Crime, homelessness, gangs in Portland: getting better or worse? (Bend: neighborhood, camps)

[Phrogg]

Originally Posted by crisw

He's not running again; the vote for a new mayor is this year. As you can imagine, homelessness is at the top of the issues list being discussed by the candidates.

Good to hear! I haven't been following Portland politics, but if the homeless situation got so much worse during this guy's time in office then it sounds like a new mayor would be a good thing. Hard to get hopes up too high about the homeless situation being solved, but better some hope/some improvement than none.

Pansori, good to see another prospective returner! If you do go back to the area, I'd be very curious to know what you think.

Suburban Guy, thanks for the links. What a shame that gangs are apparently getting worse lately (though I guess still not on the level of the "rampant" '90s at least). What is the data source for the Google map?

[steel7]

Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx

It doesn't help that our Mayor is absolutely worthless, just putting in his time (retired on active duty), and has pretty much alienated the Police bureau.

Portland has become a mecca for homeless from all over the country.
The problem is far beyond the "local" homeless problem.

I have never ever seen Portland this bad concerning homeless crime, tweakers, gangs, shootings, etc.

I believe Los Angeles out ranks Portland due to the weather. I would love to live in the Portland area but I bet it isn't cheap.

[redguard57]

There is an easy way to deal with homeless and a hard way. The easy way is not particularly humane. People in Oregon are not fans of such methods, although I have to admit, you don't have to look at them when that is the case.

When I was living in Austin, what they did was basically criminalize homelessness in certain parts of the city, mostly the downtown core. Police would run the homeless out of there. San Antonio did the same thing. The result was the homeless population became dispersed all over so you did not see it so much in your face, with the camps, etc...

They did spend quite a bit of money on some homeless resource centers. One initiative in Austin was a tiny home tract. It wasn't cheap. Not Everything Is Bigger in Texas: Austin Is Building Tiny Houses for the Homeless | TakePart My opinion, though, is that would be a better use of funds than an arts tax.

Originally Posted by redguard57

There is an easy way to deal with homeless and a hard way. The easy way is not particularly humane. People in Oregon are not fans of such methods, although I have to admit, you don't have to look at them when that is the case.

When I was living in Austin, what they did was basically criminalize homelessness in certain parts of the city, mostly the downtown core. Police would run the homeless out of there. San Antonio did the same thing. The result was the homeless population became dispersed all over so you did not see it so much in your face, with the camps, etc...

They did spend quite a bit of money on some homeless resource centers. One initiative in Austin was a tiny home tract. It wasn't cheap. Not Everything Is Bigger in Texas: Austin Is Building Tiny Houses for the Homeless | TakePart My opinion, though, is that would be a better use of funds than an arts tax.

The cops do occasionally come along and "disperse" the homeless.

Unfortunately, if recent experience is any indication, it doesn't actually accomplish anything. The old encampment is left looking like some trash-strewn post-apocolyptic hellscape and the homeless just move twenty feet away. Within days they're back in their original spot and the problem grows even bigger.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

As long as we have mayors and city politicians that pay a lot of lip service but keep shoving the problem along to the next guy, we will have this problem.

[thedownlow]

Shootings left and right lately. I have a bad feeling about this summer.

[Phrogg]

I was just reading about some of those. A shame. Unless I have missed some (very possible), they seem confined almost entirely to the east side of the river...

[BlueMare1967]

Originally Posted by AnotherPDXGuy

Gang crime is lower, but still has regular flare ups including shootings maybe a couple times a month. Gentrification has displaced most gang activity into outer Northeast and East Portland.

Homelessness is as bad or worse than it it has ever been. Property crime is miserable right now. Bikes and cars stolen all over the city in the middle of the day. Stuff disappearing from around homes in all inner neighborhoods.

But if you were here especially in the early 90's, I would guess that the city would actually seem very gentrified and economically improved to you, despite all that.

I can attest to the theft being bad here. My son locked his bike near a busy intersection in the Hawthorne area...got a burger..and hung out with a friend for about 30 minutes. When he returned, the seat and handle bars of his mountain bike were gone. Good lord.

[thedownlow]

Originally Posted by BlueMare1967

I can attest to the theft being bad here. My son locked his bike near a busy intersection in the Hawthorne area...got a burger..and hung out with a friend for about 30 minutes. When he returned, the seat and handle bars of his mountain bike were gone. Good lord.

It's sad really. I wouldn't even leave my bike anywhere around here. It would be gone immediately, even with a big lock.

[The Big Lebowski Dude]

Originally Posted by jjpop

I was threatened once too when I was working downtown. Just walking to work with a co-worker and this 20-something meth freak must have thought I looked at him wrong or something. It was about 8 in the morning so maybe he hadn't slept for a few days.

I don't think the City can do anything about the problem with homelessness. There's so much inertia of years of not dealing with the problem that doing anything would be viewed as harsh

Though my vacation to Portland in Summer 2015 was, overall, great - I did notice an extremely big problem with homeless panhandlers & mentally ill drug addicts. They were EVERYWHERE. I did notice a lot of them screaming/yelling at others for no reason. I myself was verbally berated by one of them, even though I was just minding my own business. Very irritating.

I went to Seattle right after Portland, and there were also a lot of entitled panhandlers there as well. I couldn't believe how many times these freeloaders asked me for $.

Based on what I've read & some research that I've done, both Portland/Seattle have an extremely liberal view of the homeless - i.e., they're allowed to run rampant in many cases; and, it was obvious that they were literally taking over certain streets/street corners (I primarily noticed this in Portland).

Ironically, I was recently on vacation in NYC for about a week, and went everywhere - both by the metro & by walking. And, I had less run-in's with panhandlers there than I did in Portland/Seattle - despite the fact that Portland/Seattle have only a fraction of NYC's population (NYC has 8.5 million people - and that's not even counting the tourists!). Obviously, NYC has more of a handle on this issue than other places.