Incidence of unsheletered homeless in Oregon? (Portland, Eugene: 2015, home, camps)

[poochcol]

I'm looking to serve needy people in my work, so a high incidence of the homeless, particularly unsheltered, is actually a selling point to me. Thanks in advance.

[bler144]

Well, most of the I-5 corridor has fairly high rates of homelessness and Eugene is certainly no exception.

If you were looking for something more than anecdote though (most of what you'll get here) I'd probably reach out to the city, or probably better, Whitebird clinic or the Eugene Mission or St. Vincent's.

[poochcol]

Upvoted. Anecdotal works well here since unsheltered homeless are hard to document and they'd be fairly visible.

[boulder2015]

Originally Posted by poochcol

I'm looking to serve needy people in my work, so a high incidence of the homeless, particularly unsheltered, is actually a selling point to me. Thanks in advance.

Eugene will be a gold mine for you... thats the place.

[poochcol]

I originally had a separate thread in three of the Oregon subforums, specific to the metros, that've apparently been merged here with the title edited. I'll thus change my ask to compare the unsheltered/visible homelessness incidence of the following areas: Salem, Bend/Redmond, Eugene/Springfield.
The Portland area's in mind, but I'm wanting to keep an open mind and I presume it's alright on the high side there, based on prior research. Thanks in advance.

[PNW-type-gal]

Cities on the I-5 corridor have the highest incidence (plus it is too cold in winter on the other side of the Cascades, freezing to death in winter is a likelihood). The larger the city the worse the problem, so Portland would be the one that first comes to mind. On the other hand, smaller cities like Medford, Grants Pass, etc, have fewer programs, relatively fewer shelters and tighter budgets.

Pretty much any larger city on I5 (Medford, Grants Pass, Roseburg, Cottage Grove, Eugene, Albany, Salem, Portland metro area) has a homeless issue.

[poochcol]

Originally Posted by boulder2015

Eugene will be a gold mine for you... thats the place.

Elaborate, por favor, particularly if you can compare it to the other aforementioned places.

[boulder2015]

Originally Posted by poochcol

Elaborate, por favor, particularly if you can compare it to the other aforementioned places.

Eugene is like the set of the walking dead. Free range tweakers roaming everywhere, taking over city parks, shouting at city council meetings, setting up camps in traffic medians, breaking into cars, etc. Dont know the stats, but its very obvious if you visit compared to the other places.

I would rank it like it this:

1. Eugene by a mile...
2. Salem. Rough town in parts, but homeless seem more centralized? Doesnt feel as out of control as eugene, more conservative population and cops who wont put up with the crap eugene does.
3. Bend-distant third. Far from i5 corridor, tougher climate with more snow, less vegetation to build camps in.

If you need to be near homeless, eugene is your oyster. And a better place to live, in my opinion, than other homeless meccas like seattle, portland, sf, la or santa cruz.

[bler144]

Agree with the others - Bend is not likely to give you much. Stick with the I-5 corridor. Going over to the coast you'd find more poverty than Bend, but I'm not sure you'd see all that much in terms of visible homelessness the way you will in Eugene/Portland/Ashland.

[McFrostyJ]

If you are looking to work with homeless people, I'd suggest Hawaii. Especially Oahu.
Just make sure you can afford to live there yourself and have enough money saved up and set aside to get you back home incase it doesn't work out for you. The last thing Hawaii needs is another homeless person from the mainland.

Wishing you the very best of luck!