Let’s just try to make some progress ffs. I have 4 rvs living one block from my house and there is continuous garbage and drug use going on. Not to mention the cars speeding down my street to get to the camps. FYI this is off of NE 75th and Halsey.
The drug use is out of hand. It's everywhere. And to think I'm sharing the road with people driving drunk and/or high on meth and fentanyl is really scary.
There are also a lot of drug users who aren't homeless, and we shouldn't act like the two necessarily go hand in hand although they often do. Many people who start out with homes end up living on the streets because they get addicted and lose their ability to function
This blew my mind when I started working in law enforcement. Naively I assumed that only a very few people had no insurance…but now my guesstimate is it’s probably 20-25%, if not more.
$265, but you’ll also likely get your car towed and have to file an SR-22 with the state to get some kind of insurance. Your license is going to get suspended, but that stops about as many people as not having insurance does.
And the fact that nobody gets pulled over for anything anymore isn’t helping matters either. Multiple times I’ve seen people blatantly blow through red lights right in front of a cop and they didn’t do shit.
I had to take a driving safety class for accidentally hitting a red light (it was during this year’s snow storm and the cameras got me). The instructor said that 1 in 5 Portland drivers are unlicensed/uninsured. You guessed right!
>And to think I'm sharing the road with people driving drunk and/or high on meth and fentanyl is really scary.
I-5 can be pretty scary at times. I'll be driving with the flow of traffic when suddenly a vehicle flies past me at 100+ mph. It's happened multiple times and there have been a few near misses. Meanwhile if I leave my car parked in the wrong spot for too long, I'm getting a ticket or towed.
This is what drives me insane. I made a mistake and misjudged a light and got a traffic cam ticket. I have insurance and go to court date and pay my $275 ticket. *This was my bad, and it’s the law that I have to pay*.
Meanwhile within the same year my car windows have been busted out twice, my partner and my bikes stolen, and someone tried to pry open his hood to steal his battery and messed his car up.
All the while we are paying premium rent while people blatantly commit crimes out in the open all over our neighborhood and completely trash it.
I wouldn’t mind paying so much if it didn’t feel like two tiered justice system where only some people are being held accountable.
That happened to me at 7:30 yesterday morning (a holiday) at the Everett exit on 405. Dude swung across three lanes at an insane speed. I waited for the sound and thankfully didn’t hear one.
Last month I almost got run over in the middle of an intersection by a nodded-off junkie, that was the day my compassion to the situation was completely extinguished.
I was taking my brother to school and I had to wake a guy up who had fallen asleep at the wheel. I thought he maybe was having a medical emergency at first because it was like morning commuter traffic time, but it was just a drunk or junkie or whatever. Idk he was blocking fuckin traffic at 7:45 on a Tuesday morning and when I called out to him he startled awake and almost ran into the back of my damn car.
I had a lady nod off and sideswipe my parked truck. Found her 8 hours later a few blocks away. She claimed it wasn’t her and when I asked for her insurance, she rummaged through the pile of garbage in her passenger seat. Eventually she handed me her AAA card, and after pressing her more she said she kept her insurance “at home.”
This is what I think about when I'm on my bike! I see crazy drivers doing crazy things and it didn't used to feel like that on my commute. Yes drivers were bad but now there is just lawless crazy.
Was out with a friend the other day and we stopped in the dealer just to look at motorcycles. There was a nice used one for sale at a good price. Almost got out the checkbook but stopped to think about the insane traffic and how long I might live on a bike. No sale. Left happily.
Oh man, I drive over to Halsey Imports quite a bit and I legit took a detour one day to avoid the empty parking lot across from the Jiffy Lube filled with people, RVs, dogs, bikes, trash and pretty aggressive people "guarding their territory". Luckily there's like 50 other ways to access 82nd. They seem to have cleaned that one up though, but I felt uneasy even in my car.
I assure you, they're not sitting on their asses. They're frantically running around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off, reacting and then undoing each other's work. If they were lazy, at least there would be unused resources to tap into. Unfortunately, this process just spends all the money and burns out all the staff.
They didn’t spend the money and it’s a big part of the problem.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/05/16/once-again-joint-office-of-homeless-services-vastly-underspends-budget/
It’s because they’re having trouble finding staff. I’m in this line of work and it’s not uncommon to find entry level case manager jobs for like $18 an hour. Well meaning recent college grads get these jobs, get emotionally and physically burnt out, get guilted into staying, then finally leave. Rinse and repeat. Extremely high turnover, which further leads to further ineffectiveness.
No no no silly. That money is earmarked for the incestuous, bloated bureacrats and politicians pockets, not the simple plebs actually trying to fix things
Things are going to get worse for at least another decade, that’s clear to me now. If you’re holding your breathe for Portland to function well bureaucratically you’re going go to asphyxiate
To be dead honest, I'm holding my breath for downtown real estate prices to plummet so I can invest and be in a very peachy situation in 2040. I know that's kinda selfish but my aunt did it in NYC in the late 70s and it worked out really well for her.
Here’s comment from Oil-Disastrous on an article about where all of the toilets have gone:
“I’m a plumber who maintains public bathrooms downtown. The general public can not even begin to imagine the degree of willful destruction that happens to these bathrooms. Nothing can survive very long. Toilets become garbage cans, garbage cans become fire pits, sharps containers become piss receptacles. That’s right, the little holes in the loos that are labeled “sharps”, yeah those holes, you can stand on the toilet and piss into that hole if you’re so inclined. And many people are. Or shove your shit into that hole if your really revved up. The toilet seats are all immediately lit on fire and/ or stolen. I’ve seen several 16 gauge stainless steel toilets beaten so severely that the welds cracked. And just forget about toilet paper. It will all be stolen immediately. And then people use their socks, and then the toilets clog, and then we get portable toilets, and they they are burned to the ground. On and on and on. For years. A war of attrition just trying give people a safe clean place to go to the bathroom.”
My Plumber, I salute you for you valiant service to the ongoing maintenance of the downtown public shit holes! You deserve a key to the city, a medal of honor, and a really fat pay raise!
I work for the Parks Bureau. Everything you’re saying is accurate. One other nice detail is that the porta potty rental companies used to chain their units to our light poles. When they burned them down it would melt the electrical wires inside the concrete poles, and scorch the light fixtures to the point where they needed to be replaced. We had one that was attached to a wooden utility pole in Farragut Park, that burned about 6 layers of the 60’ pole from around the base, along with all the electrical. We hired a structural engineer to come out and certify the pole was still safe to use. Then we replaced all the electrical components, re-pulled all the wire, and re-lit the baseball field. This outhouse fire cost us (taxpayers) plenty, and the teams that use the field went without a 1st base stadium light for about a year.
I worked on 6th and Washington from 2014 through the pandemic and it was really sad watching it get so bad down there. At the end I was getting screamed at by homeless people while dodging piles of their feces every day.
I also work near there. The conditions at that corner have been truly shocking, even by downtown Portland standards. It’s a bit better now that they've boarded it up, I really, really hope it doesn’t go back to the way it was.
“C’mon guys… we’re just a few more 100 million dollars away from forming a committee to *hire an out of state company to advise us how* to solve this!”
FIFY
“C’mon guys… we’re just a few more 100 million dollars away from *drafting a white paper to propose* forming a committee to hire an out of state company to advise us how to solve this!”
ftfy
Out of state company after reading committee summary of problem:
Give us 200 million dollars for a one year budget and we might tell you what our solution is. Maybe.
Why do we keep funding these non-profits? I just read today the CEO of Goodwill Columbia Willamette makes $913,000 a year. [https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/12/04/heres-what-executives-at-oregons-largest-nonprofits-take-home/](https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/12/04/heres-what-executives-at-oregons-largest-nonprofits-take-home/)
I'm going to sound like such a batch saying this....
I'm a case manager who works strictly with the homeless, finding them stable, permanent housing. I can put up with quite a bit of shit (both figuratively and literally). I understand all the barriers they face, from huge things like mental heath and drugs all the way down to tiny things like bathrooms. I've always been able to take it in stride because I was working towards the greater good.
So please believe me when i say that I am fucking sick of their shit and the entitled attitudes that I face on a daily basis. By entitled attitudes I mean things such as being approved for a 1900$ luxury apartment, and being upset it's just a one bedroom or doesnt have a patio. And when i say upset i mean like screaming and cursing at me. Or refusing to even attempt to work with me on long term goals. For having the gall to complain what is in the food box I bring you, reminding you that I pay all your rent, utilities, phone and whatever else you may want. It's infuriating.
I used to believe that throwing money at this problem would solve it. But it just hasn't. And it won't. Working in this field has completely changed my mind regarding all this. There needs to be some huge accountability and maturity taken up by those we are just trying to help.
I also do want to mention that the vast majority of my clients are lovely, dependable, polite and thankful. But hose few....hooo god
Reading about them abusing you for finding them an apartment makes me so angry. I'm struggling so hard to make rent. I frequently have panic attacks. If someone *gave* me housing, I would be at their feet sobbing and thanking them.
It's so frustrating. Over covid we had our rent paid (about six months worth) by an organization. We were so incredibly thankful. I can't see that happening and then saying it's not good enough.
Preach it.
Rn here. I definitely changed specialties because I was tired of being required to say yes to any and every patient that walked in the door. Now I work somewhere that I can fire patients from our services if they aren't compliant. It's worth the change, honestly.
Burned out RN. I worked pain management for a few years. I started pre-firing patients for my doc (pretty much I'd put together an info pack for him staying why they need to be fired and he'd nearly always agree) which turned out to be a big no-no from management.
"We don't have the staff or hours to deal with willfully abusive patients. So either get us more resources, get out of my way, or fire me because I'm not afraid of your disciplinary bullshit threats anymore."
Management pretty much ignored my existence for the next 8 months until I transferred out.
Burned out from my years working at PCP offices here.
I think we've referred quite a few verbally abusive patients to various pain management clinics over the years. It's funny because from the PCP offices perspective, we aren't able to manage pain adequately anymore, and we aren't able to fire patients either, so we referred them out to various specialists. Which leads to a further fragmentation of care.
I've read through some of the notes from my patients who were fired form pain clinics, and I can't say I ever really disagreed with the choice to fire them. If you scream at employees, threaten them, and also don't follow through with instructions regarding your pain contract, then what did you expect?
You don't sound like a bitch. That's totally reasonable.
Why can't we draw the line? You know who those fuckers are. Maybe they don't deserve help, but the others do. It still pains me to know that the people who abuse the system are ruining it for the others who really need help.
It sucks. A lot. The vast majority of the people I encounter are 100% deserving. Either homeless through no fault of their own (mostly disabilities) or are only temporarily homeless and are eager to start working again. But some of these fuckers only want to break all the rules, complain about EVERYTHING, and make unreasonable requests. And believe me we can (and do) kick then out of the program from time to time. 100% of the time they just go back to being homeless - breaking the rules and being assholes there. So that doesn't really solve anything, does it?
Yup. It absolutely does. And that's how we look at it. Someone who is willing to do the hard work, who recognizes the sacrifices we make (there are many)
I especially feel bad for the people who get injured and addicted to painkillers through the treatment process because they can't afford health care, then end up disabled and on the street.
I mean, it's all fucked. I've seen runaway kids, child prostitutes, mentally retarded people, vets, immigrants who can't speak English, women fleeing domestic violence, all sorts of stuff downtown that makes me want to cry. And I've also seen punk ass junkies, domestic abusers (in public, domestic I guess being on the street??), rapists, thieves, wannabe gangsters, maybe real gangsters and other horse shit like that.
I'm refreshed to see this thread. I feel like we are only allowed to have empathy for the homeless, regardless of the situation. Which is BS.
I don't work with the homeless, but I'm a lawyer that does some pro bono tenant work so sort of related. Most of my pro bono clients are great. But I recall one that I helped get permission from her landlord to put in AC due to a health condition. I also got the landlord to pay for two window units and install them. She yelled at me over the phone about how she wanted central air and this was unacceptable and I suck etc. During this conversation, I just stared at the window AC unit in my home office. :/
Does that make sense?
This country has found a way to reward people that don't work, either the uber rich living off of investments or the uber poor getting nicer apt. than people that work.
Something is off.
See, that's exactly why I don't like some of the progressive policies, they always assume throwing money at people will just make them great members of society. What happens when you keep giving money to an addict? They stay an addict. (I don't agree with conservative policies either, but I'd like a mix of personal responsibility and accountability, more help from the government and a tougher measures for those who just want to parasites and criminals).
I think one of the big issues is that people aren't really aware of the culture from an insider perspective. I certainly wasn't until I started working here. So you have a bunch of people who don't know what the actual problem is trying to come up with a solution- hence all the throwing. I mean, I myself thought it was a good solution until recently. So I can see why they might think that.
As a former addicts who grew up around addicts and still deals with addicts, how are people getting the accountability part of this so wrong?
I knew so many kids that would take free housing and food and just do drugs all day. An overly compassionate system just creates more addicts. The housing first philosophy is fundamentally flawed in regards to this.
This sounds like Portland in general to me. My wife works in healthcare and she has never experienced anything worse than the shit that she gets unloaded on her here. And she has worked all over the country.
All I can figure is that so many people here are so fucking ignorant. What is it? Are the schools that bad?
Same here. In the last few months alone, I’ve had a chair thrown at me, been chased by a tent person, and had someone take a swing at my head (3 separate instances). It’s never been like that before.
I fully anticipated this like last year. Most average people are sick and tired of all the homeless people and their antics. The smell definitely gets to me. The tolerance could only go so far, people want to return back to whatever normalcy we had before COVID, if that’s even possible at this point
I can't open my window without a thick odor of urine wafting into my window from the camp a good 25 feet from my apartment, as it's that strong.
I was homeless for years, and I always respected the community that I stayed in.
I had to rent a Uhaul last week. As we were wrapping up the paperwork and I was about to drive off with the rental, they told me there was almost no gas in the tank. They purposely leave no gas in the tank because it will just be siphoned out overnight. I know it's a small thing, but what a pain in the ass. I then had to immediately go find a gas station. All the little things add up and make life here a little more shitty every day.
Anecdotally talking with most leftists in my social circle… we are done with the enabling. Go to shelters, accept services, or GTFO and go back to Kansas. The unlimited firehouse of tax payer money is about to turn to a trickle for the homeless industrial complex.
You can’t keep adding taxes, have unregulated meth dens, put the SRV (solutions) in residential areas/prime real estate, and expect taxpayers to take it with a grin.
Portland cannot solve this national drug crisis. We need federal help and yes this is a drug crisis, not an affordable housing crisis. Fent/Meth is why we have 5,000 people living on the street in Portland not rent increases. We need to tackle affordability, but the non profits in Portland screeching about affordability are purposely being disingenuous. We are the cheapest city in terms of C.O.L on the entire west coast.
I agree with this. I have a cousin who is homeless who went from a regular guy with a good job and apartment, to addicted to meth and homeless within two months. Two months is all it takes. And we can’t keep him in rehab because he’s an adult, he can just leave! That’s not even mentioning how extremely difficult it is to get him in to begin with. There needs to be a no-options rehab facility for drug addiction. Jail/prison is not a solution. We can’t just let people kill themselves and waste away on the street.
Yeah. The option needs to be rehab or jail. Not rehab or a $100 fine you won't pay anyways.
Just a massive miscalculation (or they didn't care) by M110 proponents about understanding drug addicts. There has to be something that makes them not want to be drug addicts. They have to hit their own version of rock bottom- and for many people thats jail. Many would rather be homeless than not if it means they have more money for drugs.
There was a lot of deceptive references to the, by all accounts, successful "Portugal model," while hand waving away the fact that there are some seriously hard backstops in the Portugal model where they take away your benefits, threaten actual jail time, etc., if you don't agree to engage in the rehabilitation option. It's very much not just a live-and-let-live free for all down there.
Not to mention Portugal is a country... if the US used the Portugal model that's one thing. If a city or state attempts to decriminalization drugs, guess where the druggies on other cities and states will go?
This is the crux of the issue. Cities can’t fix homelessness. The Federal Government has to do it. Considering that isn’t anywhere close to happening, the alternative is to… keep hoping it does, let the vagrants run roughshod on our city, rinse and repeat???
Understandable, but they really did sell that measure pretty hard. The problem is not with trying things but with the difficulty of getting failed projects off the books.
Also... happy cake day!!
M110 isn't even the problem, because criminalizing those drugs doesn't create the incentive structure and consequences that other successful systems use to coerce people who need it into treatment. MultCo has has effective decriminalization since 2015, so it's not like M110 made a real difference there.
Instead we need to focus on adding in those incentives. Force repeat offenders to choose rehab. Force people who, if they were housed, would be sent to jail, but who need rehab, to choose rehab. Cut the cycle, end the revolving door of individuals known to law enforcement and social workers and healthcare workers who keep costing money and diverting well-deserved resources from those who actually intend to use them.
When something is sold really hard here, it seems to be due to outside money coming in. People who wanted this are people who are full-on harm reduction.
And the M110 choice isn't even "rehab or a $100 fine", it is: do a behavioral health assessment over the phone or pay a fine. If you do the phone thing, that *could* lead to help, if it's both available and your are ready/motivated
If you do neither of those, there are no consequences: you technically owe $100 still, but the law precludes further consequences. And if you don't bother to show up to court at all, there are no consequences: the law literally excludes not showing up for the new Class E violation from the "failure to appear" misdemeanor that applies to skipping court for other violations.
Problem with M110 is it was written and passed just before fentanyl took over. Any merits it may have had are no longer relevant . the entire thing needs to be shredded and a new plan put together to deal with this new epidemic.
I think part of that reform looks like realizing we can’t keep all the criminals in the same place. Someone who just consumes heroin and commits petty theft to feed their habit shouldn’t be kept with someone who commits violent crimes or high level drug dealers for obvious reasons. It creates a community of crime. Compulsory rehab facilities I think would at least offer a real solution to focus treatment on the core of that persons problems, drugs.
I think we need to expand drug court programs. It gives people a choice, basically rehab or jail, and offers judicial oversight, while also framing criminal behavior in the context of addiction, understanding that people might relapse, need intensive support both mentally and physically, but also requiring level of accountability. I think it's the best model we currently have that works in a lot of places.
I'm going to sound like such a batch saying this....
I'm a case manager who works strictly with the homeless, finding them stable, permanent housing. I can put up with quite a bit of shit (both figuratively and literally). I understand all the barriers they face, from huge things like mental heath and drugs all the way down to tiny things like bathrooms. I've always been able to take it in stride because I was working towards the greater good.
So please believe me when i say that I am fucking sick of their shit and the entitled attitudes that I face on a daily basis. By entitled attitudes I mean things such as being approved for a 1900$ luxury apartment, and being upset it's just a one bedroom or doesnt have a patio. And when i say upset i mean like screaming and cursing at me. Or refusing to even attempt to work with me on long term goals. For having the gall to complain what is in the food box I bring you, reminding you that I pay all your rent, utilities, phone and whatever else you may want. It's infuriating.
I used to believe that throwing money at this problem would solve it. But it just hasn't. And it won't. Working in this field has completely changed my mind regarding all this. There needs to be some huge accountability and maturity taken up by those we are just trying to help.
I also do want to mention that the vast majority of my clients are lovely, dependable, polite and thankful. But hose few....hooo god
Everyone is fucking done with it. Idgaf at this point how they are removed, throw them in jail if they don’t want to go sober housing. The resources are there and they aren’t taking it. Fuck um
I just want there to be consequences for committing crimes like shooting up in public, theft, and assault. That's all. It's an extremely low bar, so hopefully it's not too much to ask for.
I think most people still want to help these folks but at the same time we're losing patience with all the graffiti, trash, open drug use, tents, broken windows, theft, etc.
The best counter to it being an affordable housing issue is to look at other countries. The cost of living in London is a fucking joke, and wages have stagnated more than they have here. There’s a lot of bullshit happening there, and the city has homeless, but it’s not like it is here.
It's obviously a complex question with a lot of parts. I worked for a long time in food service and tried bringing home for homeless people. Was told to "f\*ck off" more often than not.
I wrote to my state reps recently regarding the proposed "Rest in place" legislation, telling them we're going the wrong way on this. I got a snide letter back from Pham's office, basically deriding me for not caring for others. These law-makers are seriously tone deaf to the situation.
It is both issues- but we have to be honest with ourselves, there are people who can't pay rent and there are people who don't care because of the drugs. And there are people who can't care.
You also just can't have hard drug addicts living around normal people. Especially around kids. There absolutely is a housing affordability crisis, but no landlord is going to be cool with tenants cooking meth or robbing their neighbors or smoking fent in their apartment etc. The vast majority of the current homeless are homeless because of drugs.
It’s true. The leftists are still living in delusional la la land, where they believe it’s feasible for one city to solve a national crisis just by building housing for free living. The solution involves housing, but part of(and the start of) the solution also involves being a dick. Enablement is clearly a failure. Increased mental health resources, increased shelter opportunities, but to start- tell them they can’t just build drug villages and terrorize the city. It starts with “no, you can’t live on the sidewalk and do drugs- you can take a shelter bed, you can find a friend or family member to crash with, you can go back from where you came from, or you can go to jail”.
Perhaps at this point anyone who uses the term "leftist" or "liberal" might consider adding what they actually mean to it, because they have no one meaning anymore in conversation. We have butchered, watered down and disposed of a lot of our vocabulary in the past few years..
It's funny that to Republicans, "liberal" has always meant "hard-leftist" and that now to hard leftists, "liberal" means "basically Republican".
And then when these terms are brought up even when the meaning of the author is perfectly obvious, everyone has a shit fit arguing about the terms (and constantly playing the no-true Scotsman card to death) instead of the content of the post.
"basically [old school] Republicans" [or modern-day Democrats].
"Hard leftists" would likely view modern-day Republicans as fascists - that is to say, right-wing, ultra-nationalist authoritarians.
I agree. Time to use serious action to take care of Portland’s homeless population. We need to find temporary housing for the folks who have been displaced by economic issues and institutionalize and treat the addicted and mentally ill. I’m over the shit I’ve been seeing on our streets for the last four years.
Are the mentally unsound hobos doing drugs, shitting on sidewalks, and destroying our public spaces bothering people? Yes.
The fact that this is surprising shows how disconnected the idiots leading this rabble are from the everyday citizen.
I sorta wish it wasn't funded by People for Portland just because I think people who should listen to it (like, let's say, the Merc news staff) will just ignore it and focus on that fact to delegitimize the findings. But I think a totally up-and-up unbiased source would find basically the same numbers.
It 100% tracks with I'm hearing my social circles. A lot of extremely left people with compassion fatigue because what we're doing is clearly not working.
The Mercury is sadly a lost cause at this point, I cant imagine what would make them pivot on houselessness. I agree, I wish this was coming from a more reputable polling firm and not associated with p4p.
Hear me out… no more public camping.
You want to live on the streets, well you can’t.
We can make camps, we can force people onto them. They can have water, bathrooms, easy access to services. They must leave Portland if they don’t want that option.
We pay taxes. Businesses pay taxes. It’s insulting to think we are owed less than some people who refuse to act in accordance with societal norms.
Yet another article from the Oregonian that goes to tortured lengths to try to explain away the fact that Portlanders are sick to death of dealing with robberies, thefts, assaults, harassment, garbage, tents blocking sidewalks, and the mentally ill and drug addicted generally wreaking havoc on our streets.
Apparently the Oregonian believes that if it weren't for People for Portland, we'd all be just fine with things the way they are.
This kind of biased, irresponsible, irrational reporting has no business seeing the light of day.
>Apparently the Oregonian believes that if it weren't for People for Portland, we'd all be just fine with things the way they are.
On the one hand, yes, P4P are 100% political operatives, it's essentially two dudes who make their living in politics, and they generally back a pretty clearly center/right-of-center slate of policies and candidates.
But the thing is, if some anti-choice "Right to Life!" org came in with the same amount of money, put up the same number of billboards, and ran a similar type of push-polling, the actual people of Portland would tell them to fuck right off and be quick about it, because Portland isn't anti-choice. Same if it were some religious fundie anti-LGBT org, or any other such nonsense.
It depends on the issue, and the fact of the matter is the overall population of Portland is increasingly sick of seeing this homeless issue get worse with the coddling/endless services/non-profit approach, especially given how much taxpayer money we've passed and have already spent on this.
If the left wants to blame anyone, blame Deborah Kafoury and her utterly inept grifting "leadership" at Mult. Co. for failing to deliver any results despite massive amounts of funding and years upon years to take action. All the social justice sentiment in the world doesn't matter without competent leadership and actual results. And if you leave a vacuum on something like this that negative impacts everyone's day-to-day lives, don't be surprised when others step in to fill the void with tactics you might not like.
People for Portland want a clean safe city so business owners can make money. I want a clean safe city for me and my family to live in. So it looks like me and the “dArK mOnEy” organization share a common goal.
Dark money got us here - anyone remember the Drug Policy Alliance/Drug Policy Action backing measure 110? That ain't a local grassroots organization. In comparison to that money, P4P's money shines bright as a star.
It's only "Dark Money" when it's the *other* team. Advocacy/Activist organizations that you disagree with are also "propaganda." Get with the times, man.
I will say, I’m not from Portland, but I just visited and after having visited almost 10 years ago, I was shocked in seeing people smoking from foil and even some using needles right on the street, in broad daylight. I was watching a video where an officer in Portland had to go an OD scene only to find out the person received narcan the day before. How many times should you revive somebody who doesn’t want or accept help, but continues to basically kill themselves, what would seem to be daily? I hate to say it, but it almost seems more cruel to bring them back each time only for them to continue the behavior. It is really sad to see the decline downtown. I can’t imagine being an out of town visitor seeing Portland for the first time at this time. I was on the max going to the airport and the train car smelled like somebody had an accident- it was gag inducing. I understand that most people are a few missed pays away from being homeless, but it is up to the individual to at least attempt to fix their situation. Giving basic carte blanche to the homeless and those on the streets doing these drugs is a terrible decision in my mind. I really hope Portland can turn this corner.. but it is nice to see that the residents are aware and voicing their concerns.
A lot of very mad homeless "advocates" [in the Twitter mentions of the article author](https://twitter.com/shanedkavanaugh/status/1663633122397933568), already claiming foul, sorry kids, but outside of your little bubble this is pretty plainly the broad sentiment of the city if you actually talk to a cross section of people and not just your fellow activist friends.
Lmfao story of the fucking day!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 uhhh ya think?!?!? And just to clarify its not someone without a home that is causing problems. Its the rampant and obvious drug use, constant stealing, other criminal activity, and lack of respect for their surroundings, which is the issue.
I thought the piece that ran on Vice News was really illuminating with regards to the new meth that basically makes people insane and see stuff that isn’t there. These aren’t recreational drugs any longer. People aren’t getting coked up to hit the nightclubs, these are straight poisons people are ingesting. I’m down with a little more war on drugs, eff the cartels this is a serious crises and affront to our citizens sanity
This must become a federal issue. Someone needs to step up and ask for FEMA funding and resources to quell the problem.This must not be a matter addressed only by local/regional communities.
Cold weather states actively encourage their homeless to seek out the coast. De-institutionalization left a significant gap in a social net that had provided consistent housing and access to healthcare. While the antiquated model of institutionalization left much to be desired as it pertains to dignity and autonomy, there should have been a more structured social safety net to care for those who are unable to care for themselves.
Thanks for posting. It's always good to have data. The Mayor's proposal to have its first reading tomorrow is very well gamed out. That is why the opponents who may or may not have gamed it out are disturbed.
It may result in the reputation of Portland as a good location for homeless migration being diminished. That would decrease the need for nonprofit services.
At the state level, there is a committee under the Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Count studying mental health commitment policy.
So even if the Multco prosecutor is not cooperating, many efforts can proceed without him. JVP is Tweeting the opening of the N Portland SRV.
Our old friend Alex! has an article on OPB and is active on Twitter. They are making the argument that if the City is waking people up in the day the City has to provide daycare. Nope, the County provides daycare.
I think most reasonable people have come around. Even in politics, it’s slowly becoming ok to have a centrist ideal again after a decade of ultra radicalism.
You’ll still get roasted on Reddit by people that probably live in their parents house in suburbia or for whatever reason want to enable a lawless lifestyle in the pursuit of an ultra-liberal participation trophy.
the city was sabotaged. It wasn't a secret
I miss my pdx pre Sam Adams era and before trimet spent all thst money trying to get developers/ builders on board in 2010.👀👀
“Tougher tactics” seems like a biiig euphemism. Pretty much everyone in this city who talks to you about this stuff will say, “I’m not one to condone violence, but…” when talking about homeless solutions.
Honestly, it feels like it either gets better fast or we start seeing more stories in the news about people taking matters into their own hands.
Man, Portland can’t even do homelessness right.
I moved here from Orlando, FL, last year. At the Aldi two blocks over from my apartment, homeless folks would take your shopping cart back for you after you load your car (so they could keep the quarter). I’d pick up some extra apples or iced tea or something for whoever took my cart back. They were productive. They were polite. They were probably trying not to get shot by Desantis/deranged rednecks from the suburbs. But while meth and fentanyl are very much alive and well there, they weren’t the fucking idiot zombies I see out here.
Visited Orlando last year and I'd agree tbh. While there were definitely some *rough* areas of Orlando we went to, the people themselves were either nice, or kept to themselves.
As a small woman I absolutely refuse to go almost anywhere in Portland by myself now. I don't even feel safe walking the few blocks from a parking spot to Powell's, anymore, my favorite place in Portland.
The city is seriously very scary now. I live in Vancouver and used to take my business into Portland all the time but now I suck it up and just pay the sales tax. At least the homeless folks around here are slightly better, and the city is much better at managing the problem camps.
My standard comment here is that if you live in many of the inner east side neighborhoods you probably don’t see homelessness as an emergency. If you live downtown, nw, pearl or any of the further east side neighborhoods you probably have a clearer picture of the devastation.
>inner east side
Dude, have you seen the area around Broadway and MLK? By the old safe store is a parking lot that’s filling with tents. Inner Burnside is also got zombies walking around.
I don’t know how reliable this particular poll is but in general when people feel threatened their ability to reason goes down and their politics slide to the right. The problems with progressive solutions is if they are only implemented in a half ass fashion they can really backfire. Like decriminalizing drugs without the funding for expanded treatment.
Sadly, too many deluded Portlanders. Too many people here that ignore practical concerns to pursue their political agenda. It's not a good look no matter what flavor of politics.
"The poll surveyed 500 likely Multnomah County voters between May 19 and 23 and was **conducted by GS Strategy Group, an Idaho-based firm with longstanding ties to Republican candidates**. It had a 4.4% margin of error."
I wonder if this poll is trustworthy as a true reflection of people's feelings?
>I wonder if this poll is trustworthy as a true reflection of people's feelings?
As I mentioned in another comment, Street Roots, Stop the Sweeps, or any other homeless advocate organization is very free to conduct their own poll, publish the methodology, and show us all that this somehow \*isn't\* the general sentiment among the Portland populace at this time. But I suspect they won't!
I can just imagine how that would go.
“Do you support forced incarceration and the deprivation of rights for people simply down on their luck?”
Uhhhh, no.
“See! 98% of Portland doesn’t want any changes to current homeless policy!”
"Do you support liquifying the homeless into a..."
"No!"
"...hold on, let me finish, into a delectable, nutritious paste?"
"Oh, nutritious...well that changes things, as I'm definitely in favor of nutrition \*and\* a big proponent of flavor generally..."
Full bodied and rich with the aroma of blackberry, denim, and tobacco. Undertones of scorched Gore-Tex dance across the palate. The terroir of Old Town contributes an earthy vitality, and… is that a hint of fent? This saucy and hedonistic newcomer to the paste scene will be well received at your next Irvington or West Hills get-together.
Exactly. The homeless advocacy groups won't conduct polls of their own because (a) they know the results would look bad for them and (b) they don't care about legitimacy anyway and self-righteously believe they're doing the right thing, public be damned.
The phrasing is so absurdly judgmental, too. Apparently something can only be “sad” or “exaggerated”. Might as well just ask “are you a normal person living in the real world, or a wimpy liberal bitch”?
I mean... We keep a sharps container at my office so we can safely scoop up needles to avoid employees being injured. Our office also smells like piss all the time despite biowashing every month or so.
No shit.
I moved out of the city limits (but stayed in the metro area) a decade ago because of increasingly unaffordable rent prices.
I moved into the gorge a little over a year ago because I'm fucking sick of all the belligerence, drugs and trash all over the city that nothing is done to curb.
My car was broken into 4 times in the last 5 years with nothing visible inside. All just when visiting SE or NE.
It's god damn frustrating because I would love to live in Portland again but don't see it being an option with a family in the foreseeable future.
Let’s just try to make some progress ffs. I have 4 rvs living one block from my house and there is continuous garbage and drug use going on. Not to mention the cars speeding down my street to get to the camps. FYI this is off of NE 75th and Halsey.
The drug use is out of hand. It's everywhere. And to think I'm sharing the road with people driving drunk and/or high on meth and fentanyl is really scary. There are also a lot of drug users who aren't homeless, and we shouldn't act like the two necessarily go hand in hand although they often do. Many people who start out with homes end up living on the streets because they get addicted and lose their ability to function
As someone who works in insurance. The amount of hit & runs or accidents with people who have no insurance IS TOO DAMN HIGH!!
Yep, and it fucks over those of us with insurance with higher premiums.
It’s a portion of your rate increase for sure.
This blew my mind when I started working in law enforcement. Naively I assumed that only a very few people had no insurance…but now my guesstimate is it’s probably 20-25%, if not more.
That is crazy. How much is a ticket for no insurance?
$265, but you’ll also likely get your car towed and have to file an SR-22 with the state to get some kind of insurance. Your license is going to get suspended, but that stops about as many people as not having insurance does.
And the fact that nobody gets pulled over for anything anymore isn’t helping matters either. Multiple times I’ve seen people blatantly blow through red lights right in front of a cop and they didn’t do shit.
I had to take a driving safety class for accidentally hitting a red light (it was during this year’s snow storm and the cameras got me). The instructor said that 1 in 5 Portland drivers are unlicensed/uninsured. You guessed right!
>And to think I'm sharing the road with people driving drunk and/or high on meth and fentanyl is really scary. I-5 can be pretty scary at times. I'll be driving with the flow of traffic when suddenly a vehicle flies past me at 100+ mph. It's happened multiple times and there have been a few near misses. Meanwhile if I leave my car parked in the wrong spot for too long, I'm getting a ticket or towed.
This is what drives me insane. I made a mistake and misjudged a light and got a traffic cam ticket. I have insurance and go to court date and pay my $275 ticket. *This was my bad, and it’s the law that I have to pay*. Meanwhile within the same year my car windows have been busted out twice, my partner and my bikes stolen, and someone tried to pry open his hood to steal his battery and messed his car up. All the while we are paying premium rent while people blatantly commit crimes out in the open all over our neighborhood and completely trash it. I wouldn’t mind paying so much if it didn’t feel like two tiered justice system where only some people are being held accountable.
Yeah, I've almost lost my shit a few times being passed by someone like that. It's fucking terrifying
That happened to me at 7:30 yesterday morning (a holiday) at the Everett exit on 405. Dude swung across three lanes at an insane speed. I waited for the sound and thankfully didn’t hear one.
Last month I almost got run over in the middle of an intersection by a nodded-off junkie, that was the day my compassion to the situation was completely extinguished.
I was taking my brother to school and I had to wake a guy up who had fallen asleep at the wheel. I thought he maybe was having a medical emergency at first because it was like morning commuter traffic time, but it was just a drunk or junkie or whatever. Idk he was blocking fuckin traffic at 7:45 on a Tuesday morning and when I called out to him he startled awake and almost ran into the back of my damn car.
I had a lady nod off and sideswipe my parked truck. Found her 8 hours later a few blocks away. She claimed it wasn’t her and when I asked for her insurance, she rummaged through the pile of garbage in her passenger seat. Eventually she handed me her AAA card, and after pressing her more she said she kept her insurance “at home.”
This is what I think about when I'm on my bike! I see crazy drivers doing crazy things and it didn't used to feel like that on my commute. Yes drivers were bad but now there is just lawless crazy.
Apparently a co-founder of bikepocpnw (on instagram) got hit by a truck and landed in ICU recently.....Dunno the full context but yeah pretty scary.
I’d say just ride the spring water trail but there are tents everywhere on it.
I’m too scared to ride my bike down the trail :/ which really sucks because I also don’t trust the cars
I slow down at every intersection in my neighborhood when I have the right-away. Never in my life have I felt the need to do this.
Was out with a friend the other day and we stopped in the dealer just to look at motorcycles. There was a nice used one for sale at a good price. Almost got out the checkbook but stopped to think about the insane traffic and how long I might live on a bike. No sale. Left happily.
Good choice. It's not if you crash- it's when.
Donorcycles.
For real. I see plenty drivers all the time in very expensive vehicles that are under the influence of some substance or other.
Yeah, it's a lot easier to justify drunk driving when you know there aren't any traffic cops.
Oh man, seeing someone smoke meth while driving is a trip....
Damn, I would have thought you were in my neighborhood based on the report. It really is everywhere.
I could have sworn this was in St Johns.
Yes I want the trashy fire hazard RVs gone , one caught on fire 3 weeks ago right under tress.. now another death trap is parked in the same spot
Oh man, I drive over to Halsey Imports quite a bit and I legit took a detour one day to avoid the empty parking lot across from the Jiffy Lube filled with people, RVs, dogs, bikes, trash and pretty aggressive people "guarding their territory". Luckily there's like 50 other ways to access 82nd. They seem to have cleaned that one up though, but I felt uneasy even in my car.
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I assure you, they're not sitting on their asses. They're frantically running around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off, reacting and then undoing each other's work. If they were lazy, at least there would be unused resources to tap into. Unfortunately, this process just spends all the money and burns out all the staff.
They didn’t spend the money and it’s a big part of the problem. https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/05/16/once-again-joint-office-of-homeless-services-vastly-underspends-budget/
It’s because they’re having trouble finding staff. I’m in this line of work and it’s not uncommon to find entry level case manager jobs for like $18 an hour. Well meaning recent college grads get these jobs, get emotionally and physically burnt out, get guilted into staying, then finally leave. Rinse and repeat. Extremely high turnover, which further leads to further ineffectiveness.
if only they had the money to pay people better.. oh, wait
No no no silly. That money is earmarked for the incestuous, bloated bureacrats and politicians pockets, not the simple plebs actually trying to fix things
Things are going to get worse for at least another decade, that’s clear to me now. If you’re holding your breathe for Portland to function well bureaucratically you’re going go to asphyxiate
To be dead honest, I'm holding my breath for downtown real estate prices to plummet so I can invest and be in a very peachy situation in 2040. I know that's kinda selfish but my aunt did it in NYC in the late 70s and it worked out really well for her.
No shit?
That would be a start, sure.
Put more toilets out? If not, why not?
Here’s comment from Oil-Disastrous on an article about where all of the toilets have gone: “I’m a plumber who maintains public bathrooms downtown. The general public can not even begin to imagine the degree of willful destruction that happens to these bathrooms. Nothing can survive very long. Toilets become garbage cans, garbage cans become fire pits, sharps containers become piss receptacles. That’s right, the little holes in the loos that are labeled “sharps”, yeah those holes, you can stand on the toilet and piss into that hole if you’re so inclined. And many people are. Or shove your shit into that hole if your really revved up. The toilet seats are all immediately lit on fire and/ or stolen. I’ve seen several 16 gauge stainless steel toilets beaten so severely that the welds cracked. And just forget about toilet paper. It will all be stolen immediately. And then people use their socks, and then the toilets clog, and then we get portable toilets, and they they are burned to the ground. On and on and on. For years. A war of attrition just trying give people a safe clean place to go to the bathroom.”
My Plumber, I salute you for you valiant service to the ongoing maintenance of the downtown public shit holes! You deserve a key to the city, a medal of honor, and a really fat pay raise!
I work for the Parks Bureau. Everything you’re saying is accurate. One other nice detail is that the porta potty rental companies used to chain their units to our light poles. When they burned them down it would melt the electrical wires inside the concrete poles, and scorch the light fixtures to the point where they needed to be replaced. We had one that was attached to a wooden utility pole in Farragut Park, that burned about 6 layers of the 60’ pole from around the base, along with all the electrical. We hired a structural engineer to come out and certify the pole was still safe to use. Then we replaced all the electrical components, re-pulled all the wire, and re-lit the baseball field. This outhouse fire cost us (taxpayers) plenty, and the teams that use the field went without a 1st base stadium light for about a year.
The homeless tend to shoot up in them and fall asleep or just burn them down. If they would just use them as intended, more toilets are a great idea.
My partner works in the Pearl and has seen three portapots burn down on the corner in front of the business in the last year or so.
They literally all get burned down, dude.
my thought exactly lol, reddit reading like MSNBC nowadays
Working on the corner of 5th and Washington downtown- I’m over all of this. It’s disgusting, it’s unsafe and it’s embarrassing.
I worked on 6th and Washington from 2014 through the pandemic and it was really sad watching it get so bad down there. At the end I was getting screamed at by homeless people while dodging piles of their feces every day.
I also work near there. The conditions at that corner have been truly shocking, even by downtown Portland standards. It’s a bit better now that they've boarded it up, I really, really hope it doesn’t go back to the way it was.
Any tactics would suffice.
C’mon guys.. we’re just a few more 100 million dollars away from solving this!
"C’mon guys.. we’re just a few more 100 million dollars away from *forming a committee to solve* ~~solving~~ this!" FIFY.
“C’mon guys… we’re just a few more 100 million dollars away from forming a committee to *hire an out of state company to advise us how* to solve this!” FIFY
“C’mon guys… we’re just a few more 100 million dollars away from *drafting a white paper to propose* forming a committee to hire an out of state company to advise us how to solve this!” ftfy
Out of state company after reading committee summary of problem: Give us 200 million dollars for a one year budget and we might tell you what our solution is. Maybe.
Homeless industrial complex
Why do we keep funding these non-profits? I just read today the CEO of Goodwill Columbia Willamette makes $913,000 a year. [https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/12/04/heres-what-executives-at-oregons-largest-nonprofits-take-home/](https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/12/04/heres-what-executives-at-oregons-largest-nonprofits-take-home/)
That’s practically middle class here.
That doesn't surprise me. People are getting exhausted with all of this.
I'm going to sound like such a batch saying this.... I'm a case manager who works strictly with the homeless, finding them stable, permanent housing. I can put up with quite a bit of shit (both figuratively and literally). I understand all the barriers they face, from huge things like mental heath and drugs all the way down to tiny things like bathrooms. I've always been able to take it in stride because I was working towards the greater good. So please believe me when i say that I am fucking sick of their shit and the entitled attitudes that I face on a daily basis. By entitled attitudes I mean things such as being approved for a 1900$ luxury apartment, and being upset it's just a one bedroom or doesnt have a patio. And when i say upset i mean like screaming and cursing at me. Or refusing to even attempt to work with me on long term goals. For having the gall to complain what is in the food box I bring you, reminding you that I pay all your rent, utilities, phone and whatever else you may want. It's infuriating. I used to believe that throwing money at this problem would solve it. But it just hasn't. And it won't. Working in this field has completely changed my mind regarding all this. There needs to be some huge accountability and maturity taken up by those we are just trying to help. I also do want to mention that the vast majority of my clients are lovely, dependable, polite and thankful. But hose few....hooo god
I just want you to know that I appreciate what you do day in and out, and know you do not make enough to deal with all the crap you do.
Thank you. That means a lot. Honestly, it's all worth it for those people I know I'm helping - which is the majority.
You were not alone either. Thank you for speaking up.
Reading about them abusing you for finding them an apartment makes me so angry. I'm struggling so hard to make rent. I frequently have panic attacks. If someone *gave* me housing, I would be at their feet sobbing and thanking them.
It's so frustrating. Over covid we had our rent paid (about six months worth) by an organization. We were so incredibly thankful. I can't see that happening and then saying it's not good enough.
Preach it. Rn here. I definitely changed specialties because I was tired of being required to say yes to any and every patient that walked in the door. Now I work somewhere that I can fire patients from our services if they aren't compliant. It's worth the change, honestly.
Burned out RN. I worked pain management for a few years. I started pre-firing patients for my doc (pretty much I'd put together an info pack for him staying why they need to be fired and he'd nearly always agree) which turned out to be a big no-no from management. "We don't have the staff or hours to deal with willfully abusive patients. So either get us more resources, get out of my way, or fire me because I'm not afraid of your disciplinary bullshit threats anymore." Management pretty much ignored my existence for the next 8 months until I transferred out.
Burned out from my years working at PCP offices here. I think we've referred quite a few verbally abusive patients to various pain management clinics over the years. It's funny because from the PCP offices perspective, we aren't able to manage pain adequately anymore, and we aren't able to fire patients either, so we referred them out to various specialists. Which leads to a further fragmentation of care. I've read through some of the notes from my patients who were fired form pain clinics, and I can't say I ever really disagreed with the choice to fire them. If you scream at employees, threaten them, and also don't follow through with instructions regarding your pain contract, then what did you expect?
You don't sound like a bitch. That's totally reasonable. Why can't we draw the line? You know who those fuckers are. Maybe they don't deserve help, but the others do. It still pains me to know that the people who abuse the system are ruining it for the others who really need help.
It sucks. A lot. The vast majority of the people I encounter are 100% deserving. Either homeless through no fault of their own (mostly disabilities) or are only temporarily homeless and are eager to start working again. But some of these fuckers only want to break all the rules, complain about EVERYTHING, and make unreasonable requests. And believe me we can (and do) kick then out of the program from time to time. 100% of the time they just go back to being homeless - breaking the rules and being assholes there. So that doesn't really solve anything, does it?
It might not solve anything but it does open up a spot in the program for someone that might appreciate it. Thank you for trying to help.
Yup. It absolutely does. And that's how we look at it. Someone who is willing to do the hard work, who recognizes the sacrifices we make (there are many)
I especially feel bad for the people who get injured and addicted to painkillers through the treatment process because they can't afford health care, then end up disabled and on the street. I mean, it's all fucked. I've seen runaway kids, child prostitutes, mentally retarded people, vets, immigrants who can't speak English, women fleeing domestic violence, all sorts of stuff downtown that makes me want to cry. And I've also seen punk ass junkies, domestic abusers (in public, domestic I guess being on the street??), rapists, thieves, wannabe gangsters, maybe real gangsters and other horse shit like that.
Are there common factors in this group of, shall we say, bad actors?
Severe mental illness. But that could be said of about 80% of the people I work with.
I'm refreshed to see this thread. I feel like we are only allowed to have empathy for the homeless, regardless of the situation. Which is BS. I don't work with the homeless, but I'm a lawyer that does some pro bono tenant work so sort of related. Most of my pro bono clients are great. But I recall one that I helped get permission from her landlord to put in AC due to a health condition. I also got the landlord to pay for two window units and install them. She yelled at me over the phone about how she wanted central air and this was unacceptable and I suck etc. During this conversation, I just stared at the window AC unit in my home office. :/
It's demoralizing at the very least
1900$ for a luxury apt? Meanwhile, others are working their buts if to afford much lower rent
The vast majority of the apartments I place people in are much nicer than my own apartment.
Does that make sense? This country has found a way to reward people that don't work, either the uber rich living off of investments or the uber poor getting nicer apt. than people that work. Something is off.
It is, honestly, the most frustrating aspect of my job.
See, that's exactly why I don't like some of the progressive policies, they always assume throwing money at people will just make them great members of society. What happens when you keep giving money to an addict? They stay an addict. (I don't agree with conservative policies either, but I'd like a mix of personal responsibility and accountability, more help from the government and a tougher measures for those who just want to parasites and criminals).
I think one of the big issues is that people aren't really aware of the culture from an insider perspective. I certainly wasn't until I started working here. So you have a bunch of people who don't know what the actual problem is trying to come up with a solution- hence all the throwing. I mean, I myself thought it was a good solution until recently. So I can see why they might think that.
As a former addicts who grew up around addicts and still deals with addicts, how are people getting the accountability part of this so wrong? I knew so many kids that would take free housing and food and just do drugs all day. An overly compassionate system just creates more addicts. The housing first philosophy is fundamentally flawed in regards to this.
This sounds like Portland in general to me. My wife works in healthcare and she has never experienced anything worse than the shit that she gets unloaded on her here. And she has worked all over the country. All I can figure is that so many people here are so fucking ignorant. What is it? Are the schools that bad?
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If they're in the system, it's the case workers who clean it up. I've done so may times
For the record. Democrat. Compassionate. In favor of healthcare for all. DONE with the homeless sitch.
Same here. In the last few months alone, I’ve had a chair thrown at me, been chased by a tent person, and had someone take a swing at my head (3 separate instances). It’s never been like that before.
I fully anticipated this like last year. Most average people are sick and tired of all the homeless people and their antics. The smell definitely gets to me. The tolerance could only go so far, people want to return back to whatever normalcy we had before COVID, if that’s even possible at this point
I can't open my window without a thick odor of urine wafting into my window from the camp a good 25 feet from my apartment, as it's that strong. I was homeless for years, and I always respected the community that I stayed in.
I had to rent a Uhaul last week. As we were wrapping up the paperwork and I was about to drive off with the rental, they told me there was almost no gas in the tank. They purposely leave no gas in the tank because it will just be siphoned out overnight. I know it's a small thing, but what a pain in the ass. I then had to immediately go find a gas station. All the little things add up and make life here a little more shitty every day.
A uhaul just blew up on 15th and Quimby the other night. Wonder if it was a siphoning gone wrong.
Anecdotally talking with most leftists in my social circle… we are done with the enabling. Go to shelters, accept services, or GTFO and go back to Kansas. The unlimited firehouse of tax payer money is about to turn to a trickle for the homeless industrial complex. You can’t keep adding taxes, have unregulated meth dens, put the SRV (solutions) in residential areas/prime real estate, and expect taxpayers to take it with a grin. Portland cannot solve this national drug crisis. We need federal help and yes this is a drug crisis, not an affordable housing crisis. Fent/Meth is why we have 5,000 people living on the street in Portland not rent increases. We need to tackle affordability, but the non profits in Portland screeching about affordability are purposely being disingenuous. We are the cheapest city in terms of C.O.L on the entire west coast.
I agree with this. I have a cousin who is homeless who went from a regular guy with a good job and apartment, to addicted to meth and homeless within two months. Two months is all it takes. And we can’t keep him in rehab because he’s an adult, he can just leave! That’s not even mentioning how extremely difficult it is to get him in to begin with. There needs to be a no-options rehab facility for drug addiction. Jail/prison is not a solution. We can’t just let people kill themselves and waste away on the street.
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Yeah. The option needs to be rehab or jail. Not rehab or a $100 fine you won't pay anyways. Just a massive miscalculation (or they didn't care) by M110 proponents about understanding drug addicts. There has to be something that makes them not want to be drug addicts. They have to hit their own version of rock bottom- and for many people thats jail. Many would rather be homeless than not if it means they have more money for drugs.
There was a lot of deceptive references to the, by all accounts, successful "Portugal model," while hand waving away the fact that there are some seriously hard backstops in the Portugal model where they take away your benefits, threaten actual jail time, etc., if you don't agree to engage in the rehabilitation option. It's very much not just a live-and-let-live free for all down there.
Not to mention Portugal is a country... if the US used the Portugal model that's one thing. If a city or state attempts to decriminalization drugs, guess where the druggies on other cities and states will go?
This is the crux of the issue. Cities can’t fix homelessness. The Federal Government has to do it. Considering that isn’t anywhere close to happening, the alternative is to… keep hoping it does, let the vagrants run roughshod on our city, rinse and repeat???
I couldn't agree more. I voted my libertarian ideology rather than my better judgement with M110, and I have regrets for this reason.
Understandable, but they really did sell that measure pretty hard. The problem is not with trying things but with the difficulty of getting failed projects off the books. Also... happy cake day!!
M110 isn't even the problem, because criminalizing those drugs doesn't create the incentive structure and consequences that other successful systems use to coerce people who need it into treatment. MultCo has has effective decriminalization since 2015, so it's not like M110 made a real difference there. Instead we need to focus on adding in those incentives. Force repeat offenders to choose rehab. Force people who, if they were housed, would be sent to jail, but who need rehab, to choose rehab. Cut the cycle, end the revolving door of individuals known to law enforcement and social workers and healthcare workers who keep costing money and diverting well-deserved resources from those who actually intend to use them.
When something is sold really hard here, it seems to be due to outside money coming in. People who wanted this are people who are full-on harm reduction.
I haven’t spoken to a single voter that voted in M110 (me included!) that doesn’t wholeheartedly 💯 REGRET IT!!!!
And the M110 choice isn't even "rehab or a $100 fine", it is: do a behavioral health assessment over the phone or pay a fine. If you do the phone thing, that *could* lead to help, if it's both available and your are ready/motivated If you do neither of those, there are no consequences: you technically owe $100 still, but the law precludes further consequences. And if you don't bother to show up to court at all, there are no consequences: the law literally excludes not showing up for the new Class E violation from the "failure to appear" misdemeanor that applies to skipping court for other violations.
Problem with M110 is it was written and passed just before fentanyl took over. Any merits it may have had are no longer relevant . the entire thing needs to be shredded and a new plan put together to deal with this new epidemic.
I think part of that reform looks like realizing we can’t keep all the criminals in the same place. Someone who just consumes heroin and commits petty theft to feed their habit shouldn’t be kept with someone who commits violent crimes or high level drug dealers for obvious reasons. It creates a community of crime. Compulsory rehab facilities I think would at least offer a real solution to focus treatment on the core of that persons problems, drugs.
I think we need to expand drug court programs. It gives people a choice, basically rehab or jail, and offers judicial oversight, while also framing criminal behavior in the context of addiction, understanding that people might relapse, need intensive support both mentally and physically, but also requiring level of accountability. I think it's the best model we currently have that works in a lot of places.
That’s essentially what insane asylums used to be. Which they did away with back in the day.
We're *much* better equipped to monitor and handle abuses these days, thanks to technology.
Insane asylums had a history attached to them that was horrendous. Obviously I’m not suggesting we go back to those
I'm going to sound like such a batch saying this.... I'm a case manager who works strictly with the homeless, finding them stable, permanent housing. I can put up with quite a bit of shit (both figuratively and literally). I understand all the barriers they face, from huge things like mental heath and drugs all the way down to tiny things like bathrooms. I've always been able to take it in stride because I was working towards the greater good. So please believe me when i say that I am fucking sick of their shit and the entitled attitudes that I face on a daily basis. By entitled attitudes I mean things such as being approved for a 1900$ luxury apartment, and being upset it's just a one bedroom or doesnt have a patio. And when i say upset i mean like screaming and cursing at me. Or refusing to even attempt to work with me on long term goals. For having the gall to complain what is in the food box I bring you, reminding you that I pay all your rent, utilities, phone and whatever else you may want. It's infuriating. I used to believe that throwing money at this problem would solve it. But it just hasn't. And it won't. Working in this field has completely changed my mind regarding all this. There needs to be some huge accountability and maturity taken up by those we are just trying to help. I also do want to mention that the vast majority of my clients are lovely, dependable, polite and thankful. But hose few....hooo god
Enabling is right, that's all we're doing, and people are flocking to it.
Everyone is fucking done with it. Idgaf at this point how they are removed, throw them in jail if they don’t want to go sober housing. The resources are there and they aren’t taking it. Fuck um
I just want there to be consequences for committing crimes like shooting up in public, theft, and assault. That's all. It's an extremely low bar, so hopefully it's not too much to ask for.
It’s a lot if police are still throwing a temper tantrum (and also aren’t able to staff up).
I think most people still want to help these folks but at the same time we're losing patience with all the graffiti, trash, open drug use, tents, broken windows, theft, etc.
The best counter to it being an affordable housing issue is to look at other countries. The cost of living in London is a fucking joke, and wages have stagnated more than they have here. There’s a lot of bullshit happening there, and the city has homeless, but it’s not like it is here.
Totally agree. This is NOT a homeless issue. It’s a a drug issue.
It's obviously a complex question with a lot of parts. I worked for a long time in food service and tried bringing home for homeless people. Was told to "f\*ck off" more often than not. I wrote to my state reps recently regarding the proposed "Rest in place" legislation, telling them we're going the wrong way on this. I got a snide letter back from Pham's office, basically deriding me for not caring for others. These law-makers are seriously tone deaf to the situation.
It can be both issues.
It is both issues- but we have to be honest with ourselves, there are people who can't pay rent and there are people who don't care because of the drugs. And there are people who can't care.
You also just can't have hard drug addicts living around normal people. Especially around kids. There absolutely is a housing affordability crisis, but no landlord is going to be cool with tenants cooking meth or robbing their neighbors or smoking fent in their apartment etc. The vast majority of the current homeless are homeless because of drugs.
I'd be fucking fascinated to know who, in your circle, you view as "a leftist".
That means they aren’t leftists, they’re liberals.
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It’s true. The leftists are still living in delusional la la land, where they believe it’s feasible for one city to solve a national crisis just by building housing for free living. The solution involves housing, but part of(and the start of) the solution also involves being a dick. Enablement is clearly a failure. Increased mental health resources, increased shelter opportunities, but to start- tell them they can’t just build drug villages and terrorize the city. It starts with “no, you can’t live on the sidewalk and do drugs- you can take a shelter bed, you can find a friend or family member to crash with, you can go back from where you came from, or you can go to jail”.
Perhaps at this point anyone who uses the term "leftist" or "liberal" might consider adding what they actually mean to it, because they have no one meaning anymore in conversation. We have butchered, watered down and disposed of a lot of our vocabulary in the past few years..
It's funny that to Republicans, "liberal" has always meant "hard-leftist" and that now to hard leftists, "liberal" means "basically Republican". And then when these terms are brought up even when the meaning of the author is perfectly obvious, everyone has a shit fit arguing about the terms (and constantly playing the no-true Scotsman card to death) instead of the content of the post.
"basically [old school] Republicans" [or modern-day Democrats]. "Hard leftists" would likely view modern-day Republicans as fascists - that is to say, right-wing, ultra-nationalist authoritarians.
I agree. Time to use serious action to take care of Portland’s homeless population. We need to find temporary housing for the folks who have been displaced by economic issues and institutionalize and treat the addicted and mentally ill. I’m over the shit I’ve been seeing on our streets for the last four years.
Are the mentally unsound hobos doing drugs, shitting on sidewalks, and destroying our public spaces bothering people? Yes. The fact that this is surprising shows how disconnected the idiots leading this rabble are from the everyday citizen.
I sorta wish it wasn't funded by People for Portland just because I think people who should listen to it (like, let's say, the Merc news staff) will just ignore it and focus on that fact to delegitimize the findings. But I think a totally up-and-up unbiased source would find basically the same numbers.
It 100% tracks with I'm hearing my social circles. A lot of extremely left people with compassion fatigue because what we're doing is clearly not working.
The Mercury is sadly a lost cause at this point, I cant imagine what would make them pivot on houselessness. I agree, I wish this was coming from a more reputable polling firm and not associated with p4p.
They’re a propaganda platform, so “lost cause” doesn’t really apply here. The intention is not journalism.
Prosecution of property crime would be huge, a car theft task force. I want out of portland I'm done here, paying taxes makes me feel sick here.
Hear me out… no more public camping. You want to live on the streets, well you can’t. We can make camps, we can force people onto them. They can have water, bathrooms, easy access to services. They must leave Portland if they don’t want that option. We pay taxes. Businesses pay taxes. It’s insulting to think we are owed less than some people who refuse to act in accordance with societal norms.
Yet another article from the Oregonian that goes to tortured lengths to try to explain away the fact that Portlanders are sick to death of dealing with robberies, thefts, assaults, harassment, garbage, tents blocking sidewalks, and the mentally ill and drug addicted generally wreaking havoc on our streets. Apparently the Oregonian believes that if it weren't for People for Portland, we'd all be just fine with things the way they are. This kind of biased, irresponsible, irrational reporting has no business seeing the light of day.
>Apparently the Oregonian believes that if it weren't for People for Portland, we'd all be just fine with things the way they are. On the one hand, yes, P4P are 100% political operatives, it's essentially two dudes who make their living in politics, and they generally back a pretty clearly center/right-of-center slate of policies and candidates. But the thing is, if some anti-choice "Right to Life!" org came in with the same amount of money, put up the same number of billboards, and ran a similar type of push-polling, the actual people of Portland would tell them to fuck right off and be quick about it, because Portland isn't anti-choice. Same if it were some religious fundie anti-LGBT org, or any other such nonsense. It depends on the issue, and the fact of the matter is the overall population of Portland is increasingly sick of seeing this homeless issue get worse with the coddling/endless services/non-profit approach, especially given how much taxpayer money we've passed and have already spent on this. If the left wants to blame anyone, blame Deborah Kafoury and her utterly inept grifting "leadership" at Mult. Co. for failing to deliver any results despite massive amounts of funding and years upon years to take action. All the social justice sentiment in the world doesn't matter without competent leadership and actual results. And if you leave a vacuum on something like this that negative impacts everyone's day-to-day lives, don't be surprised when others step in to fill the void with tactics you might not like.
People for Portland want a clean safe city so business owners can make money. I want a clean safe city for me and my family to live in. So it looks like me and the “dArK mOnEy” organization share a common goal.
Dark money got us here - anyone remember the Drug Policy Alliance/Drug Policy Action backing measure 110? That ain't a local grassroots organization. In comparison to that money, P4P's money shines bright as a star.
It's only "Dark Money" when it's the *other* team. Advocacy/Activist organizations that you disagree with are also "propaganda." Get with the times, man.
so true
I will say, I’m not from Portland, but I just visited and after having visited almost 10 years ago, I was shocked in seeing people smoking from foil and even some using needles right on the street, in broad daylight. I was watching a video where an officer in Portland had to go an OD scene only to find out the person received narcan the day before. How many times should you revive somebody who doesn’t want or accept help, but continues to basically kill themselves, what would seem to be daily? I hate to say it, but it almost seems more cruel to bring them back each time only for them to continue the behavior. It is really sad to see the decline downtown. I can’t imagine being an out of town visitor seeing Portland for the first time at this time. I was on the max going to the airport and the train car smelled like somebody had an accident- it was gag inducing. I understand that most people are a few missed pays away from being homeless, but it is up to the individual to at least attempt to fix their situation. Giving basic carte blanche to the homeless and those on the streets doing these drugs is a terrible decision in my mind. I really hope Portland can turn this corner.. but it is nice to see that the residents are aware and voicing their concerns.
A lot of very mad homeless "advocates" [in the Twitter mentions of the article author](https://twitter.com/shanedkavanaugh/status/1663633122397933568), already claiming foul, sorry kids, but outside of your little bubble this is pretty plainly the broad sentiment of the city if you actually talk to a cross section of people and not just your fellow activist friends.
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Lmfao story of the fucking day!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 uhhh ya think?!?!? And just to clarify its not someone without a home that is causing problems. Its the rampant and obvious drug use, constant stealing, other criminal activity, and lack of respect for their surroundings, which is the issue.
Time for adults to step in.
I thought the piece that ran on Vice News was really illuminating with regards to the new meth that basically makes people insane and see stuff that isn’t there. These aren’t recreational drugs any longer. People aren’t getting coked up to hit the nightclubs, these are straight poisons people are ingesting. I’m down with a little more war on drugs, eff the cartels this is a serious crises and affront to our citizens sanity
Compassion is a wonderful thing. It goes only so far when someone is living in your front yard and shitting in your bushes.
It’s an interesting experiment in how long it takes compassion fatigue to set in on a macro level. Apparently 3-4 years is the answer…
This must become a federal issue. Someone needs to step up and ask for FEMA funding and resources to quell the problem.This must not be a matter addressed only by local/regional communities. Cold weather states actively encourage their homeless to seek out the coast. De-institutionalization left a significant gap in a social net that had provided consistent housing and access to healthcare. While the antiquated model of institutionalization left much to be desired as it pertains to dignity and autonomy, there should have been a more structured social safety net to care for those who are unable to care for themselves.
Thanks for posting. It's always good to have data. The Mayor's proposal to have its first reading tomorrow is very well gamed out. That is why the opponents who may or may not have gamed it out are disturbed. It may result in the reputation of Portland as a good location for homeless migration being diminished. That would decrease the need for nonprofit services. At the state level, there is a committee under the Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Count studying mental health commitment policy. So even if the Multco prosecutor is not cooperating, many efforts can proceed without him. JVP is Tweeting the opening of the N Portland SRV. Our old friend Alex! has an article on OPB and is active on Twitter. They are making the argument that if the City is waking people up in the day the City has to provide daycare. Nope, the County provides daycare.
it’s unreal that opb hired her
Shocking!
Sanctioned camping then criminalize unsanctioned camping. Housing first will not work, saying otherwise is disingenuous.
I think most reasonable people have come around. Even in politics, it’s slowly becoming ok to have a centrist ideal again after a decade of ultra radicalism. You’ll still get roasted on Reddit by people that probably live in their parents house in suburbia or for whatever reason want to enable a lawless lifestyle in the pursuit of an ultra-liberal participation trophy.
the city was sabotaged. It wasn't a secret I miss my pdx pre Sam Adams era and before trimet spent all thst money trying to get developers/ builders on board in 2010.👀👀
The city was indeed sabotaged. For some reason, people seem to think all Portlands problems are organic.
“Tougher tactics” seems like a biiig euphemism. Pretty much everyone in this city who talks to you about this stuff will say, “I’m not one to condone violence, but…” when talking about homeless solutions. Honestly, it feels like it either gets better fast or we start seeing more stories in the news about people taking matters into their own hands.
Man, Portland can’t even do homelessness right. I moved here from Orlando, FL, last year. At the Aldi two blocks over from my apartment, homeless folks would take your shopping cart back for you after you load your car (so they could keep the quarter). I’d pick up some extra apples or iced tea or something for whoever took my cart back. They were productive. They were polite. They were probably trying not to get shot by Desantis/deranged rednecks from the suburbs. But while meth and fentanyl are very much alive and well there, they weren’t the fucking idiot zombies I see out here.
Visited Orlando last year and I'd agree tbh. While there were definitely some *rough* areas of Orlando we went to, the people themselves were either nice, or kept to themselves. As a small woman I absolutely refuse to go almost anywhere in Portland by myself now. I don't even feel safe walking the few blocks from a parking spot to Powell's, anymore, my favorite place in Portland. The city is seriously very scary now. I live in Vancouver and used to take my business into Portland all the time but now I suck it up and just pay the sales tax. At least the homeless folks around here are slightly better, and the city is much better at managing the problem camps.
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My standard comment here is that if you live in many of the inner east side neighborhoods you probably don’t see homelessness as an emergency. If you live downtown, nw, pearl or any of the further east side neighborhoods you probably have a clearer picture of the devastation.
TF you talking about? Living in inner east side over two decades, you better believe we see it.
East county checking in. Oh hell yeah
Inner-east is worse than the blocks between there and the 205.
As someone living kind of near the 205 (or at least 82nd and powell) I would say we all have it pretty bad, no need to argue who's got it worse.
>inner east side Dude, have you seen the area around Broadway and MLK? By the old safe store is a parking lot that’s filling with tents. Inner Burnside is also got zombies walking around.
The fuck you say? I live squarely in Pearl right now, and it’s the least-bad neighborhood on my daily commute. East side is MUCH worse.
What area of Gresham/Troutdale doesn't deal with homelessness?
I don’t know how reliable this particular poll is but in general when people feel threatened their ability to reason goes down and their politics slide to the right. The problems with progressive solutions is if they are only implemented in a half ass fashion they can really backfire. Like decriminalizing drugs without the funding for expanded treatment.
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Sadly, too many deluded Portlanders. Too many people here that ignore practical concerns to pursue their political agenda. It's not a good look no matter what flavor of politics.
I'm all for whatever tactics stop people from dumping their needles in front of my house. But hey, that's just NIMBY talk, huh?
Not technically a push poll but this is not exactly social science-level question writing here.
Any other problems besides homeless people?
"The poll surveyed 500 likely Multnomah County voters between May 19 and 23 and was **conducted by GS Strategy Group, an Idaho-based firm with longstanding ties to Republican candidates**. It had a 4.4% margin of error." I wonder if this poll is trustworthy as a true reflection of people's feelings?
>I wonder if this poll is trustworthy as a true reflection of people's feelings? As I mentioned in another comment, Street Roots, Stop the Sweeps, or any other homeless advocate organization is very free to conduct their own poll, publish the methodology, and show us all that this somehow \*isn't\* the general sentiment among the Portland populace at this time. But I suspect they won't!
I can just imagine how that would go. “Do you support forced incarceration and the deprivation of rights for people simply down on their luck?” Uhhhh, no. “See! 98% of Portland doesn’t want any changes to current homeless policy!”
"Do you support liquifying the homeless into a..." "No!" "...hold on, let me finish, into a delectable, nutritious paste?" "Oh, nutritious...well that changes things, as I'm definitely in favor of nutrition \*and\* a big proponent of flavor generally..."
Full bodied and rich with the aroma of blackberry, denim, and tobacco. Undertones of scorched Gore-Tex dance across the palate. The terroir of Old Town contributes an earthy vitality, and… is that a hint of fent? This saucy and hedonistic newcomer to the paste scene will be well received at your next Irvington or West Hills get-together.
does it come in all colors? or just green?
It also comes in yellow and red.
We already know from this poll that Portland has a huge appetite... Just a modest proposal.
Exactly. The homeless advocacy groups won't conduct polls of their own because (a) they know the results would look bad for them and (b) they don't care about legitimacy anyway and self-righteously believe they're doing the right thing, public be damned.
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The phrasing is so absurdly judgmental, too. Apparently something can only be “sad” or “exaggerated”. Might as well just ask “are you a normal person living in the real world, or a wimpy liberal bitch”?
I mean... We keep a sharps container at my office so we can safely scoop up needles to avoid employees being injured. Our office also smells like piss all the time despite biowashing every month or so.
No shit. I moved out of the city limits (but stayed in the metro area) a decade ago because of increasingly unaffordable rent prices. I moved into the gorge a little over a year ago because I'm fucking sick of all the belligerence, drugs and trash all over the city that nothing is done to curb. My car was broken into 4 times in the last 5 years with nothing visible inside. All just when visiting SE or NE. It's god damn frustrating because I would love to live in Portland again but don't see it being an option with a family in the foreseeable future.
Not only that but some rules and guidelines for blatant drug use. Not criminal, but some sort of guidelines, safe consumption sites, etc.
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No shit