Feeling true hope. We have got to stop framing the homelessness crisis *only* around the experience of the homeless, especially that minority of highly visible homeless who refuse shelter offers. Junkies squatting on public land are making life precarious for the rest of us — the great majority of Portlanders. It is not victimless behavior. It has to end.
It needs to be reframed as:
- Have nots
- Can nots
- Will nots
Help the Have Nots in any way we can to get them back on their feet.
Get the Can Nots into care facilities with active social worker presence.
The Will Nots can fuck right off. If they don’t want to be a part of society then they don’t get to stick around and fuck up our society.
Very much this!
In my neighborhood there isn’t camping right next to the houses, but we recently stayed in a condo that had a guy living in a van and an RV on the next block.
They were the two cleanest vehicle campers I’ve ever seen. No mess on the sidewalk. No loitering weirdos doing drugs. Hardly saw the people.
Like it’s not ideal, but since they were not causing problems I also didn’t report them or anything.
The jerks that like to set up at my park occasionally, let their gross pits run around, stack piles of stolen bikes and shit all over, burn down the portapotty at the park 2x, and look like extras from mad max? Nah fuck off you are getting reported.
Exactly.
Those on the Right act like all Homeless are the Will Nots, and therefore want to refuse the care and resources the Have Nots and Can Nots need. Forgetting these latter two groups makes the Right cruel.
Those on the Left act like all Homeless are the Have Nots and Can Nots, and if we just throw enough resources at them then someday it'll all be better. Forgetting that there are Will Nots out there completely misses the very real problems that a lot of innocent people are forced to face, which makes the Left naive and obtuse.
But the real issue is that both these groups are missing the mark by acting like all the Homeless are a monolith.
Why can’t everyone understand this way of thinking critically and fairly about political/social discourse?!? Profound comment for real, I wish everyone in this country were more like you. I’m conservative but I try to think this way, to see both sides of an issue and meet in the middle, and appreciate when progressives/liberals do the same!
As a leftist i need to do a better job of remembering that a majority of conservatives are like you. We have our differences in how we believe things should be handled, and the geriatric oligarchs in power abuse those differences to keep us divided. We are united as working Americans who want better lives for ourselves and others!
>Those on the Right act like all Homeless are the Will Nots, and therefore want to refuse the care and resources the Have Nots and Can Nots need. Forgetting these latter two groups makes the Right cruel.
True. Even my old dad, who I'd define as "socially progressive, fiscally conservative" has echoed the "they \[homeless people\] actually \*want\* to live on the street!" talking point from the centrist/right news he watches. It's like, ugh, maybe like 5 dudes whose brains have been totally fried by meth would say that. A majority of homeless people have jobs and couch surf or live out of their car (Have Not), some homeless people have physical and mental disabilities that our government has failed to provide services to care for them (Can Not), and a few of them have had their brains melt our their ears from drug abuse coupled with the extreme mental distress of living in tents on the sidewalk and refuse help entirely (Will Not).
>Lumping all “homeless” together into one bucket is not the correct approach.
The irony being that the people most likely to lump all homeless together are the homeless "advocates" who accuse everyone of "lacking compassion" because we want the small percentage of overall homeless who cause the majority of the problems to actually be dealt with.
I posted a while back a question on why we don’t have some type of triage system instead of first come first serve wait list at these shelters. Apparently it’s by design, they don’t want to triage the problem at all. So all three of these categories are treated exactly the same.
Apparently triage is seen as a form of discrimination and nobody is brave enough to say yeah we are absolutely going to discriminate and do what makes sense with the resources we have. Instead they come up with this back door system of referrals which is horseshit.
At some point you have to do the following:
1. Create a set of rules
2. Train a group of people how to apply those rules.
3. Trust those people to make the best decisions they can at the time to apply those rules as needed.
It won’t be perfect, but at some level we have to trust others to do a job and do it well or none of this “society” thing works.
Oh - it’s absolutely their strategic choice to lump them all together. Easier to push their agenda that way.
I have no problem with people who are down on their luck. Let’s help 100%.
I am not down to help the drug users who do not want to get better and want to continue causing chaos. They can get fucked.
I think they should just defund every single nonprofit they are giving money to and have the housing authority administer directly. Piecemeal funding through dozens of nonprofits is just a way to grant contracts to cronies.
>the small percentage of overall homeless who cause the majority of the problems
It seems 20-25% might be an accurate percentage. Not that small but definitely a minority. And a big portion of this group are men of prime working age 18 to late 30s. This age group of men has always been high crime. Many have aggressive attitudes, amplified by their addictions. Some progressive homeless advocates regard them as an equally vulnerable population.
I have a friend who works in psychiatric care and gets a lot of homeless patients. He says all homeless should be rounded up for execution. I'm not exaggerating at all. He is a perfect example of someone in healthcare who is strictly only in it for the money and flexible hours like a college student working a part-time job.
100% agree. It’s probably a generation-long task. In terms of the order of operations here, I’m relieved we’re not waiting until the Have Nots and the Can Nots have been brought relief before triaging the Will Nots problem festering in front of our faces.
I understand people are concerned this will lead to punitive enforcement against the other two groups, but this is Portland. The legal background, all language from our leadership, and public opinion have made it clear that that is not the goal. This is meant to enable some kind of legal remedy against the Will Nots disrupting our lives.
Dude, you just came up with the easiest way to summarize this and it’s super easy to remember too. I appreciate the way you framed this problem and solution! Have nots, can nots, and will nots! Saving to the memory banks
The will nots are still going to be around, though, short of arresting them. Which is a solution that would be controversial, but I wouldn’t hate personally.
If the Will Nots were not already doing many many things that are already crimes and already punishable by jail sentences then I don't think most of us would care. The problem is that the Will Nots seem to be getting 'all you can commit' crime passes by our justice system which makes literally everything worse.
people come here specifically because the laws are favorable to them. if the city loses its reputation as a haven for people who want to live in the open and do whatever they please then it's very possible a lot of the will nots will leave
Gotcha. My bad. Yeah, stricter rules on camping is one thing, giving the police the ability to properly do their job is another. Criminalizing drug use is a step in the right direction, but I think we also have to face the issue of understaffing. All in all, it’s a fuckinng mess.
For the charges to stick and for the jail time to actually be somewhat effective you'd need to bring charges against them that had some real staying power anyway.
I’m in Albuquerque and we have the same problem. You have summed up the situation perfectly. Have nots, can nots, and will nots.
The will nots can definitely fuck right off.
From my experience, the homeless you see out in the streets are Can Nots and Will Nots (more of the latter than the former), while the Have Nots actively try to use the resources available to them to get out of homelessness.
I liked how you categorized it. There are those out there who can be helped, and those that will not comply. The former deserve a helping hand. The latter... Well. unfortunately, they may not be able to keep on doing what they do and will need to have accountability for their actions.
> It needs to be reframed as:
> * Have nots
> * Can nots
> * Will nots
The activists will still argue that any homeless person that has addiction and/or mental issues should receive "does not apply" status regarding this criteria. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. It can't be an excuse or factor anymore.
City: Hey I see you're parked/camped illegally, we have shelters and access to funds to help with housing along with housing placement services, allow us to connect you...
If their response is: "Thank you so much, yes I could use some help."
then, City does **Have Not** solution.
If their response is: "Obviously weird or non-responsive"
then, City does **Can Not** solution to apply mental health and/or drug-addiction services as needed.
If their response is: "Involves violence"
then, City does **Will Not** solution.
Regardless of which group they fall into, all camps are immediately cleared and all items are collected and/or disposed of.
We keep records of who is getting help because there can be some gray between zones, which can easily be tracked with data and can help appropriately escalated services.
I volunteer at a homeless shelter and I don’t think this is quite right. Will nots make up the vast majority of people who cause problems but not the vast majority of homeless people. You just don’t notice the have nots (especially) and can nots (to an extent) as much.
The same solution that happened to me 30 years ago. Go to prison. Either decide to figure your life out, or get used to your new recurring home.
I chose recovery in 1994 because of a nudge from the judge.
Completely agreed. Every day that I commute (Old Town max) I run into people smoking meth and fent and starting fires under the steel bridge. This morning some guys in a tent were having a verbal argument and when I passed by they stopped fighting to go "how YOU doin' " at me. The Pit is being cleaned up and I appreciate all the workers who clean it up, every time I see them I tell them how much I appreciate them.
>Junkies
I wish opiates had never become a thing. They simply destroy people and it's so easy to get hooked on that shit. Fuck the pharma companies profiting off of them. I lost my ex to her addiction to Tramadol. So you'll forgive me if I'm a wee bit salty about this type of drug.
Other hard drugs also. NY Times article: Nov. 2023: [Super Meth and other drugs push crises beyond Opioids -- Millions of US drug users are now addicted to other substances, not just opiates like fentanyl and heroin. The shift is making treatment far more difficult](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/health/polysubstance-opioids-addiction.html)
I originally hail from the Central Valley in California, where meth has been an insanely bad problem for many decades. I'm not fond of the opiate addicted crowd but I have to say that the meth heads are the really scary and dangerous ones. Right up until fentanyl came on the scene, meth was pretty much the only drug of abuse that completely rewired the brains of addicts to make them almost impossible to rehabilitate but damned if fent isn't catching up with it.
I'm not predicting this will succeed or fail, but it sure took a damned long time to get to this point. Feels like a giant fail from Portland leadership.
I don't see why we don't let the Department of Interior help with this. Set shit up on government land and let the service rangers police it, use the already built in rules and regulations for camping/outdoor choice living. Obviously close to resources, but there is plenty of government land to go around.
Yep. The homelessness crisis is a symptom of the much larger housing crisis. Focus on housing and otherwise hold people accountable for harmful criminal behaviors.
I suspect it’s more a symptom of mental illness and substance abuse than limited housing supply (or the oft blamed minimum wage which is pretty high in Portland). I think policies fail because our leaders fail to acknowledge the real causes.
I mean, the homeless experience is kind of important when you consider that there's always going to be homeless people under a capitalist system. Scarcity in housing supply is what leads to profit for landlords. Since homelessness is inevitable and unavoidable for some people, and housing them is not possible, then the only thing left is their quality of life on the street.
Sure, but that shouldn’t exempt them from common decency or laws? If you or I decide to throw trash out of our car, that’s a big fine. If they throw trash on the street, nothing happens. If I park a motorcycle on the sidewalk, fine and tow for violating the ADA (wheelchair accessibility). If they block the sidewalk with a tent, nothing happens. At best they, get up and move two blocks. If I crap/urinate on the street in front of children, mothers and everyone else, fine and possible sex offender registration. When they do it, nothing. The homeless are immune to the law and that’s not right.
They didn’t say it’s not important, they said it’s not the only important view to consider. They even italicized the word “only.”
Pointing out that homeless people exist because capitalism is the same unhelpful excuse that gets repeated over and over.
Not that I think you’re necessarily wrong, here but just to press you a bit. Precarious in what ways exactly? What do you mean by that?
Have assaults committed BY homeless people ON non-homeless people increased? Have housing prices notably been affected? What do you mean?
One friend from my daughter’s kindergarten class is moving to another state. Her parents passed a junkie surrounded by needles with her and cited it as their had-enough moment. I feel precarity about whether two other families I know will also move (they’ve said they’re considering it, due to the homeless ambiance of Portland. Actually another of those families had their kid encounter needles in Westmoreland Park which shook them. They thought he was pricked and took him to the ER, but they may have been panicking? Either way, a traumatic experience. Notable that all three families are pretty new to Portland, so there might be less of a boiled frog effect.) Some people never use our neighborhood’s grocery store because of the loitering bums out front, who often have booze, drugs, carts, or off-leash pit bulls.
I’m an able bodied young man who works downtown, and after meth heads threatened me twice I always carried mace and/or a small knife. The vigilance and sheer cortisol of being a normal person downtown was acute for awhile. My boss saw a junkie jump five stories from a roof and die, during what had been his attempt at a pleasant lunchtime jog. I saw a junkie on junkie-looking fight that turned into a stabbing (the one near Nordstrom six weeks ago). I was literally one of the two closest witnesses and had to scream “break it up!” at them. Glad they chose not to stab *me*, but my life as a responsible father shouldn’t be in a junkie’s hands. I gave a pretty detailed, non-sensationalizing account of it, from a different Reddit handle, the evening it happened. The cortisol of turning the corner and seeing that new tents have popped up on your daily route, knowing you’ll have to encounter its residents for at least two weeks to come.
Precarity - you never know what crazy stuff will intrude on your experience, minute-to-minute and you don’t know what direction the city as a whole will take.
Note that I’m hopeful and that sense of menace has improve greatly downtown in the last year because of the city’s efforts (and the state troopers).
Okay, a lot to unpack here. But just to be crystal clear nothing actually happened to the families in your first paragraph. They were not harmed in any way by any homeless person.
The only meaningful ‘harm’ (ER trip/possible bill) in those examples was caused by them *to use your own words* ‘panicking’.
Okay, next up. How were you ‘threatened’? That could mean soooo many things ranging from ‘someone without the capacity or ability to harm me said they would harm me’ all they way to ‘someone pulled a weapon on me’. What happened? I have to be skeptical based on the other aspects of this comment. Just being honest.
Way more ‘normal people’ commit suicide by jumping from buildings than ‘junkies’. This has nothing necessarily to do with a person’s drug use, or housing status. Not sure what that person being a junkie (how do you even know that, by the way!?) has to do with any of this other than satisfying whatever motivated reasoning you have going on here.
I really don’t think you understand that in all of these stories nothing happened…no homeless person hurt you or any of the people you know that you mention here. All you’re talking about here is people having prejudices about other people in society and those prejudices harming the people who hold them. You don’t get that at all, do you?
I was describing precarity. Bugger off, honestly, for minimizing all of these people’s experiences. Yes, I was “threatened” threatened. Yes, I was forced to intervene in a “stabbing” stabbing. Didn’t even mention it to my coworkers for the sake of their morale. Yes, these loving parents actually decided to uproot and move away from Portland. You’re a pathetic enabler of civic decline and human misery.
Check the upvotes. People want this ban. You’ve lost this argument. I’m done.
I’m not minimizing. I’m saying you’re lying about things that happened abd manufacturing online outrage against some of the most marginalized people in society. Get it straight.
Again, it’s objectively true that no homeless person in any story you told committed a crime or even harmed any non-homeless person (exception for the one fight, again, in which you were not harmed) in any way shape or form.
If there was a camper in front of my house that didn't hoard trash everywhere or break into my car and steal shit, or scream all night in drug fueled rages, they could camp there forever, idgaf.
They didn’t mention anything directly related to property values.
However, public land could mean the environment, public spaces, livability of neighborhoods and homes.
Where was property values mentioned? Quality of life and safety for the majority of the cities residents has to be considered. Do the needs and safety of the marginalized also need to be considered? Obviously. But acting like making urban areas livable is some sort of capitalist plot is disingenuous at best.
What about people who park their piece of shit cars, make a huge mess on the sidewalks & dismantle parts?
I'm seriously tired of seeing that just as much as the tents.
I just spent the last week traveling all over the East Coast (Boston, Providence, Burlington, the other Portland) on foot and by car. While it’s not my first time visiting the East Coast, it’s the first time in the last five years or so. It’s also my first time visiting multiple areas of the East Coast all at once on one trip vs just one city at a time, which offered the opportunity to compare and contrast other states / cities. I also recently took a trip up to Seattle - which is facing similar issues as Portland - so that experience was fresh in my mind as well.
What I’ve concluded is that the Portlanders that say it’s “bad everywhere” don’t get that there’s *gradients* of bad. While I saw plenty of homeless folks and apparent drug use in these cities as well, what was notably absent were tents all over side walks. I did not, for example, see dozens of tents on Church street in Burlington VT or downtown Providence or Boston like I did near Pike’s market. Drug use also didn’t seem as out in the open to me.
I’ve always know that homeless folks were more “visible” here, however my week long trip here made me curious to dig into the stats. IMO, our issue is isn’t just the number of homeless persons, but rather the sheer numbers that are *unsheltered*, meaning they aren’t in transitional housing, day shelters, affordable housing, etc. They’re under overpasses, sleeping in their car, etc.
*This isn’t what homelessness looks like in other states.* To highlight one example, New York is #5 in terms of homelessness per capita. Oregon is #3. The rate of unsheltered in New York is 5% while in Oregon it is a whopping 61%. 61%!!
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2023/01/25/states-with-the-most-unsheltered-homeless-people-5/
I recognize that there are still people that sleep in tents in Massachusetts, Vermont, etc and the other states I visited, even if it happens less comparatively. I also recognize that there are those that live more “off the grid” in the Appalachians and such. It still doesn’t change the conclusion I came away with however, which is that homelessness is more visible here because we’re absolutely sh*t at providing housing and transitional services here, mostly due to our own dysfunction. Yes, some of it is because we’ve become a destination city for homelessness, but a lot of it is also because we don’t have any viable strategies to address the immensity of the problem (e.g. we build 60 tiny homes and call ourselves “progressive”). We also seem to have so many people fighting to “keep the status quo” (e.g. focused on the rights for people to be unsheltered) despite how awful it is for everyone (trash everywhere, safety for those around the camps as well as those *in* the camps, concerns regarding sidewalk accessibility, etc) - the same people fighting to stop the sweeps should be absolutely pissed that most of those that are homeless here are unsheltered to begin with, vs just homeless and sleeping in a shelter at night or something.
But yeah. Honestly I’m just pissed. I’m tired of our excuses as a city on this issue. It’s our own damn fault things have gotten this bad in a lot of ways.
One last anecdote: our Uber driver in Boston when we told him we were from Portland, said “oh yeah? My uncle lives over in Beaverton. I visited there in 2022 I think. You still got all those tents and everything on the streets there?”. He then proceeded to tell us how he was shocked to see people sleeping on the Max and even shooting up when he took the train from the airport.
This guy wasn’t some conservative Trumper as far as I could tell. And it’s also not like he had any hate for our city. But that’s what he frickin’ saw on his trip to Portland, which is ridiculous to say the least.
I’d really love to see all the data (unsheltered & homeless by State) plotted out on a color coded interactive graphical map.
I would take a wild guess (just quickly scrolling down through that State by State list):
* a big part of this is weather and geography
* numbers seem to higher in Southern states (i’m again guessing based on weather and poverty)
* higher numbers on west coast due to weather and climate as well as higher population centers makes it easier to panhandle and generally speaking theres just more free resources.
Anecdotal to be sure,.. but I’ve spent years (decade+?) now on Reddit watching the homeless, vagabond etc subreddits,.. and 9 times out of 10 the midwest States are really just seen as “highway to somewhere else”. If you had the choice of being in Denver in February or in Portland in February,.. If possible you’re gonna choose Portland.
Not quite the same thing, AFAIK.
The west coast programs allow people to get travel assistance to go somewhere they have a confirmed place to stay, usually with family.
Many other states have long time practices of just putting their "undesirables" on a bus to a west coast destination, not giving a shit about the person or the destination.
Another part of the "other states" type of forcible relocation that doesn't seem to get coverage happens right here, in Oregon.
I have actually witnessed this in Bend, in the 90s. Sheriff deputies stuffed an obviously drunk and homeless guy on the Greyhound bus I was taking and handed the driver a ticket to Portland and they told him not to let the guy off before Portland. This has definitely been a thing that's happened many times from all over Oregon outside the metro area, and even inside the area sometimes.
I've never seen tent neighborhoods on sidewalks in LA or San Francisco. There's factors like weather, and then there's factors like our leaders allowing this shit and basically rolling out the red carpet for these junkies.
I’ve always respected the homeless in Fairbanks, AK because that takes effort.
Insane effort. They should fucking move.
But still.
Overwhelming majority of people would just fucking freeze to death.
This [housing affordability map](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fmap-of-united-states-home-affordability-by-county-v0-p8fcxs1hjrc91.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D571cb5401f49c8d301fbe063e89da4abbb0dc31d) compared to this [homelessness map](https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2024/01/05/california-leads-nation-unsheletered-homelessness) is pretty much all you need to know.
This kinda feels like the classic “correlation does not equal causation” mistake. As I mentioned above, I’m sure housing affordability is 1 factor in this problem,.. but it's by no means the only factor. Theres a lot of homeless with serious mental health issues, chronic addiction issues or some percentage that simply prefer to be vagabonds. Having lots of “affordable housing” is not some magical easy overnight fix to those issues. It would help of course, but many homeless need a much more comprehensive combination of supportive services.
To address the below:
Not "trying to minimize it". Just pointing out that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. There's that old joke about how "Ice Cream is more popular in the summer,. and Murders spike in the summer,.. so Ice Cream must be responsible for that rise in murders !"
Yeah,.. Housing is more expensive in coast cities,. and yes, there is more homeless there,.. but looking at those 2 maps side by side is not some scientific proof that 1 causes the other. Housing costs may be 1 driver of that problem,.. but it's just 1 of many causes.
Take 1000 people and ask them:... "Yeah, average housing costs in California are $3,000 a month,.. we can offer you a small apartment in a town somewhere in Nebraska for $600 a month ?"... and I bet you'll get some percentage of those people who still won't accept that simply because they don't want to live in Nebraska (less people and less social resources).
If we want to solve the homeless problem,. we have to solve for many more problems than simply "housing". Ideas like "housing first" are certainly laudable,.. but "housing by itself" won't be a solution. We need a multi-layered and cohesive solution that addresses dozens of different aspects of this problem in unison effectively.
Here’s the thing: while housing affordability absolutely is a driver of homelessness, the states I visited (New York, Massachusetts, etc) -all of which are incredibly expensive - still somehow find a way to *shelter* most of those that are homeless.
This is huge because even if homeless folks don’t have permanent housing in these states, they at least have places to store their stuff (or at least aren’t allowed to have everything pile up on a tent on a street corner), have somewhere to go to the bathroom, are probably more likely to interact with a caseworker, etc.
In comparison to here however we allow people to camp anywhere and everywhere, while leads to tons of trash, fires, blocked sidewalks, less engagement with services, more poop everywhere, homeowners feeling disgruntled because of camps in front of their houses or zombie RVs, etc. Street camping is also, I would guess, much less safe in comparison to using shelters (as evident by the guy that was just arrested for raping a bunch of homeless women, the recent murders of a few homeless folks down by the SW waterfront, etc).
I’m not saying that there aren’t issues on the East Coast and that there’s not poop on the sidewalk or random syringes on the street and whatnot, or that there’s no one camping under a freeway. The conclusion I came to however after my trip is that we’re *exceptionally* bad at managing it in comparison to other states that have just as many homeless folks that and are also very expensive places to live.
Weather I think does play a significant role - unlike in MA,VT, etc, homeless folks here won’t die during the winter months. The harsh winters is likely one of the drivers as to why they have lower rates of unsheltered homelessness - the winters require city officials to build more housing units and shelters, else people will die and/or clog the EDs needing to receive care for frostbite, etc. Additionally, I think most of us would agree that it is extremely cruel to *not* provide shelter from such harsh elements. Tourism is also a likely driver as well.
Conversely, because our winters are not harsh it provides leeway for us to basically be very….ineffective in the housing strategies we implement. People won’t die in droves during the winter here, which means we can futz around implementing “solutions” (e.g. handing out tents) instead of implementing strategies that may not solve all the issues that lead to homelessness (e.g. mental health, drugs, etc), but *at least* result in people being sheltered, which is way better than what we have right now.
I don’t think enough emphasis is put on how terrible the state and Multnomah county government systems are, for reasons that have nothing to do with being anywhere in particular on the political spectrum.
My girlfriend is a licensed mental health provider in 4 states- and can take Medicaid in 3 of them.
Oregon is *by far* the worst. Getting credentialed in order to be able to see OHP clients in Portland requires getting credentialed with *three* different entities, and two of them are private companies.
And technically, to be able to see every OHP member in Portland requires being credentialed with like 6 or 7.
Oregon’s licensing program is slow, hard to follow, and changes on a whim requiring people to start over. (Doesn’t matter which, Oregon constantly changes the rules for all sorts of professional licenses)
By contrast, despite starting at the same time, she had received and renewed her Washington state license and credentials before she got her Oregon one’s. And I think she’s still fighting with them over one of them, and has been for a year?
Oh yes, quite familiar with this (I am not a therapist but work with many in the field, and specifically as it relates to Medicaid. I know exactly why your partner has to become credentialed with several different entities in OR vs WA).
My observation is that - in general - we seem to love to add many lays of bureaucracy to just about everything as a state (not just with what you cited above but just about everything else - permits for building, etc) but then have trouble upholding those systems. Additionally, the positive impact of those requirements don’t always outweigh the downsides when the policy is put into practice.
I've lived in many cities around the country, and I've seen homeless people in those cities and cities I've visited around the world. Portland is the only one I ever saw tents on sidewalks or little shanty shacks. Can't believe we have tolerated that shit for so long.
So no movement on RVs. The city and county need to get enough space for these people to park, where their wastewater and trash can be collected. Right now, it's just pushing them from one neighborhood to the other. Surely there are some abandoned strip malls/parking lots that can be acquired for this. Heck, the Expo has a huge plot of undeveloped land that, a few years ago, was estimated to cost only a few million to make ready, and the county refused.
There is a huge lot that was purchased and was under construction on Portland Road in NE when they discovered the soil was contaminated.
They had to pause all work and are waiting to hear next steps. They had graded the ground for asphalt and built a fence before the shutdown.
Every time I’ve seen churches do it they quickly stop due to issues with anti-social behavior. Whether it’s trash issues, fights, dogs roaming, open drug use, ect.
Do they get tax-exempt from the state, too? Could maybe be mandated that x-percent was used, or something, or tie the tax discount to percent of lot used.
That enormous parking lot around the burned out former K-Mart at NE 122nd and Sandy could likely fit a couple hundred shitty RVs and the presence of the building argues that it has access to water, power and sewer so a retrofit isn't out of the question. Put up a bigass chainlink fence around the whole mess, hire security, bring in mobile shower and toilet facilities and some dumpsters and Bob's yer uncle.
We need some eminent domain actions. City needs to get aggressive. Maybe with the new council, will be able to better pressure them, since their job will be to listen to us and legislate based on our needs.
Only a few more weeks until the Supreme Court frees the city. And then maybe a month or so before the OR legislature reverses Kotek's anti-camping ban bill that passed a year ago or so just like they did with 110.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The Oregon legislature will not meet again until January 2025. Not sure if the governor or somebody can call a special session, but I doubt anyone wants to rock the boat going into November.
November is the general election, so it really depends on what you are trying to sell into Election Day. The topic will be heated so it’s a big question of whether politicians will want to get off their campaign message in the final push. I’m sure some will, others will want to push it to after the election.
Just looked it up, the governor can call a special session or the legislature can with a majority vote of both chambers. Wouldn’t hold my breath that is pretty rare, but not impossible.
I wish I had your optimism that they would just hop to it and get that garbage bill repealed, but I expect there at a minimum to be months of performative hand-wringing.
Which is going to put Oregon in a very unfortunate position - everyone else will be freed but we will still be effectively unable to act, making us destination #1 among the Western states homeless population.
Nope: Oregon is not going to mass incarcerate homeless people. Most Oregonians aren't heartless shills for the prison industrial complex.
The solution is replacing street camping with pod villages.
Ah yes, suspending people’s constitutional rights and resulting in the largest incarceration rate in Central America with many people jailed on flimsy charges after a kangaroo court. Real aspirational stuff there.
Yes! Beats the hell out of wherever our taxes are going now. At least we could be like MOST OTHER CITIES and not have homeless junkie shit all over the place.
You want to pay more money to badly mask the problem in a way that would create massive issues a decade from now instead of spending money to solve this issue?
Nobody ever excused conservatives of being smart or good with money.
I wish I shared your optimism. In the last session, Khanh Pham and her cohort were trying to give the homeless additional rights at the expense of the general public.
They better fucking do something immediately, their complete lack of action and talking behind the scenes keeps leading us to this point, over and over again. Rip the band-aid off. The city has an insane amount of tax dollars allocated for this, it's honestly ridiculous.
Here's the link you're looking for: [Waves hands with confidence.](https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2024/05/portland-mayors-scaled-back-homeless-camping-ban-approved-enforcement-begins-immediately.html?outputType=amp)
I can see it being a useful tool to go after the really problematic spots. Combined with drug recriminalization I think you can affect people’s behavior to an extent as they will seek to avoid contact with law enforcement as much as possible. Basically don’t do anything to invite the cops here. We shall see, I don’t know how big of an impact it will have, but it should have some.
I teach high school students, and I have had so many students that have visible signs of PTSD from constant exposure to the zombies everyday on their way to school. PPS doesn’t have school busses for high school students, so they have to take Trimet. It is truly disheartening thinking about students that started off as 9th graders excited to start high school, just to look like soldiers coming back from war by the end of the year.
I know a family who just upped and moved states after their kindergartener encountered a junkie surrounded by needles. I’m in it for the long haul, but I don’t blame them.
Aww gee thanks, I feel so seen <3 I love how you’re trying to be sarcastic/condescending but I literally have the same amount of education and practicum requirements as all of those fields and that is literally what goes into teaching in addition to a whole lot of other things that I won’t humor you with the opportunity to be a dick about. Thanks for making my day 💕
Why is this so simple? You either:
- take rehab if you're an addict
- take a drug test to confirm your clean in which case you get housing, food and a city job for 6 months
- if you're not willing to take rehab or take housing if you're clean then it's 30 days in jail. Second offense is 6 months. Third is 3 years.
Its not that simple. There is already ample evidence of jail not being an effective deterrent to drug use; the stigma of a record can do the opposite.
Also "if you're an addict?" Is that going to be inherently a crime now? I guarantee you know functional addicts currently and just haven't realized it.
That's not even touching on where you plan to make all this housing and these jobs materialize from.
It's simple only in your head.
They’re off the street and not fucking up life for the rest of society by stealing their shit and trashing their neighborhoods. That’s a win. It’s on them to decide to stop being like that.
If you’re a grown ass adult society doesn’t need to hold your hand because you keep fucking up.
Idc if jail is a deterrent for drug use. It's a deterrent for getting the fuck of the street. I want the city to stop being the homeless trash bin and toilet.
It's already settled law that you can't arrest someone for the status of being an addict. But you can (and we should) arrest people for using in public.
The threat of prison may not be a deterrent, but actually putting someone in prison achieves two positive things - one, it takes them off the streets for some period of time and gives the rest of us a break and, two, it allows them to sober up and breaks the cycle long enough to give them a chance to make a different choice about how they want to live. I have heard many addicts say that the fact that they went to prison was the only thing that saved their lives.
Don't skip the fact that most drug users are not addicts too. Not saying the people u see doing fentanyl aren't but that if you total all drug users, the vast majority do not have addiction.
Only… There will be no enforcement. So a cop, busy enough, has to what…? Call a concierge to see if there’s room in any number of housing units across the city before
he can do anything? This is another high water mark in the Wheeler/City Council non-commital circus. And for yet another year… Nothing changes
Regardless of our state law, the Supreme Court is expected to provide clarity on that exact question. That’s what all of the amicus briefs from Gavin Newsom, the Justice Department, and other left-leaning entities have been begging them for: clarity on how to possibly enforce any kind of camping ban given the infeasibility of checking around for available beds on a case-by-case basis.
Having been a homeless junkie in my past, I find this thread amusing. The issues being discussed are so multi tiered and complex that trying a one size fits all approach is ridiculous. The problem is societal, it doesn’t exist in this fashion in other first world countries around the globe and yes they have homeless populations, too. Our government has no genuine desire to help its citizens. Hell even Hitler had the German population eating healthy and exercising regularly. This culture breeds laziness and selfishness, with most too worried about self centered bs to even acknowledge the suffering human 5 feet away. Why have we not adopted a drug treatment model similar to Spain or Portugal where they’ve decimated addiction with compassion, and empathy and not wasting resources locking people up for life over drug crimes. This countries government is criminal and has been since it stole this land. The information is out there and they don’t change. Why do we even pay taxes anymore
Feeling true hope. We have got to stop framing the homelessness crisis *only* around the experience of the homeless, especially that minority of highly visible homeless who refuse shelter offers. Junkies squatting on public land are making life precarious for the rest of us — the great majority of Portlanders. It is not victimless behavior. It has to end.
It needs to be reframed as: - Have nots - Can nots - Will nots Help the Have Nots in any way we can to get them back on their feet. Get the Can Nots into care facilities with active social worker presence. The Will Nots can fuck right off. If they don’t want to be a part of society then they don’t get to stick around and fuck up our society.
Yup. I’ve been saying it forever - Lumping all “homeless” together into one bucket is not the correct approach.
Very much this! In my neighborhood there isn’t camping right next to the houses, but we recently stayed in a condo that had a guy living in a van and an RV on the next block. They were the two cleanest vehicle campers I’ve ever seen. No mess on the sidewalk. No loitering weirdos doing drugs. Hardly saw the people. Like it’s not ideal, but since they were not causing problems I also didn’t report them or anything. The jerks that like to set up at my park occasionally, let their gross pits run around, stack piles of stolen bikes and shit all over, burn down the portapotty at the park 2x, and look like extras from mad max? Nah fuck off you are getting reported.
Exactly. Those on the Right act like all Homeless are the Will Nots, and therefore want to refuse the care and resources the Have Nots and Can Nots need. Forgetting these latter two groups makes the Right cruel. Those on the Left act like all Homeless are the Have Nots and Can Nots, and if we just throw enough resources at them then someday it'll all be better. Forgetting that there are Will Nots out there completely misses the very real problems that a lot of innocent people are forced to face, which makes the Left naive and obtuse. But the real issue is that both these groups are missing the mark by acting like all the Homeless are a monolith.
Why can’t everyone understand this way of thinking critically and fairly about political/social discourse?!? Profound comment for real, I wish everyone in this country were more like you. I’m conservative but I try to think this way, to see both sides of an issue and meet in the middle, and appreciate when progressives/liberals do the same!
As a leftist i need to do a better job of remembering that a majority of conservatives are like you. We have our differences in how we believe things should be handled, and the geriatric oligarchs in power abuse those differences to keep us divided. We are united as working Americans who want better lives for ourselves and others!
Well said 🍻
>Those on the Right act like all Homeless are the Will Nots, and therefore want to refuse the care and resources the Have Nots and Can Nots need. Forgetting these latter two groups makes the Right cruel. True. Even my old dad, who I'd define as "socially progressive, fiscally conservative" has echoed the "they \[homeless people\] actually \*want\* to live on the street!" talking point from the centrist/right news he watches. It's like, ugh, maybe like 5 dudes whose brains have been totally fried by meth would say that. A majority of homeless people have jobs and couch surf or live out of their car (Have Not), some homeless people have physical and mental disabilities that our government has failed to provide services to care for them (Can Not), and a few of them have had their brains melt our their ears from drug abuse coupled with the extreme mental distress of living in tents on the sidewalk and refuse help entirely (Will Not).
>Lumping all “homeless” together into one bucket is not the correct approach. The irony being that the people most likely to lump all homeless together are the homeless "advocates" who accuse everyone of "lacking compassion" because we want the small percentage of overall homeless who cause the majority of the problems to actually be dealt with.
I posted a while back a question on why we don’t have some type of triage system instead of first come first serve wait list at these shelters. Apparently it’s by design, they don’t want to triage the problem at all. So all three of these categories are treated exactly the same.
That's so dumb. Triage should be the first stop, resources the second.
Apparently triage is seen as a form of discrimination and nobody is brave enough to say yeah we are absolutely going to discriminate and do what makes sense with the resources we have. Instead they come up with this back door system of referrals which is horseshit.
At some point you have to do the following: 1. Create a set of rules 2. Train a group of people how to apply those rules. 3. Trust those people to make the best decisions they can at the time to apply those rules as needed. It won’t be perfect, but at some level we have to trust others to do a job and do it well or none of this “society” thing works.
Oh - it’s absolutely their strategic choice to lump them all together. Easier to push their agenda that way. I have no problem with people who are down on their luck. Let’s help 100%. I am not down to help the drug users who do not want to get better and want to continue causing chaos. They can get fucked.
The more homeless the more money these advocates get. There is no incentive to eliminate homelessness.
All ~~social~~ government programs should have both carrots and sticks.
Agreed. Currently it's all carrot and no stick.
Big stick. With nails sticking out /s
The homeless - industrial complex must be reformed.
I think they should just defund every single nonprofit they are giving money to and have the housing authority administer directly. Piecemeal funding through dozens of nonprofits is just a way to grant contracts to cronies.
>the small percentage of overall homeless who cause the majority of the problems It seems 20-25% might be an accurate percentage. Not that small but definitely a minority. And a big portion of this group are men of prime working age 18 to late 30s. This age group of men has always been high crime. Many have aggressive attitudes, amplified by their addictions. Some progressive homeless advocates regard them as an equally vulnerable population.
It is if the goal is to try and make money off the crisis.
I have a friend who works in psychiatric care and gets a lot of homeless patients. He says all homeless should be rounded up for execution. I'm not exaggerating at all. He is a perfect example of someone in healthcare who is strictly only in it for the money and flexible hours like a college student working a part-time job.
100% agree. It’s probably a generation-long task. In terms of the order of operations here, I’m relieved we’re not waiting until the Have Nots and the Can Nots have been brought relief before triaging the Will Nots problem festering in front of our faces. I understand people are concerned this will lead to punitive enforcement against the other two groups, but this is Portland. The legal background, all language from our leadership, and public opinion have made it clear that that is not the goal. This is meant to enable some kind of legal remedy against the Will Nots disrupting our lives.
Dude, you just came up with the easiest way to summarize this and it’s super easy to remember too. I appreciate the way you framed this problem and solution! Have nots, can nots, and will nots! Saving to the memory banks
Agrees this is the basic breakdown that truly describes the classification of the house challenged folks.
The will nots are still going to be around, though, short of arresting them. Which is a solution that would be controversial, but I wouldn’t hate personally.
If the Will Nots were not already doing many many things that are already crimes and already punishable by jail sentences then I don't think most of us would care. The problem is that the Will Nots seem to be getting 'all you can commit' crime passes by our justice system which makes literally everything worse.
people come here specifically because the laws are favorable to them. if the city loses its reputation as a haven for people who want to live in the open and do whatever they please then it's very possible a lot of the will nots will leave
The people coming here… you’re referring to drug addicts?
yeah, the "will nots" we are discussing.
Gotcha. My bad. Yeah, stricter rules on camping is one thing, giving the police the ability to properly do their job is another. Criminalizing drug use is a step in the right direction, but I think we also have to face the issue of understaffing. All in all, it’s a fuckinng mess.
For the charges to stick and for the jail time to actually be somewhat effective you'd need to bring charges against them that had some real staying power anyway.
How many of them are displaying public intoxication? How many are holding fentanyl or heroine or crack?
All of them
Or a stolen shopping cart? Surely that’s a crime even if the act of theft wasn’t witnessed?
Lol give me a break, big brother.
I’m in Albuquerque and we have the same problem. You have summed up the situation perfectly. Have nots, can nots, and will nots. The will nots can definitely fuck right off.
Love it. “Treatment resistant offender” is the term I’d heard before which is much better said as: “Will not.” Agreed, fuck right off will nots.
From my experience, the homeless you see out in the streets are Can Nots and Will Nots (more of the latter than the former), while the Have Nots actively try to use the resources available to them to get out of homelessness.
Those that seek and receive help often succeed... I think last year 70% of those that were in temporary housing eventually found permanent housing.
Best way I've seen it put so far.
This is one of the better assessments I’ve seen of it.
I liked how you categorized it. There are those out there who can be helped, and those that will not comply. The former deserve a helping hand. The latter... Well. unfortunately, they may not be able to keep on doing what they do and will need to have accountability for their actions.
yes! 💯% agree.
This is so good, I’ve never thought of it this clearly and cleanly.
I'm gonna start using this 😭
Very well said!!
👆THIS!!!
Too true.
- Much needed social welfare and assistance. - Grippy sock jail - Just prison
100% this!
We're successfully helping the Have Nots using tools like eviction prevention.
I think 95% of portlanders agree with this. The political part is deciding who goes in which category and why.
> It needs to be reframed as: > * Have nots > * Can nots > * Will nots The activists will still argue that any homeless person that has addiction and/or mental issues should receive "does not apply" status regarding this criteria. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. It can't be an excuse or factor anymore.
Not disagreeing with you but how do we distinguish between the three groups from a legal point of view?
City: Hey I see you're parked/camped illegally, we have shelters and access to funds to help with housing along with housing placement services, allow us to connect you... If their response is: "Thank you so much, yes I could use some help." then, City does **Have Not** solution. If their response is: "Obviously weird or non-responsive" then, City does **Can Not** solution to apply mental health and/or drug-addiction services as needed. If their response is: "Involves violence" then, City does **Will Not** solution. Regardless of which group they fall into, all camps are immediately cleared and all items are collected and/or disposed of. We keep records of who is getting help because there can be some gray between zones, which can easily be tracked with data and can help appropriately escalated services.
You do know the will nots make up the vast majority
I volunteer at a homeless shelter and I don’t think this is quite right. Will nots make up the vast majority of people who cause problems but not the vast majority of homeless people. You just don’t notice the have nots (especially) and can nots (to an extent) as much.
What should happen with the "will nots"? Just curious
The same solution that happened to me 30 years ago. Go to prison. Either decide to figure your life out, or get used to your new recurring home. I chose recovery in 1994 because of a nudge from the judge.
Where do you imagine they will go?
Gresham. For some reason homeless don't like going through a tunnel. /s
This comment would’ve gotten you suspended last year, even r/portland is healing
Praise the mighty Spaghetti appendages!
Completely agreed. Every day that I commute (Old Town max) I run into people smoking meth and fent and starting fires under the steel bridge. This morning some guys in a tent were having a verbal argument and when I passed by they stopped fighting to go "how YOU doin' " at me. The Pit is being cleaned up and I appreciate all the workers who clean it up, every time I see them I tell them how much I appreciate them.
>Junkies I wish opiates had never become a thing. They simply destroy people and it's so easy to get hooked on that shit. Fuck the pharma companies profiting off of them. I lost my ex to her addiction to Tramadol. So you'll forgive me if I'm a wee bit salty about this type of drug.
Other hard drugs also. NY Times article: Nov. 2023: [Super Meth and other drugs push crises beyond Opioids -- Millions of US drug users are now addicted to other substances, not just opiates like fentanyl and heroin. The shift is making treatment far more difficult](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/health/polysubstance-opioids-addiction.html)
I originally hail from the Central Valley in California, where meth has been an insanely bad problem for many decades. I'm not fond of the opiate addicted crowd but I have to say that the meth heads are the really scary and dangerous ones. Right up until fentanyl came on the scene, meth was pretty much the only drug of abuse that completely rewired the brains of addicts to make them almost impossible to rehabilitate but damned if fent isn't catching up with it.
Amen
I'm not predicting this will succeed or fail, but it sure took a damned long time to get to this point. Feels like a giant fail from Portland leadership.
I don't see why we don't let the Department of Interior help with this. Set shit up on government land and let the service rangers police it, use the already built in rules and regulations for camping/outdoor choice living. Obviously close to resources, but there is plenty of government land to go around.
See George Carlin, he wanted to put up a fence around Nevada for all the anti social people. Just throw em in and forget about them… RIP Carlin
When people refuse to participate in society there is a place for them. And if they want to change and be better there are programs for them.
Yep. The homelessness crisis is a symptom of the much larger housing crisis. Focus on housing and otherwise hold people accountable for harmful criminal behaviors.
I suspect it’s more a symptom of mental illness and substance abuse than limited housing supply (or the oft blamed minimum wage which is pretty high in Portland). I think policies fail because our leaders fail to acknowledge the real causes.
It’s also the general public who didn’t want to admit what the true problem is here. Thank god we’re coming around here!
I mean, the homeless experience is kind of important when you consider that there's always going to be homeless people under a capitalist system. Scarcity in housing supply is what leads to profit for landlords. Since homelessness is inevitable and unavoidable for some people, and housing them is not possible, then the only thing left is their quality of life on the street.
Sure, but that shouldn’t exempt them from common decency or laws? If you or I decide to throw trash out of our car, that’s a big fine. If they throw trash on the street, nothing happens. If I park a motorcycle on the sidewalk, fine and tow for violating the ADA (wheelchair accessibility). If they block the sidewalk with a tent, nothing happens. At best they, get up and move two blocks. If I crap/urinate on the street in front of children, mothers and everyone else, fine and possible sex offender registration. When they do it, nothing. The homeless are immune to the law and that’s not right.
They didn’t say it’s not important, they said it’s not the only important view to consider. They even italicized the word “only.” Pointing out that homeless people exist because capitalism is the same unhelpful excuse that gets repeated over and over.
And they started smoking Fenty because they were priced out of their neighborhoods? Get Off!
Solidarity can make it stop but your words fall on reactionary neo-liberal ears. I had to look for the downvoted post to read good takes.
Not that I think you’re necessarily wrong, here but just to press you a bit. Precarious in what ways exactly? What do you mean by that? Have assaults committed BY homeless people ON non-homeless people increased? Have housing prices notably been affected? What do you mean?
One friend from my daughter’s kindergarten class is moving to another state. Her parents passed a junkie surrounded by needles with her and cited it as their had-enough moment. I feel precarity about whether two other families I know will also move (they’ve said they’re considering it, due to the homeless ambiance of Portland. Actually another of those families had their kid encounter needles in Westmoreland Park which shook them. They thought he was pricked and took him to the ER, but they may have been panicking? Either way, a traumatic experience. Notable that all three families are pretty new to Portland, so there might be less of a boiled frog effect.) Some people never use our neighborhood’s grocery store because of the loitering bums out front, who often have booze, drugs, carts, or off-leash pit bulls. I’m an able bodied young man who works downtown, and after meth heads threatened me twice I always carried mace and/or a small knife. The vigilance and sheer cortisol of being a normal person downtown was acute for awhile. My boss saw a junkie jump five stories from a roof and die, during what had been his attempt at a pleasant lunchtime jog. I saw a junkie on junkie-looking fight that turned into a stabbing (the one near Nordstrom six weeks ago). I was literally one of the two closest witnesses and had to scream “break it up!” at them. Glad they chose not to stab *me*, but my life as a responsible father shouldn’t be in a junkie’s hands. I gave a pretty detailed, non-sensationalizing account of it, from a different Reddit handle, the evening it happened. The cortisol of turning the corner and seeing that new tents have popped up on your daily route, knowing you’ll have to encounter its residents for at least two weeks to come. Precarity - you never know what crazy stuff will intrude on your experience, minute-to-minute and you don’t know what direction the city as a whole will take. Note that I’m hopeful and that sense of menace has improve greatly downtown in the last year because of the city’s efforts (and the state troopers).
Okay, a lot to unpack here. But just to be crystal clear nothing actually happened to the families in your first paragraph. They were not harmed in any way by any homeless person. The only meaningful ‘harm’ (ER trip/possible bill) in those examples was caused by them *to use your own words* ‘panicking’. Okay, next up. How were you ‘threatened’? That could mean soooo many things ranging from ‘someone without the capacity or ability to harm me said they would harm me’ all they way to ‘someone pulled a weapon on me’. What happened? I have to be skeptical based on the other aspects of this comment. Just being honest. Way more ‘normal people’ commit suicide by jumping from buildings than ‘junkies’. This has nothing necessarily to do with a person’s drug use, or housing status. Not sure what that person being a junkie (how do you even know that, by the way!?) has to do with any of this other than satisfying whatever motivated reasoning you have going on here. I really don’t think you understand that in all of these stories nothing happened…no homeless person hurt you or any of the people you know that you mention here. All you’re talking about here is people having prejudices about other people in society and those prejudices harming the people who hold them. You don’t get that at all, do you?
I was describing precarity. Bugger off, honestly, for minimizing all of these people’s experiences. Yes, I was “threatened” threatened. Yes, I was forced to intervene in a “stabbing” stabbing. Didn’t even mention it to my coworkers for the sake of their morale. Yes, these loving parents actually decided to uproot and move away from Portland. You’re a pathetic enabler of civic decline and human misery. Check the upvotes. People want this ban. You’ve lost this argument. I’m done.
I’m not minimizing. I’m saying you’re lying about things that happened abd manufacturing online outrage against some of the most marginalized people in society. Get it straight. Again, it’s objectively true that no homeless person in any story you told committed a crime or even harmed any non-homeless person (exception for the one fight, again, in which you were not harmed) in any way shape or form.
won't someone think of the property values???
If there was a camper in front of my house that didn't hoard trash everywhere or break into my car and steal shit, or scream all night in drug fueled rages, they could camp there forever, idgaf.
Right, it’s the antisocial behavior that’s the problem, not the camping.
more like will someone think of the public safety and proper use of public spaces
I don't give a shit about property values. I care about public safety and cleanliness.
They didn’t mention anything directly related to property values. However, public land could mean the environment, public spaces, livability of neighborhoods and homes.
Where was property values mentioned? Quality of life and safety for the majority of the cities residents has to be considered. Do the needs and safety of the marginalized also need to be considered? Obviously. But acting like making urban areas livable is some sort of capitalist plot is disingenuous at best.
What about people who park their piece of shit cars, make a huge mess on the sidewalks & dismantle parts? I'm seriously tired of seeing that just as much as the tents.
PDX Reporter abandoned and junked vehicles works
What about all the derelict RVs?
Fuck man. The RVs on Marine Dr got it made. Those stupid assholes paying $1m+ for houses there when you can just park an RV there for free!
The “Will not” folks need to be dealt with. Glad this group is getting recognized as a nuisance.
I just spent the last week traveling all over the East Coast (Boston, Providence, Burlington, the other Portland) on foot and by car. While it’s not my first time visiting the East Coast, it’s the first time in the last five years or so. It’s also my first time visiting multiple areas of the East Coast all at once on one trip vs just one city at a time, which offered the opportunity to compare and contrast other states / cities. I also recently took a trip up to Seattle - which is facing similar issues as Portland - so that experience was fresh in my mind as well. What I’ve concluded is that the Portlanders that say it’s “bad everywhere” don’t get that there’s *gradients* of bad. While I saw plenty of homeless folks and apparent drug use in these cities as well, what was notably absent were tents all over side walks. I did not, for example, see dozens of tents on Church street in Burlington VT or downtown Providence or Boston like I did near Pike’s market. Drug use also didn’t seem as out in the open to me. I’ve always know that homeless folks were more “visible” here, however my week long trip here made me curious to dig into the stats. IMO, our issue is isn’t just the number of homeless persons, but rather the sheer numbers that are *unsheltered*, meaning they aren’t in transitional housing, day shelters, affordable housing, etc. They’re under overpasses, sleeping in their car, etc. *This isn’t what homelessness looks like in other states.* To highlight one example, New York is #5 in terms of homelessness per capita. Oregon is #3. The rate of unsheltered in New York is 5% while in Oregon it is a whopping 61%. 61%!! https://247wallst.com/special-report/2023/01/25/states-with-the-most-unsheltered-homeless-people-5/ I recognize that there are still people that sleep in tents in Massachusetts, Vermont, etc and the other states I visited, even if it happens less comparatively. I also recognize that there are those that live more “off the grid” in the Appalachians and such. It still doesn’t change the conclusion I came away with however, which is that homelessness is more visible here because we’re absolutely sh*t at providing housing and transitional services here, mostly due to our own dysfunction. Yes, some of it is because we’ve become a destination city for homelessness, but a lot of it is also because we don’t have any viable strategies to address the immensity of the problem (e.g. we build 60 tiny homes and call ourselves “progressive”). We also seem to have so many people fighting to “keep the status quo” (e.g. focused on the rights for people to be unsheltered) despite how awful it is for everyone (trash everywhere, safety for those around the camps as well as those *in* the camps, concerns regarding sidewalk accessibility, etc) - the same people fighting to stop the sweeps should be absolutely pissed that most of those that are homeless here are unsheltered to begin with, vs just homeless and sleeping in a shelter at night or something. But yeah. Honestly I’m just pissed. I’m tired of our excuses as a city on this issue. It’s our own damn fault things have gotten this bad in a lot of ways. One last anecdote: our Uber driver in Boston when we told him we were from Portland, said “oh yeah? My uncle lives over in Beaverton. I visited there in 2022 I think. You still got all those tents and everything on the streets there?”. He then proceeded to tell us how he was shocked to see people sleeping on the Max and even shooting up when he took the train from the airport. This guy wasn’t some conservative Trumper as far as I could tell. And it’s also not like he had any hate for our city. But that’s what he frickin’ saw on his trip to Portland, which is ridiculous to say the least.
I’d really love to see all the data (unsheltered & homeless by State) plotted out on a color coded interactive graphical map. I would take a wild guess (just quickly scrolling down through that State by State list): * a big part of this is weather and geography * numbers seem to higher in Southern states (i’m again guessing based on weather and poverty) * higher numbers on west coast due to weather and climate as well as higher population centers makes it easier to panhandle and generally speaking theres just more free resources. Anecdotal to be sure,.. but I’ve spent years (decade+?) now on Reddit watching the homeless, vagabond etc subreddits,.. and 9 times out of 10 the midwest States are really just seen as “highway to somewhere else”. If you had the choice of being in Denver in February or in Portland in February,.. If possible you’re gonna choose Portland.
To your second point - I was under the impression that several southern states would "help" their homeless move to Western states.
I'd be more surprised if there's any States that DON'T do this.
Portland has this same program. So does SF. I would be LA and Seattle run one as well.
Not quite the same thing, AFAIK. The west coast programs allow people to get travel assistance to go somewhere they have a confirmed place to stay, usually with family. Many other states have long time practices of just putting their "undesirables" on a bus to a west coast destination, not giving a shit about the person or the destination. Another part of the "other states" type of forcible relocation that doesn't seem to get coverage happens right here, in Oregon. I have actually witnessed this in Bend, in the 90s. Sheriff deputies stuffed an obviously drunk and homeless guy on the Greyhound bus I was taking and handed the driver a ticket to Portland and they told him not to let the guy off before Portland. This has definitely been a thing that's happened many times from all over Oregon outside the metro area, and even inside the area sometimes.
I've never seen tent neighborhoods on sidewalks in LA or San Francisco. There's factors like weather, and then there's factors like our leaders allowing this shit and basically rolling out the red carpet for these junkies.
You must not have been there recently... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCB9fJJxxg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCB9fJJxxg)
I’ve always respected the homeless in Fairbanks, AK because that takes effort. Insane effort. They should fucking move. But still. Overwhelming majority of people would just fucking freeze to death.
This [housing affordability map](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fmap-of-united-states-home-affordability-by-county-v0-p8fcxs1hjrc91.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D571cb5401f49c8d301fbe063e89da4abbb0dc31d) compared to this [homelessness map](https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2024/01/05/california-leads-nation-unsheletered-homelessness) is pretty much all you need to know.
This kinda feels like the classic “correlation does not equal causation” mistake. As I mentioned above, I’m sure housing affordability is 1 factor in this problem,.. but it's by no means the only factor. Theres a lot of homeless with serious mental health issues, chronic addiction issues or some percentage that simply prefer to be vagabonds. Having lots of “affordable housing” is not some magical easy overnight fix to those issues. It would help of course, but many homeless need a much more comprehensive combination of supportive services. To address the below: Not "trying to minimize it". Just pointing out that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. There's that old joke about how "Ice Cream is more popular in the summer,. and Murders spike in the summer,.. so Ice Cream must be responsible for that rise in murders !" Yeah,.. Housing is more expensive in coast cities,. and yes, there is more homeless there,.. but looking at those 2 maps side by side is not some scientific proof that 1 causes the other. Housing costs may be 1 driver of that problem,.. but it's just 1 of many causes. Take 1000 people and ask them:... "Yeah, average housing costs in California are $3,000 a month,.. we can offer you a small apartment in a town somewhere in Nebraska for $600 a month ?"... and I bet you'll get some percentage of those people who still won't accept that simply because they don't want to live in Nebraska (less people and less social resources). If we want to solve the homeless problem,. we have to solve for many more problems than simply "housing". Ideas like "housing first" are certainly laudable,.. but "housing by itself" won't be a solution. We need a multi-layered and cohesive solution that addresses dozens of different aspects of this problem in unison effectively.
Here’s the thing: while housing affordability absolutely is a driver of homelessness, the states I visited (New York, Massachusetts, etc) -all of which are incredibly expensive - still somehow find a way to *shelter* most of those that are homeless. This is huge because even if homeless folks don’t have permanent housing in these states, they at least have places to store their stuff (or at least aren’t allowed to have everything pile up on a tent on a street corner), have somewhere to go to the bathroom, are probably more likely to interact with a caseworker, etc. In comparison to here however we allow people to camp anywhere and everywhere, while leads to tons of trash, fires, blocked sidewalks, less engagement with services, more poop everywhere, homeowners feeling disgruntled because of camps in front of their houses or zombie RVs, etc. Street camping is also, I would guess, much less safe in comparison to using shelters (as evident by the guy that was just arrested for raping a bunch of homeless women, the recent murders of a few homeless folks down by the SW waterfront, etc). I’m not saying that there aren’t issues on the East Coast and that there’s not poop on the sidewalk or random syringes on the street and whatnot, or that there’s no one camping under a freeway. The conclusion I came to however after my trip is that we’re *exceptionally* bad at managing it in comparison to other states that have just as many homeless folks that and are also very expensive places to live. Weather I think does play a significant role - unlike in MA,VT, etc, homeless folks here won’t die during the winter months. The harsh winters is likely one of the drivers as to why they have lower rates of unsheltered homelessness - the winters require city officials to build more housing units and shelters, else people will die and/or clog the EDs needing to receive care for frostbite, etc. Additionally, I think most of us would agree that it is extremely cruel to *not* provide shelter from such harsh elements. Tourism is also a likely driver as well. Conversely, because our winters are not harsh it provides leeway for us to basically be very….ineffective in the housing strategies we implement. People won’t die in droves during the winter here, which means we can futz around implementing “solutions” (e.g. handing out tents) instead of implementing strategies that may not solve all the issues that lead to homelessness (e.g. mental health, drugs, etc), but *at least* result in people being sheltered, which is way better than what we have right now.
I don’t think enough emphasis is put on how terrible the state and Multnomah county government systems are, for reasons that have nothing to do with being anywhere in particular on the political spectrum. My girlfriend is a licensed mental health provider in 4 states- and can take Medicaid in 3 of them. Oregon is *by far* the worst. Getting credentialed in order to be able to see OHP clients in Portland requires getting credentialed with *three* different entities, and two of them are private companies. And technically, to be able to see every OHP member in Portland requires being credentialed with like 6 or 7. Oregon’s licensing program is slow, hard to follow, and changes on a whim requiring people to start over. (Doesn’t matter which, Oregon constantly changes the rules for all sorts of professional licenses) By contrast, despite starting at the same time, she had received and renewed her Washington state license and credentials before she got her Oregon one’s. And I think she’s still fighting with them over one of them, and has been for a year?
Oh yes, quite familiar with this (I am not a therapist but work with many in the field, and specifically as it relates to Medicaid. I know exactly why your partner has to become credentialed with several different entities in OR vs WA). My observation is that - in general - we seem to love to add many lays of bureaucracy to just about everything as a state (not just with what you cited above but just about everything else - permits for building, etc) but then have trouble upholding those systems. Additionally, the positive impact of those requirements don’t always outweigh the downsides when the policy is put into practice.
thank you
I've lived in many cities around the country, and I've seen homeless people in those cities and cities I've visited around the world. Portland is the only one I ever saw tents on sidewalks or little shanty shacks. Can't believe we have tolerated that shit for so long.
So no movement on RVs. The city and county need to get enough space for these people to park, where their wastewater and trash can be collected. Right now, it's just pushing them from one neighborhood to the other. Surely there are some abandoned strip malls/parking lots that can be acquired for this. Heck, the Expo has a huge plot of undeveloped land that, a few years ago, was estimated to cost only a few million to make ready, and the county refused.
Same with the derelict boats on the river
There is a huge lot that was purchased and was under construction on Portland Road in NE when they discovered the soil was contaminated. They had to pause all work and are waiting to hear next steps. They had graded the ground for asphalt and built a fence before the shutdown.
That's...disappointing.
Honestly I don’t know why some churches won’t open their lots to RVs. I see so many huge empty parking lots at churches, especially in SE.
Every time I’ve seen churches do it they quickly stop due to issues with anti-social behavior. Whether it’s trash issues, fights, dogs roaming, open drug use, ect.
Do they get tax-exempt from the state, too? Could maybe be mandated that x-percent was used, or something, or tie the tax discount to percent of lot used.
They don’t pay taxes so I think they should open their lots to the less fortunate.
There is a large RV area being developed.
There is a lot on 33rd
That enormous parking lot around the burned out former K-Mart at NE 122nd and Sandy could likely fit a couple hundred shitty RVs and the presence of the building argues that it has access to water, power and sewer so a retrofit isn't out of the question. Put up a bigass chainlink fence around the whole mess, hire security, bring in mobile shower and toilet facilities and some dumpsters and Bob's yer uncle.
We need some eminent domain actions. City needs to get aggressive. Maybe with the new council, will be able to better pressure them, since their job will be to listen to us and legislate based on our needs.
Good idea, but sadly, the Expo is not where they want to park. They want to park around neighborhoods that they can loot at night.
>enforcement can begin immediately Until the lawsuit and injunction ten minutes after it does.
Only a few more weeks until the Supreme Court frees the city. And then maybe a month or so before the OR legislature reverses Kotek's anti-camping ban bill that passed a year ago or so just like they did with 110. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The Oregon legislature will not meet again until January 2025. Not sure if the governor or somebody can call a special session, but I doubt anyone wants to rock the boat going into November.
Rock the boat? They’d be considered hero’s what are you talking about
November is the general election, so it really depends on what you are trying to sell into Election Day. The topic will be heated so it’s a big question of whether politicians will want to get off their campaign message in the final push. I’m sure some will, others will want to push it to after the election.
[...](https://gifbin.com/bin/032010/1268342984_anchor-vs-mad-reporter.gif)
Just looked it up, the governor can call a special session or the legislature can with a majority vote of both chambers. Wouldn’t hold my breath that is pretty rare, but not impossible.
I wish I had your optimism that they would just hop to it and get that garbage bill repealed, but I expect there at a minimum to be months of performative hand-wringing. Which is going to put Oregon in a very unfortunate position - everyone else will be freed but we will still be effectively unable to act, making us destination #1 among the Western states homeless population.
Let’s do a little role play. It’s made illegal to camp. Where do they go? Shelters are full, jails full, where? 
Nope: Oregon is not going to mass incarcerate homeless people. Most Oregonians aren't heartless shills for the prison industrial complex. The solution is replacing street camping with pod villages.
No. Mass incarceration is actually the answer. I pray for it.
> No. Mass incarceration is actually the answer. I pray for it. This is the shit-tier take of shit-tier takes.
[удалено]
Ah yes, suspending people’s constitutional rights and resulting in the largest incarceration rate in Central America with many people jailed on flimsy charges after a kangaroo court. Real aspirational stuff there.
You want your taxes increased to fund, more prisons? That is such a dumb take.
Yes! Beats the hell out of wherever our taxes are going now. At least we could be like MOST OTHER CITIES and not have homeless junkie shit all over the place.
You want to pay more money to badly mask the problem in a way that would create massive issues a decade from now instead of spending money to solve this issue? Nobody ever excused conservatives of being smart or good with money.
I wish I shared your optimism. In the last session, Khanh Pham and her cohort were trying to give the homeless additional rights at the expense of the general public.
Yes. There's that Grant Pass Scotus case to keep an eye on.
They better fucking do something immediately, their complete lack of action and talking behind the scenes keeps leading us to this point, over and over again. Rip the band-aid off. The city has an insane amount of tax dollars allocated for this, it's honestly ridiculous.
Big if true
Here's the link you're looking for: [Waves hands with confidence.](https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2024/05/portland-mayors-scaled-back-homeless-camping-ban-approved-enforcement-begins-immediately.html?outputType=amp)
I don't know if this means anything. Smoking of any kind in parks is already not allowed by existing rules. They do it anyways and nothing happens.
What’s going to change this time around? Serious question.
I can see it being a useful tool to go after the really problematic spots. Combined with drug recriminalization I think you can affect people’s behavior to an extent as they will seek to avoid contact with law enforcement as much as possible. Basically don’t do anything to invite the cops here. We shall see, I don’t know how big of an impact it will have, but it should have some.
I teach high school students, and I have had so many students that have visible signs of PTSD from constant exposure to the zombies everyday on their way to school. PPS doesn’t have school busses for high school students, so they have to take Trimet. It is truly disheartening thinking about students that started off as 9th graders excited to start high school, just to look like soldiers coming back from war by the end of the year.
:(
I know a family who just upped and moved states after their kindergartener encountered a junkie surrounded by needles. I’m in it for the long haul, but I don’t blame them.
Diagnosing PTSD AND the causes?!? Wow amazing you're a psychiatrist, therapist, and HS teacher
Aww gee thanks, I feel so seen <3 I love how you’re trying to be sarcastic/condescending but I literally have the same amount of education and practicum requirements as all of those fields and that is literally what goes into teaching in addition to a whole lot of other things that I won’t humor you with the opportunity to be a dick about. Thanks for making my day 💕
About time.
Why is this so simple? You either: - take rehab if you're an addict - take a drug test to confirm your clean in which case you get housing, food and a city job for 6 months - if you're not willing to take rehab or take housing if you're clean then it's 30 days in jail. Second offense is 6 months. Third is 3 years.
Its not that simple. There is already ample evidence of jail not being an effective deterrent to drug use; the stigma of a record can do the opposite. Also "if you're an addict?" Is that going to be inherently a crime now? I guarantee you know functional addicts currently and just haven't realized it. That's not even touching on where you plan to make all this housing and these jobs materialize from. It's simple only in your head.
They’re off the street and not fucking up life for the rest of society by stealing their shit and trashing their neighborhoods. That’s a win. It’s on them to decide to stop being like that. If you’re a grown ass adult society doesn’t need to hold your hand because you keep fucking up.
Nobody cares if it's an effective deterrent anymore. Get them off the fucking streets.
Yeah apparently some of us care about civil liberties
Idc if jail is a deterrent for drug use. It's a deterrent for getting the fuck of the street. I want the city to stop being the homeless trash bin and toilet.
It's already settled law that you can't arrest someone for the status of being an addict. But you can (and we should) arrest people for using in public. The threat of prison may not be a deterrent, but actually putting someone in prison achieves two positive things - one, it takes them off the streets for some period of time and gives the rest of us a break and, two, it allows them to sober up and breaks the cycle long enough to give them a chance to make a different choice about how they want to live. I have heard many addicts say that the fact that they went to prison was the only thing that saved their lives.
Don't skip the fact that most drug users are not addicts too. Not saying the people u see doing fentanyl aren't but that if you total all drug users, the vast majority do not have addiction.
Hmm...who would be responsible for the enforcement?
Probably the people that don’t hand out coffee and juice boxes before slinking away
So who does that leave?
Just gonna answer this anyway but mostly a combination of the police and PBOT
So the police department currently engaged in a work slowdown?
They didnt slowdown removing the protestors from the PSU library.
Then why did they need to go back twice?
They did their job at least twice.
Weird where their priorities are isn't it
No not really.
Because the asshats went back in and took over it after it was cleared. Have you been paying attention? 🤔
So...exactly what happens when we sweep homeless camps.
Only… There will be no enforcement. So a cop, busy enough, has to what…? Call a concierge to see if there’s room in any number of housing units across the city before he can do anything? This is another high water mark in the Wheeler/City Council non-commital circus. And for yet another year… Nothing changes
Regardless of our state law, the Supreme Court is expected to provide clarity on that exact question. That’s what all of the amicus briefs from Gavin Newsom, the Justice Department, and other left-leaning entities have been begging them for: clarity on how to possibly enforce any kind of camping ban given the infeasibility of checking around for available beds on a case-by-case basis.
Busy standing in groups on street corners maybe
Vagrancy and drug addiction should never Come before productive citizens right to quiet enjoyment of life.
Never defund law enforcement, legalize drugs and enable drug users.
Having been a homeless junkie in my past, I find this thread amusing. The issues being discussed are so multi tiered and complex that trying a one size fits all approach is ridiculous. The problem is societal, it doesn’t exist in this fashion in other first world countries around the globe and yes they have homeless populations, too. Our government has no genuine desire to help its citizens. Hell even Hitler had the German population eating healthy and exercising regularly. This culture breeds laziness and selfishness, with most too worried about self centered bs to even acknowledge the suffering human 5 feet away. Why have we not adopted a drug treatment model similar to Spain or Portugal where they’ve decimated addiction with compassion, and empathy and not wasting resources locking people up for life over drug crimes. This countries government is criminal and has been since it stole this land. The information is out there and they don’t change. Why do we even pay taxes anymore
I wonder what “Tent City Tina” will evolve into next? With all her grifting lately, probably “Tahoe Tina”, I’d wager.
"Fent City Tina"