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Portland is infested with homeless camps in every nook and cranny.
Milwaukie isn't. Tualitan isn't. Estacada isn't. I don't see a lot in Gresham. I don't see tent cities and little mini-favelas in Vancouver or Camas.
I have never seen a homeless encampment in Lake Oswego.
No tent cities in Scapoose or St Helens, or even Longview for that matter.
How about Oregon City or West Linn?
Wilsonville or Woodburn? NADA.
I've often wondered about that myself. Seems to be the case in all metro areas, not just Portland (except for LA. There are homeless everywhere down there). My guess is that it's a mixture of factors.
Police hassle them much more in suburban areas
Panhandling opportunities are better due to higher density of people to hit up
Homeless services are clustered in the city
Proximity of drug dealers is high in the city
More liberal city population tolerates their presence more
These are just guesses. I honestly have no idea why that is.
I really respect the fact that you tried. This is the reason I never wanted to be a landlord with renters living on my property.
Thanks. I don't think it'll happen again, though, unless it's some kind of special circumstance such as someone at least semi-known to us being temporarily out of a place to live. The main offender seemed like a typical down-on-his-luck case who just needed a break, but... he started out pretty well but got progressively worse, and toward the end, his behavior was so unstable that we were concerned for our own safety.
Of course, we could theoretically have experienced the same problem with a non-homeless employee, but I think it's easier to vet someone with a more stable history. And we wanted to help this guy -- honestly, if he hadn't been homeless, we might have chosen someone else.
Last edited by Metlakatla; 04-11-2017 at 06:19 PM..
That brings up an interesting question.
I drive all over the Portland area at least twice a week.
Portland is infested with homeless camps in every nook and cranny.
Milwaukie isn't. Tualitan isn't. Estacada isn't. I don't see a lot in Gresham. I don't see tent cities and little mini-favelas in Vancouver or Camas.
I have never seen a homeless encampment in Lake Oswego.
No tent cities in Scapoose or St Helens, or even Longview for that matter.
How about Oregon City or West Linn?
Wilsonville or Woodburn? NADA.
I might see a homeless person here and there, I am not saying that there aren't any there, but it's nothing on the scale that's here in Portland.
If Portland isn't making it very attractive for homeless people to move here, what is?
Why is the concentration of homeless people in Oregon concentrated in Portland and Eugene?
Can you think of any similarities between those two cities and any differences between the two cities and the towns I mentioned above?
All these other towns and cities I mentioned have social services, concerned citizens that would help out, churches, and many other organizations probably would love to help out deserving Homeless people that are down on their luck and just want a helping hand.
Maybe if we can figure out whats going on there, we could figure things out here in Portland.
Either that or start an undercover homeless tourists guide to attract the homeless to Eugene instead of Portland.
I hear the weather's a bit drier and warmer down there, and it's a lot closer to San Francisco!
I don't get up to Portland much, but the homeless population seems to have increased a lot in Eugene during the past couple of years. I think it's a combination of factors, but a major one is probably that it's harder for those on foot to access the communities that are farther from 1-5. Salem is the second biggest city in Oregon these days, and although it has a homeless population, I don't think it's as big as that of Portland or Eugene. Maybe part of that is because its off-ramps aren't as accessible to its downtown core.
Portland's COL is not MUCH higher than the COL of Columbia, SC. It is higher, yes, but if you cannot survive in PDX you will find it just about as hard to make it in Columbia. Maybe harder if you never lived there before in your life. You really think an employer in SC is going to think much of some waster from the PNW? They probably have a three syllable name for people from here over there. A LOT of not very old adults are going blind from macular degeneration, diabetes, RP and other causes. My wife works with them. A lot of them talked like you when they were 30. Now they are 55 and can't see that well anymore. They are ******. We aren't talking about a few dozen snowflakes. We are talking about thousands in Oregon alone. Thousands every year.
The outrage, and recent threads are full of it, is misdirected. When thousands of people are dying from Fentanyl overdoses, living under tarpaulins with 225 sq.ft. of refuse around them... can a rational person really direct their anger and/or disgust at them??? Does the rational person not wonder instead WHAT. What on earth could break SO MANY, so profoundly??? It CANNOT be some contemptible lack of character, or moral fiber that results in the masses of indigent people roaming American streets. Please, just stop the repeated and empty tirades against the homeless themselves and lets start some productive discussion on how to help people not get like this in the first place.
There is NO WAY that someone who has lived under a tarp for two years is employable. Not anymore. We cannot help the homeless. They are done. We CAN help the next generation, and the way to do that is stop giving Intel and companies like it $100M/yr tax breaks. Instead of meeting budget needs by passing measure 97. We are now scrambling to close a $1.6B budget gap and we are fine with that. We shouldn't be. Or maybe its ok that the wealthy job creators continue to be above the need to contribute in any way to the maintenance of a reasonable standard of living for everyone. I am not judging. I am observing that the homeless are a RESULT of allowing the wealthiest, best placed, most reliable sources of revenue for social programs, education and opportunity are given a pass. Don't complain when you see homeless if your ideology supports the continuance of the status quo.
Portland's COL is not MUCH higher than the COL of Columbia, SC? It is about 43% difference in the cost of living. That is according to true cost comparisons.
I did wonder why people didn't pass measure 97. with personal taxes already so high, I really didn't get that- did people understand that organizations like Safeway were responsible for alot of the anti 97 rhetoric..
Yes, the homeless issue could be very solved mostly by true compassionate but firm actions. However, it will never happen. Reasonable and rational thought is severely lacking in this ideological swamp. And the project would morphed into an ultimate failure.
What people call compassion by giving people access to drugs and alcohol is nothing more than a insidious trap and a financial disaster.
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).
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx
I would love to live in (insert expensive town or city here)...
But I can't afford it. But by your reasoning it would be OK to move there, become homeless and have the citizens of the town support me?
Just let me live how I want to live, do anything I want to do, camp anywhere I want to camp, and every time the citizens of the town get upset all I have to do is to cry poor little ol' me and they will back down and let me do what ever I want anytime I want?
Sounds great!
Oh...wait a minute.....
WELCOME TO PORTLAND, OREGON
PS: You are talking like most homeless people are poor innocent little angels that are down on their luck.
I'm sorry but that isn't the case most of the time.
Extremely true. Well put, well said.
Last edited by The Big Lebowski Dude; 04-14-2017 at 03:15 PM..
You know I am a bleeding heart liberal but after growing up in SF with a serious homeless problem as long as I can remember, the 70's, and being harassed on the street as a teenager in the 80'. Watching it get worse in the 90's then leaving to NYC where I didn't "see" the homeless... the Portland homelessness so apparent in every city park and walking around downtown, it just became too much so we moved to Beaverton. Did we take the easy way out? Sure, but middle class parents just can only deal with so much. I guess if you live in the SW hills it isn't so bad but for most of Portland the problem is at everyone's back or front door. And yes, I had tweakers on my front porch trying to get in my house when I had a baby and my husband was traveling.
I do not understand the comment that you "may have taken the easy way out." What you did was logical, normal behavior for which 99.9% of people on the planet would have also taken. You have no obligation to live among miscreants.
Why would you continue subjecting your family to the undesirables that the city (for which you paid a lot of taxes) did not get rid of and try to keep you safe. You should be upset at the city (that you paid for). The incompetent fools running the joint did not fulfill their obligations to you and the other taxpayers.
I do not understand some of the comments that homelessness is a "societal" problem and thus all of society has an obligation to solve homelessness nationwide. Portland does not have to solve ALL homelessness. Portland needs to make it's city livable - that's it. Portland government job is to ensure it's tax paying citizens are safe. The tax payers are the boss.
As the boss, Portland tax payers should tell your city gov't to make problem go away. If that means shagging miscreants out with force - so be it. Make Portland a city known for not being "homeless friendly". It could be done in a matter of months if the city wanted it.
There will always be another naive liberal Utopian city the miscreants can go to hang in. My hometown of Madison Wisconsin is dealing with same issue now. Years of liberal Utopian rhetoric have ruined what was a very nice place at one time.
As long as homeless miscreants aren't a visible distraction to hard working tax paying Portland residents... ... I would die of shame part way through trying to post something as disgusting as that. The fact that anyone can is the reason that there are homeless. Every single day another job creator who thinks that they are smarter than the average bear and they are going to do any of the following: outsource their labor, insource H1B or illegal laborers, contract with a prison factory, right to work Red State or sell the business to a multi-national holding company, as long as these practices are not condemned, but instead praised as savvy administration, there will be mounting numbers of homeless hoarding refuse in and around Portland, and once nice places like Madison, WI.
When a Fortune 500 lays off 10,000 workers their stock increases in value. I find it ironic that when some of those former employees turn up on the Springwater Trail that it upsets shareholders in the very company that dumped the miscreant into a life of indigence. Anyone here who thinks they have a snowballs chance of finding another living wage job in 2017 if they are laid off or fired from the job they have better think again. Lose your job and you are finished. End of story. Unless you have family that can take you in, you will wind up in your car or in a tent.
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