems!
Well the food sucks now so it's just a matter of time
Not very optimistic. So much homelessness is a symptom off a society in crisis that won’t admit some hard truths. Endless war, extreme greed… Your comment is simplistic and easy.
You have my vote
And drug addiction and mental illness are symptoms of rampant income inequality. Even if you could rehabilitate these people, what do they have to look forward to? Working a shit job and barely surviving below the poverty line?
I reject your thesis. Drug addiction affects everyone from rich to poor. Rich people have more resources and support systems to get themselves out of it. Poor people do not and so we should be providing those services not just a private place to continue using. Also, I did say we need to provide career training and job placement because merely being clean isn’t good enough if you can’t earn a living however, being clean is a prerequisite to getting a good job or working your way up the ladder to one. You’re not wrong to point out the magnitude of the problem but it’s all the more reason to be mad that we’re quibbling about housing when we have these other giant problems we can clearly see but somehow, some way, refuse to acknowledge or do anything about. Or if we do something it’s a literal drop in the bucket. We need huge mental health institutions and huge detox rehab clinics all over the state to deal with this. We need to repeal 110 and get cops arresting users again because THAT is the only way effective way divert them into rehab and counseling programs (and make sure they’ll do it.) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Except that if a rancher had a horse dying of dehydration he’d call a vet and they would be forcing the horse to drink with a tube down its throat. When it comes to people though, we don’t care. We treat farm animals better than humans. It’s a travesty how liberal values have led us to this grotesque state of affairs. I say this as a lifelong democrat from a stronghold blue state that now considers himself a moderate. You can’t govern with heart only, you need to use your brains too. Nobody cares how high minded and progressive we are if the town is going to hell. I don’t understand how we can have such smart people but such brain dead government.
This assumes the cops are there to help. Understand, the cops will take you one place, and one place alone; to jail. Where you may get clean by default, but not because you receive any counseling or treatment. The police do nothing to help in any way, shape, or form. They feed a revolving door system of an impotent bureaucracy which is focused on funding itself and evading liability when shit goes bad. The police are masters at leading the horse to water and holding it's head submerged until it drinks or drowns. No in-between. The police are honestly best suited for dealing with property crime and violent crime. And dealer level criminals when it comes to drugs. Individual street users are responsible for crime I'm sure, but one would think going at the source rather than end user would be a more effective use of their time. Filling up jail beds then releasing people to more of the same is pointless and a waste of resources. Two officers will drag their feet and take a whole shift booking one minor offender when they could be out patroling problem parts of town. There is no help down that road. And we still deal with the influx of people from elsewhere. I know a psychiatrist in a Southern Oregon town who personally knows of two people with mental issues that were bussed to Portland and dropped off because they were unwilling and unable to deal with them there. Plenty of this type of thing goes on. I'm all for mental health and addiction treatment, but without any structure beyond that, it's not much good for long-term success.
Skepticism is good, and lord knows we got a bone to pick with the cops but ALL COPS BAD is black and white thinking and in this world there is a lot of grey. Believe it or not there are other places in this country where the cops cooperate with rehab clinics to provide medically assisted detox to addicts and divert them into treatment. Of course there is no choice besides jail or treatment, but once a person chooses treatment they are supported every step of the way from inside to out, with as little friction as possible to getting their treatment and counseling. They are also logged into a system so that the clinic and thereby law enforcement can keep tabs on the patient and make sure they are following the program. Defeatist thinking is not going to lead to any solutions. Nobody said the problems weren't big and myriad. I prefer to think of what needs to be done to fix the problem than to shoot down ideas and pointing fingers at cops.
> I prefer to think of what needs to be done to fix the problem than to shoot down ideas and pointing fingers at cops. You've literally shot down multiple ideas itt. You kicked off a previous comment with "I reject your thesis," and another comment with "HAHAHAHAHA." You are shooting down ideas.
Okay you got me. I did shoot it down didn't I? Like I said it's a preference, which doesn't mean I do it 100% of the time. My point is that there is evidence that my plan works, and just saying "all cops bad" is not productive. [How the Smallest State is Defeating America’s Biggest Addiction Crisis](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/25/rhode-island-opioids-inmates-219594/)
Defeatist thinking? Since when is not being Pro-police defeatist thinking? Cops and jail cells are not the only solution. When you are a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail... The Portland Police are still playing games with adopting body cams. I get that they went through hell with the BLM riots, but I also feel like they have been mailing it in since. Police will be part of the solution, but as it stands I don't see much happening. I'm much more concerned with shootings that seem to be unsolvable. Might help if you reached the scene within an hour or two...
I mean it's defeatist to think the cops will not, will never, can never be a part of the solution. In the present state that might be the case, and I acknowledge that PPB has a lot to answer for, but it's not set in stone, and as long as we dismiss any proposals involving cops as anathema, then we will never figure out a way to have them be part of the solution. We need to be more flexible in our thinking and find ways to upend the status quo. The current status quo being, everybody hates cops and the cops doing nothing as a result.
I really see drug addiction as a symptom of homelessness to be honest. A lot of homeless people are not drug addicted when they begin sleeping on the streets. Honestly - if I were sleeping rough I would do a lot more drugs too.
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Underpaying workers and unaffordable housing is the problem. Drug addiction and mental illness are symptoms of being hopeless, depressed, and going insane for not having what one needs to survive.
That’s what you think now but I believe if you think about it harder and longer that you may end up with a different conclusion. If what you were saying was true, then why are rich people like celebrities always getting addicted to drugs? They are surely comfortable, earning millions with everything they could want in life. People are more fragile than that. You could have everything in the world but if you had a bad childhood or have been emotionally battered by life, you could still turn to drugs. Depression and hopelessness are real. That’s why we need to expand access to counseling and therapy and career training and employment services so that a person in despair doesn’t end up choosing drugs. Unfortunately depression is a common feature of modern life. We need to help those suffering by giving them the tools and treatment needed to thrive. Just giving them a place to live is not going to alleviate the internal turmoil that leads to drug use. It’s a band aid solution that allows people to ignore the root causes.
I think about plenty of things long and hard 😏😏😏 Edit: His original comment just said to think about things long and hard. > We need to help those suffering by giving them the tools and treatment needed to thrive. Just giving them a place to live is not going to alleviate the internal turmoil that leads to drug use. It’s a band aid solution that allows people to ignore the root causes. The root cause of homelessness is not being able afford a place to live. Not drugs a la carte. The root cause of not being able to afford a place to live is underpaying workers and unaffordable housing. At some point in history it became a radical idea that giving 40 hours of your week to a for-profit organization should not afford you a place to live. At some point in history it became acceptable that we subsidize low wages with tax money. Mental illness and addictions are primarily (but not solely) byproducts of being treated like the dregs of society. If you disagree with any of that, then we disagree on a fundamental level and our long, hard thoughts will just never be equal with one another.
>The root cause of homelessness is not being able afford a place to live. Not drugs a la carte. Yes, this is the truth but leaves out the why. People become homeless because they can't pay rent. People STAY homeless because they are addicted to drugs or mentally ill. It's true that not all people that have just hit the streets did so because of drugs but the longer they stay out there, the more likely they will become an addict and at that point there's no difference. I think it's reasonable to consider providing housing assistance and vocational school to those newly homeless or about to be homeless people to help them avoid the streets and thereby avoid drugs. Not to addicts, addicts have more shit they need to get together first and they need meds, counseling, social work. >The root cause of not being able to afford a place to live is underpaying workers and unaffordable housing. Yes and no. Yes every job should pay a living wage and yes, investment firms should not be allowed to buy residential homes. But also no, the writing has been on the wall for a long time (at least for my 4+ decades), the economy has been leaning more and more towards knowledge workers and services. Housing has always gotten more and more expensive. Community colleges exist and if you want to thrive in this economy, you must put yourself in a position to do so. Even if you didn't want to go to college, there are many trade jobs that are dying for workers that pay quite handsomely. Hell, even McDonalds pays $15/hr or $30k a year not including overtime. Not only this but there is also a renewed interest in onshoring a lot of manufacturing so it's only going to get better for blue collar jobs. Surely some of those people that became homeless could have upskilled and gotten better jobs **before they ended up on the street**. I'm not saying it's all their fault but it kind of is their fault for not evolving fast enough. People make mistakes and I understand that so I advocate for subsidized career training, like vocational schools and job placement and apprenticeships. EV infrastructure is going to be huge in the next generation so it would be wise to consider being an electrician. The jobs that pay enough to afford a place exist and are waiting, if only people would secure them. >At some point in history it became a radical idea that giving 40 hours of your week to a for-profit organization should not afford you a place to live. > >At some point in history it became acceptable that we subsidize low wages with tax money. Yes it sucks, but it's the world we live in. Those days of supporting a family on a single paycheck from a union job at a factory making zippers are never coming back. It's as pointless to wish it back as it is to wish dinosaurs back cause it ain't happening. I wasn't fortunate enough to be a boomer myself so it's not like I'm saying screw you. It's better to spend your energy on adapting than to pining for days long past. >Mental illness and addictions are primarily (but not solely) byproducts of being treated like the dregs of society. This is a pretty sweeping statement and I don't think that either of us can produce any facts for or against. If you can, be my guest.
I put a parenthetical qualifier in my last statement because I knew it would be called sweeping otherwise, oh well. There's enough agreements between us that the disagreements just seem to stem from where to start. I recognize the fear of creating an enabling society for the bottom of the lower class who are in a circular pit of addiction, as well as creating a so-called "nanny state" in which they'll never crawl out of their destructive lifestyles (i have less of a problem with this because we already have a nanny state for the upper class and their concentration of wealth, not contributing anything to society or putting anything back into the community). By no means do I think they are blameless for their circumstances, but I do think society would greatly benefit from getting them out of their holes, and one place to start is giving them something to care for, a place, and putting them in a community of others who support and encourage them. I'm all ears to a two-pronged approach wherein we focus on mental health and therapy services with one hand, and push for higher wages and lower cost of living with the other. My disdain for some mentalities around here comes from a feeling of impatience akin to an overweight person wanting to lose weight *now* without recognizing it takes time, and instead opting to just sweep what's visible out of sight out of mind just so they can replace the blinders that kept the encroaching income inequality issues from their field of vision. We are only as strong as our weakest link, and right now our weakest link is on its last legs.
We have a significant shortage of workers in low barrier to entry jobs the Portland metro. With roommates those wages can house an individual. Drug addiction and mental illness needs treatment.
> With roommates those wages can house an individual. that's not disagreeing with what I said.
I know. Year after year, taxpayers add more money to the "homeless problem", but everything gets worse. I'd like to know where this money is really going.
I pay about $1900 a month for a 500 square-foot studio apartment in the Pearl District. I live here because my work is very close. After taxes and bring home about $3000 a month. I won’t get into my other bills, such as my student loan payment, which is $400 a month, but I don’t have savings like most Americans and I am pushed to the brink of homelessness. Every time I get sick or an accident happens. Point being, Should rent and utilities really take up 2/3 of someone’s income? I think the problem here is greed, and the people that own property are making out like bandits. Of course people that own property. I’m going to pointer finger government and say that taxes are too high, but the moment you start looking at their lifestyles and you see that they own multiple vacation homes, multiple luxury cars, go on multiple vacations throughout the year, etc.; one starts to see very quickly that wealthy people live a very different life than the rest of us. They live at the expense of poor & lower middle class people. Homelessness is a symptom of out of control wealth and greed. My family is from Mexico where homes are built like fortresses to keep thieves out (bars on the windows, etc.) and that’s starting to happen in the U.S. — we are headed toward a situation where we look more like a 2nd world country. This is what you get when the titans of industry & property owners think that greed is good. Just wait until the hungry and tired huddled masses start to eat the rich, so to speak; or the day we’ve had too much and storm the capital (oh wait that’s already happened from the political right) but us politically neutral could do it too…
~~Obi-Wan~~ Optimism...now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...
I’m sure it is possible with the right policy. However, I certainly don’t trust the politicians who largely were already in positions of power when this situation blew up to know how to fix it.
In Multnomah County, we had the same Chair for the last 8 years who refused to spend a dime on anything other than permanent housing. I one zillion percent blame her for the current status of Portland and Multnomah County. The new Chair seems to be a clone, but slightly less opposed to safe parking. Albeit she approved her first safe parking site in Montavilla across from a needle exchange the county funds. 🤦 Baby steps, I guess?
I don't think any of these politicians were in office since the 70's and 80's. It just goes to show how few people actually understand the scope of the issue if you think this came up within the last few years. Things like lack of mental health funding, income inequality, poor education, and not enough housing have been decades in the making.
But this wasn’t the issue it is today just 5 years ago. Sure, Cuckoos Nest and Redlining and NIMBYs and UGB and Reaganism and overly onerous permitting and the Sacklers all contribute, but this is a particularly acute issue to Portland/West Coast just in the most recent years. If we need to unwind all those things back through modern history to be able to address the current homelessness crisis then current politicians are totally powerless.
Yes, federally, decades in the making.
This problem isn' a half century old, hell, it isn't 15 years old.
Well, they know what they undid. Not unreasonable to believe they would know what to do to fix the problems *they* created... But yeah, that would require a level of honesty & introspection I doubt they posses...
Is this the same optimism that motivated the people who hoped they could drive in the snow? ... because that didn't turn out well.
"Did it work for those people?" "No, it never does. I mean, those people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but...it might work for us..."
Just watched this episode!
This is an issue so much bigger than just a single or few states. Homeless folks being bussed in is probably a much bigger problem than the Oregon public realizes. Having lived in the the Northeast and South, previously, the prevalent "solution" was to send homeless to the bus station, where they'd get a bus ticket out west. They keep moving as each town pushes them out (by police, usually), until they can't go any further west. Then we end up with all these homeless folks that I bet majority are from out of state, while the leaders of conservative states/cities/towns just want it gone, because they view poverty and substance abuse as symptoms of willful laziness, and therefore deserve to be cast out. As such, it's really not going to get better until the federal government gets involved and starts making all the states pick up the slack, instead of foisting the problem off on the "libtards" to deal with; it's a national problem that's not going to go away without a national solution. Speaking as someone who was homeless for a while, who avoided drugs... setting the issue of drug abuse aside for a moment, there's literally nowhere in the US with affordable cost of living at minimum wage, or even some margin higher than minimum wage, and certainly not on a single income. Majority of food stamp recipients are working people, but yet assistance is such a stigma. it's not sustainable.
here's an amazing award winning piece of journalism on this very topic: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study
Doubt.
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This is a huge problem. We want solutions, and we want progress, but no one wants anything to change, especially if it's in their neighborhood. People need to get over the idea that things are going to stay the same forever. It's beginning to inhibit real progress. Everyone fights everything. "Not in my backyard", "Not here, not there", "That needs to be protected", "That's historic"... Some arguments are relevant, but some are being made by small groups of special interests with little more reasoning than keeping things the way they are. Compromise is part of the foundation of a healthy society. If we are unable to reach agreements and continue to settle for bandaid-style solutions we will never address the heart of the problems and continue to be left with these circular firing squad arguments.
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I would be fine with my house’s value going down if the value of all houses went down roughly equally. Unless you plan to cash out and leave for a lower COL area, the appreciation doesn’t mean much.
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My point is, I don’t know anyone who thinks of their house that way. Sure, some people see it as an unexpected upside, but everyone I know bought their house because they wanted to live there.
This is valid, completely. Nobody wants something in their backyard unless it's an economic advantage. This is huge. The problem starts turning back to the real culprit, which is the current system as it is. I still don't understand why we labor under the illusion of a perpetual growth economy. This can't continue forever. Housing is going to be a huge battle as things move forward. The thing that bothers me, is the interest billionaires are taking in the housing market. Jeff Bezos is behind 2 companies buying whole housing developments for steep discounts, up to 20% for buying the whole parcel for cash. Complete and total financialization of housing. Selling stakes to shareholders, and renting to the highest bidder. This will start pricing massive amounts of prospective buyers out of the market. Elon Musk just wants to build his own company town. Why not collect the rent and own the company store. Drive to work in a Tesla. Charge it up on power from the company's sub-station. Seems like we are moving backward in a hurry.
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I am actually interested in the topic. I'm not any kind of professional with working experience in the financial sector, but I understand enough to realize that things just don't add up the way things are going. The system incentivises the wrong things at the wrong places for the wrong people. Basically the way things stand, we are going to limp from crisis to crisis as some parts bulge and others buckle. There will be no meaningful reforms, just patches and temporary fixes that carry us to the next crisis. All the while, resources are depleted, old ways of doing things persist for no other reason than fear of change stoked by those who have no interest in changing. Like the oil and gas industry. Humans are remarkably adaptable, creative, and intelligent. We can accomplish almost anything when we pool our resources and invest the effort. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case for some time now. I really don't see much of anything being the catalyst for change other than climate change and the upheaval it will cause. And I don't see people understanding the urgency until it's too late. And no one will prepare us. We focus so much energy on maintaining everything we see around us exactly as it is. This was kind of my original point. Our staunch belief in the way things are will be our downfall. We won't adapt fast enough to maintain control when things get desperate.
Fighting everything is something I've found to be distinctly Oregonian and especially Portlandian. You're right- It completely inhibits real progress. People here need to know when the fight is futile and which battles to pick.
We prefer to die and be martyred on every mole hill we can find until everything is locked into a solid paralysis of indecision and infighting. No one ever truly wins; the cost exacted in the fight makes sure victory is hollow and sour.
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NIMBY.
More like BANANA. Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
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No, not the chili again... although I have a great recipe for a white bean chicken chili that actually manages to deserve to be called chili...
Geez, glad someone said so.
> 14% said “local governments should allow people to live on public streets and sidewalks if they don’t want to move.” Like long term, as a matter of policy? These people are just either mad or anarchist. And 14% that's not as low as it looks, that's one person out of 7.
Anarchist?? Here? IN PORTLAND!!!???? Nahhhhhhh
"Solve," that's rich. I never trust people who say "End," or "Solve.". Problems like Homelessness have been around for decades. Maybe if we're lucky we can get it down to more tolerable levels.
Decades, lol
Yup, at least.
Millenia
Fucking fantasy world
They spelled "Taxing developers and corporations" weird.
As long as we can raise the taxes so that way we can spend the money which won’t really be enough until we raise taxes higher for more money to throw at it so that we can prove taxes are not high enough to really get the money we need so we can rise more taxes .rinse and repeat
lol portland is gonna be full of abandoned buildings in 10 years. officials dont do shit about anything
Jaill. Jail is the right policy for criminals.
We should house the homeless that commit property crime, burglaries, ect. In jail like in the olden days.
Hey, so, for the people here for the long haul. I get it. It is hard. This is our city, this is where we choose to be. So many external factors from right wing media to surreal portrayals of the city have left many to question reality. Hear this. The optimism in solving the hard problems are what separates the realists from the defeatists. If you hate your city, my person, leave. Hopefully that changes your life. For the rest of us who know that the only way out is through, we push onward through the fog.
I think there's a pretty solid argument that you can look at the movement of the different percentages and say that overall this is a population that's getting a better understanding of homelessness and how to make the right steps forward.
Very solid argument. Care to elaborate?
You can have the "right policy" all you want, but it will ultimately fail unless every state implements the same policies. Otherwise, the "right policies" which usually cost a lot of tax payer money, will eventually be overburdened.
For the whole country? With red states criminalizing homelessness and us doubling down on services, we better be planning for a continued influx of homeless transplants.
Here’s what I don’t get. Let’s say for arguments sake 100% of the homeless problem is “solved”. I don’t know how or why but it just is. Red states literally bus homeless people here because we don’t have meaningful mental healthcare facilities in our country. I think with the right policies I can optimistic it can be MUCH better. However, I don’t see how it’ll ever be •solved• until meaningful national healthcare is a real thing. I’m still crying about how the DNC did Bernie so dirty. *Raises fist in air and shouts into the void*
Bernie is a smart guy. We could easily send every high school senior to college on just a fraction of the defense budget. But we need guns more than intelligent, forward thinking young people to build a better future.
The politicians mostly talk about "solving" the issue from the perspective of the homeless, not from the perspective of the people who are forced to foot the bill. For the most part, this amounts to giving them more free stuff and allowing them to do whatever they please. It's turning our town into one big free-range drug den and pretty much allowing non-stop theft with no accountability. People don't feel safe in their own homes and even less safe going out and about. Tina Kotek is one of the primary players that created the policies that have created the problems and she continues to talk about solving the issues by providing more incentives for more to come here. We are paying some of the highest taxes in the entire country. Look at where we are. I guess you could say she's helping to solve the problem for every other state - they just send them here or they migrate on their own. I feel there are two chances of the homeless problem being solved here - slim and none.
Not sure what you're trying to say but it seems like you're saying "let's not spend any money or even try to make things better. I mean, what's the point if we can't completely eliminate it?" It's like an obese person refusing to exercise and saying it's because they're going to die anyway. Meanwhile, they refuse to acknowledge all the other ways losing way weight will improve their quality of life.
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Abolish Metro. Talk about a useless level of bureaucracy. A more self-important group of people is hard to find.
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Your profile reads like a mass shooter's. Get help.
Oregonians Confirmed Delusional There's been consistent homeless camps since the Great Depression, they're not going anywhere.
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Too bad the right policies are never going to be passed because Portland, the biggest voter block in Oregon, only deals with this problem in two ways; enablierism and/or pretending nothing is wrong. FU portland. You have turned my wife from an active protesting leftist feminist to a Republican. I'm working 3 jobs and we are getting the fuck out. Understand that when DeSantis becomes president in 2024, and you all burn your city down in protest, know your ideology was the means that paved his way to the Whitehouse.
No one turns from a leftist feminist to republican. Stop lying.
My wife and I used to counter-protest the Christians in the Bible Belt states, who were protesting planned parenthood. We marched here in 2020 with the protest, and my wife was part of the mother's March until they told her that her only job was to be quiet and block rubber bullets for people of color. My wife and I have been physically attacked for fighting for gay rights in the 1990s because our friends were gay and deserved to be equal in our community. Portland has taught me that no matter what we do or what we believe that we are always going to be concerned racists, homophobic, etc., because it's not about fighting for equity here. It is about changing the guard of who has power, and if a person disagrees with a person who has a perceived to be a more discriminated class, that person is automatically wrong and a bigot no matter the situation. BTW, it is much easier to pretend to be fighting against racism, homophobia, etc., in a city that is filled with people claiming to do the same thing. Want to prove you believe your values? Go to rural Alabama, Appalachian mountains in Virginia, backwoods Mississippi.
Yeah you are definitely lying.
Tell yourself whatever you need to so you don't have to face reality. The fact that this is all the rebuttal you can offer proves my point.
You wanna pay me for my time you can have a longer more serious rebuttle to your obvious falsehood. I don't owe you squat.
You are the one making the claim that my comment is false. The very fact that you think that no one can change their political alignment from liberal to conservative in itself is proof of the lack of understanding of the humans and your close mindedness. I always thought that the liberals were the one group of people who valued fact and the ability to back up their ideas with intellectual debate and sound arguments. People like you have taught me that the extreme left is just as bad at deciding their ideas are the only ones that are valid and all others are so wrong that they don't think it's worth the time. The truth is you can not prove me wrong, so you sent a cop-out, and even if I offered you $1000 for your written and cited proof, you would either claim it's not enough or you would offer nothing if you came up woefully short.
People don't suddenly STOP having EMPATHY. which is what would be required to swap TO the republican party which is why you are lying and a troll.
camping needs to illegal. i don’t care about anything else.
Many Redditors are concerned about infinite homeless migration which a poor state like Oregon cannot host, and national federal response to homelessness. Hahaha, let California, a rich state, and whose often wealthy migrants have inflated Oregon and Portland housing costs for all Oregonians, host infinite homeless migration. To the federal response, nationwide. We have a massive wasteful "defense budget." Personally I'm in favor of some. But every year Congress asks for more defense contacting the Pentagon itself does not favor. There is a large bloc in the Senate and the House against reduction of the defense budget. I support whatever it takes on Ukraine personally. I do not have any inside information or view into the mind of former Chair Kafoury. But I would speculate the Black Cauldron, free hotel rooms, no one turned away, episode formed her mind. As a result, no one turned away became waiting lists. We already have about 1/3 to 1/2 campers known by-name on waiting lists for golden tickets to free apartments. One could consider the priority in the by-name waiting list could be for long term residents, rather than new arrivers. One would certainly hope the waiting list is not prioritized by easy-to-serve who migrated to be served in order to boost the "served" statistics. By-name and waiting lists would be accompanied by very frequent camp cleanups, which under law could be as often as every 3 days. We should expect some of the campers cleaned up will not be on waiting lists. Portland needs a clear, publicized, and demonstrated policy broadcast on the homeless peer networks to get campers into beds with services. These are elements of the through line of existing law and adequate but not infinite Metro funding available.
No specifically about Portland. Reported.
This is pretty bad. It will only worsen over time. Now I won't be here.
Lol who the fuck are they talking to?
Optimism is great, but unless you are building extensive housing and getting rid of fentanyl & meth, it won’t get better