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Old 05-20-2021, 05:47 PM
 
Location: Oregon, formerly Texas
10,001 posts, read 7,137,635 times
Reputation: 17096

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So I've started travelling more since I got vaccinated. What has struck me about Oregon compared to pre-pandemic are the homeless camps. What
HAPPENED? And NOT just Portland. Portland has the largest most visible camps, with people that seem more aggressive. But my observation is that every city in Oregon over about 20k in Oregon has their proportionately smaller version of these camps. Eugene, Salem, Bend, Roseburg, McMinnville there are these tent city camps in towns throughout the entire state.

When I was in Eugene I actually talked to a few of them, since one of the big ones was right by the kind of hip trendy area where restaurants are. Out of the handful I talked to, about half were not from Oregon. They came from all over the U.S.! Seemed like they had made their way north from California. Most of them interestingly were polite enough and wore their mask around me. But they seemed in various states of mental impairment, whether from illness, under the influence, or both I couldn't tell.

Last edited by 7th generation; 05-20-2021 at 06:20 PM..
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Old 05-20-2021, 08:38 PM
 
922 posts, read 1,047,012 times
Reputation: 1534
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57 View Post
So I've started travelling more since I got vaccinated. What has struck me about Oregon compared to pre-pandemic are the homeless camps. What
HAPPENED? And NOT just Portland. Portland has the largest most visible camps, with people that seem more aggressive. But my observation is that every city in Oregon over about 20k in Oregon has their proportionately smaller version of these camps. Eugene, Salem, Bend, Roseburg, McMinnville there are these tent city camps in towns throughout the entire state.

When I was in Eugene I actually talked to a few of them, since one of the big ones was right by the kind of hip trendy area where restaurants are. Out of the handful I talked to, about half were not from Oregon. They came from all over the U.S.! Seemed like they had made their way north from California. Most of them interestingly were polite enough and wore their mask around me. But they seemed in various states of mental impairment, whether from illness, under the influence, or both I couldn't tell.
I live in So Cal and thought our homeless situation was bad until I visited Portland. It was unbelievable how much of a downtown Portland sidewalks have tents housing the homeless. Even in downtown LA the homeless are mostly on the periphery not in the main business and shopping sections. It was really disturbing.
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Old 05-20-2021, 11:51 PM
 
Location: Oregon, formerly Texas
10,001 posts, read 7,137,635 times
Reputation: 17096
Quote:
Originally Posted by BGS91762 View Post
I live in So Cal and thought our homeless situation was bad until I visited Portland. It was unbelievable how much of a downtown Portland sidewalks have tents housing the homeless. Even in downtown LA the homeless are mostly on the periphery not in the main business and shopping sections. It was really disturbing.
Portland is a lot smaller than LA in terms of both population and area, so you're seeing it concentrated.

Downtown PDX was basically abandoned when the pandemic started. Then Floyd happened and the area got rushed with protestors, every night. What was interesting is that the places they protested were mostly devoid of people, so they were protesting to no one. What's worse is that the reporting on the homeless problem has indicated that they are not all homegrown by a long shot - they have come here on purpose from different parts of the country.
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Old 05-21-2021, 02:09 AM
 
26,476 posts, read 36,301,263 times
Reputation: 29493
It's too late. The problem has been building for decades accompanied by the background noise of wailing and gnashing of teeth to no avail; nothing ever got done. COVID broke the dam.

Communities throughout the country have long played musical chairs when it comes to shuffling the homeless around. For every homeless person on Oregon streets who's from some other state, there's likely a homegrown Oregonian living under a tarp in another state. Portland has been purposely sending them elsewhere for a number of years.

As far as the "protestors," they're just opportunists. They were asked to stand down by the NAACP and other groups as long ago as last summer.
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Old 05-21-2021, 09:05 AM
 
2,411 posts, read 1,618,717 times
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I just spent a little over a week on the central coast, mainly Newport. I was amazed how few homeless I seen compared to previous trips. Not sure how long they have been there but noticed signs everywhere saying it is against the law to give people items/cash out of your car. If new I really like the idea of fining the enablers instead of the homeless.
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Old 05-21-2021, 09:42 AM
 
Location: North Idaho
32,477 posts, read 47,405,393 times
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Why would you not move to Portland if you were going to be homeless? Portland is a great choice.



The homeless are online and well connected for information. When they ask about the best place to be homeless, Portland is always high on the list of places recommended. In Portland, the homeless can pitch their blue tarps anywhere they want and they won't be disturbed or hassled. They are given lots of free hot meals. Their drugs that they want are legal and can be used right out in the open and no one will say anything about it. People hand them cash so they can pay for their booze and drugs. As long as you are not a person who likes to bathe, it's a fine life.


Myself, though, I'd head to Southern California to be homeless. The news just had a segment about the homeless in Venice beach. They are all pitched in their tents along the boardwalk, garbage strewn everywhere, living in gorgeous weather, toes in the white sand, and most likely someone comes by everyday and gives them a few free meals. Now that is living. If I wanted to work and live there, right on the beach in Southern California, I'd have to be a multi-millionaire in order to afford it. They get it all for free
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Old 05-22-2021, 01:20 PM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
10,987 posts, read 20,452,750 times
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It appears that the city of Portland is beginning to address this problem. Better late than never.
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Old 05-22-2021, 05:02 PM
 
Location: Salem, OR
15,487 posts, read 40,178,438 times
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I can only speak for Salem's homeless since I'm not aware of the issues in other cities. All of the cities do a PIT (Point in Time) count of their homeless. A few years ago, Salem's homeless population was around 350 people or so. The 2021 count had 1500.

Here that is due to a few factors:

1) Homes prices and rents have escalated here quickly in the past two years. We do not have enough affordable housing here.

2) We don't have adequate mental health and alcohol/drug treatment for people with chronic longer-term needs.

3) We don't have enough low-barrier entry housing for people that have poor credit, etc but are working.

4) The fires in the Santiam Canyon last year displaced a lot of people who lived out there because it was more affordable and they are homeless now in Salem.

5) Portland and Eugene continue to send homeless people to Salem.

6) The city of Salem is inflexible with developers. I was doing a conversion of a shop into an ADU on one of my rentals. The best use was two micro-units (450 sq feet each), but that would have made the property have 3 units which isn't allowed in the zoning. So I just kept it as one unit. Since the ADU codes came into effect, Salem has only permitted 77 ADU's.

7) STR-Short term rentals. There are 100+ short-term rentals in Salem that are the whole property. I'm not talking about ones where you rent a room. That is 100 properties off the market for homeowners and long-term renters.

8) Increasingly unbalanced landlord-tenant laws. Landlords were unable to put their homes on the market for sale during the first iteration of the eviction moratorium. So once, they added the ability to sell a home, landlords have been selling properties in droves. This helps with our inventory shortage for homebuyers but doesn't help keep rental units in play for lower-income renters. The Ma and Pa landlords are generally the ones that will take a chance on a person in recovery, but with the inability to easily terminate a month-to-month agreement or lease after 1 year, landlords are not taking chances with tenants anymore.

So in terms of something MUST be done, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. There are issues that are causing this that are making it harder and they have been around for a while.

In Salem, we have very little multi-use zoning. This is changing with the new comprehensive plan, but all of our commercial zones on busy streets have a ton of 1-2 story commercial buildings when they should have a commercial space downstairs with apartments up above. Salem hasn't allowed developers to go up and increase our density. It is supply and demand. You can have cheaper housing if you have enough units.

We need high rises. We have one high-rise building in Salem, Capital Tower, which is offices and not residential.

So until that happens which is years away, UGM is leaving its old building behind and almost done with a new one that will double the number of homeless men that can house. The old UGM building is now owned by the city of Salem and I think they will likely keep it as a shelter while they figure out what to do with all of these people.

They did a private/public/non-profit partnership to build 180 affordable housing units off Portland Road.

They are building 30 temporary shelters on a piece of land they own on Portland Rd. They are locking shelters that are 60 sq feet.

The city of Salem is doing another partnership to build 167 supportive housing units for the more chronic homeless population.


So doing all of that takes care of maybe 50% of our homeless people at best.
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Old 05-22-2021, 05:25 PM
 
Location: California
6,403 posts, read 7,600,115 times
Reputation: 13941
Quote:
Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke View Post
Why would you not move to Portland if you were going to be homeless? Portland is a great choice.



The homeless are online and well connected for information. When they ask about the best place to be homeless, Portland is always high on the list of places recommended. In Portland, the homeless can pitch their blue tarps anywhere they want and they won't be disturbed or hassled. They are given lots of free hot meals. Their drugs that they want are legal and can be used right out in the open and no one will say anything about it. People hand them cash so they can pay for their booze and drugs. As long as you are not a person who likes to bathe, it's a fine life.


Myself, though, I'd head to Southern California to be homeless. The news just had a segment about the homeless in Venice beach. They are all pitched in their tents along the boardwalk, garbage strewn everywhere, living in gorgeous weather, toes in the white sand, and most likely someone comes by everyday and gives them a few free meals. Now that is living. If I wanted to work and live there, right on the beach in Southern California, I'd have to be a multi-millionaire in order to afford it. They get it all for free
The homeless business is supported by taxpayers and do little to solve the problem because that would cut off their own income. Even the homeless have social value.

Interesting that five counties voted to leave OR to join ID.
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Old 05-22-2021, 08:10 PM
 
Location: Oregon, formerly Texas
10,001 posts, read 7,137,635 times
Reputation: 17096
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silverfall View Post
I can only speak for Salem's homeless since I'm not aware of the issues in other cities. All of the cities do a PIT (Point in Time) count of their homeless. A few years ago, Salem's homeless population was around 350 people or so. The 2021 count had 1500.

Here that is due to a few factors:

1) Homes prices and rents have escalated here quickly in the past two years. We do not have enough affordable housing here.

2) We don't have adequate mental health and alcohol/drug treatment for people with chronic longer-term needs.

3) We don't have enough low-barrier entry housing for people that have poor credit, etc but are working.

4) The fires in the Santiam Canyon last year displaced a lot of people who lived out there because it was more affordable and they are homeless now in Salem.

5) Portland and Eugene continue to send homeless people to Salem.

6) The city of Salem is inflexible with developers. I was doing a conversion of a shop into an ADU on one of my rentals. The best use was two micro-units (450 sq feet each), but that would have made the property have 3 units which isn't allowed in the zoning. So I just kept it as one unit. Since the ADU codes came into effect, Salem has only permitted 77 ADU's.

7) STR-Short term rentals. There are 100+ short-term rentals in Salem that are the whole property. I'm not talking about ones where you rent a room. That is 100 properties off the market for homeowners and long-term renters.

8) Increasingly unbalanced landlord-tenant laws. Landlords were unable to put their homes on the market for sale during the first iteration of the eviction moratorium. So once, they added the ability to sell a home, landlords have been selling properties in droves. This helps with our inventory shortage for homebuyers but doesn't help keep rental units in play for lower-income renters. The Ma and Pa landlords are generally the ones that will take a chance on a person in recovery, but with the inability to easily terminate a month-to-month agreement or lease after 1 year, landlords are not taking chances with tenants anymore.

So in terms of something MUST be done, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. There are issues that are causing this that are making it harder and they have been around for a while.

In Salem, we have very little multi-use zoning. This is changing with the new comprehensive plan, but all of our commercial zones on busy streets have a ton of 1-2 story commercial buildings when they should have a commercial space downstairs with apartments up above. Salem hasn't allowed developers to go up and increase our density. It is supply and demand. You can have cheaper housing if you have enough units.

We need high rises. We have one high-rise building in Salem, Capital Tower, which is offices and not residential.

So until that happens which is years away, UGM is leaving its old building behind and almost done with a new one that will double the number of homeless men that can house. The old UGM building is now owned by the city of Salem and I think they will likely keep it as a shelter while they figure out what to do with all of these people.

They did a private/public/non-profit partnership to build 180 affordable housing units off Portland Road.

They are building 30 temporary shelters on a piece of land they own on Portland Rd. They are locking shelters that are 60 sq feet.

The city of Salem is doing another partnership to build 167 supportive housing units for the more chronic homeless population.


So doing all of that takes care of maybe 50% of our homeless people at best.
Based on what I read, a percwntage increase of the homeless populatuon similar to what Salem experienced has happened in every one of Oregon's major cities, even small ones. From travelling to them and looking at them, triple to quadruple in one year seems about right. What's surprising is that places like Roseburg and McMinnville have it now.
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