I'll tell you where they can go when they are hungry, tired and poor. The unemployment office and get free training on how to get a job. Enabling the homeless to continue living on the streets does nothing but hurt them in the long run. People giving them money on the streets leads them straight to their meth dealers, getting high, then harass our local business's and people who work their assess of for a roof over their head. It's a vicious cycle that needs to be put to a dramatic stop. Quit funding the homeless and reward our citizens who set an alarm for themselves, get up, and get to work contributing to our community.

I sleep outside and "Low Impact" is my motto. There is absolutely no need for shopping carts full of crap from the dumpsters. I have one small fabric shopping bag with one change of cloths and toiletries; that's it. It gets stashed in the brush and rarely is discovered. When it does get found and swiped, it's easy to replace. I sleep on plastic garbage bags and always appear clean. Universities have lots of restrooms. Most outdoorsmen aren't as austere and adventurous as I, and need to stay close in to town. If you want low impact, it would help tremendously to offer free lockers, high school sized, to hold a small bag and pup tent. Open the public parks and restrooms at night. City owned high rise parking structures would be ideal.

As to the job issue, I have become persona non grata, due to the abusive Government and the Internet; 666 Now.

Most of these people came to the streets with serious problems, ranging from errant neurobiology to childhood trauma. (I know a lot of people believe all people have to do is “suck it up” and “toughen up” and everyone will grow up to be healthy and productive citizens, regardless of the damage wrought by nature or nurture, but anyone with any capacity for rational thought and a bit of honesty and perceptivity will quickly realize that's a bunch of malarkey.) And, well, it doesn't take too long for a troubled soul in a dismal set of circumstances to take to self-medicating, and then the problems are compounded by addictions and the often-resulting acclimation to criminal necessity. These guys aren't lazy; a $120 a day dope habit precludes that possibility. But, you know, they aren't exactly encouraged to join mainstream society and work when every year all the good work goes overseas and our cost of living keeps outpacing the incomes of service and blue collar workers, jobs that require credit checks and UAs and two interviews to hurdle through in order to hope to be able to land; you may as well try to make a living by appearing on The Price Is Right!

I'm not hearing any solution to problems, just politicians playing their games, conservative jerks full of willful ignorance and self-righteous animosity, and liberal fools eagerly erecting turnstiles for their bedraggled poster children to spin through.

Portland's patchwork approach to homelessness satisfies no one, is slowing our economic recovery (it doesn't make a good impression on businesses considering moving here), and is fueling an ongoing shameful situation. People shouldn't have to live on the streets.

Could we please fund a comprehensive strategy? I'm a taxpayer, and I want this city to provide the services its citizens need, while giving law enforcement clear rules and the tools it needs to deal with criminals. We need to get our house in order.

I work in that area and I meet many different people that are camping outside for a variety of reasons. Some struggling to get out of the bad situation they are in, some with severe mental health issues, some with drug issues and at the bottom of the list are the career homeless that wouldn't have it any other way.
The problem is that Portland has made it so easy to be homeless that people practically flock here to be so. I see these ridiculous self-righteous do-gooders driving around handing out bagged lunches once a week so that they feel good in the grace of god at church on Sunday. Well you know what people? No one is starving on the streets of Portland! There are so many places to eat that I'm pretty sure they eat better than I do.
And the police have their hands tied due to a system that doesn't give them any options other than trying to scare them away like a flock of pigeons only to return. The sheriffs department drives through with inmate workers once a week on a crated junk truck and if any campers dare leave anything behind it's grab and trash time! Sweep it up all tidy like it never happened.