Reverend,

Thank you for demonstrating the point the author was trying to illustrate. It's funny, because I fail to see where they express "distain for the residents of East Portland." What's the matter, did someone poop on your alter of righteousness? Did someone leave a needle floating in your holy water? Did someone throw their bra in your tree of the forbidden fruit? The compassion flowing from your gospel is overwhelming.

Volunteering, especially with the organizations mentioned here, is a great thing and everyone should do it.

But to think that, at an individual level, a day spent packaging food or preparing meals is doing anything to actually solve the issue is wishful at best. And that's not to discourage action at an individual level, but only to say that the severity of the problem is way beyond what an individual can accomplish. Flippantly dismissing, as so often is done here, the concerns of people who literally wake up to garbage fires nextdoor is exactly the kind of thing that inhibits the alliances required to create the needed, systemic change.

So organize and lobby your representatives. Or at least empower others that will do that hard work for you. But reducing this complex issue to polemic is not moving the needle. And there are many needles to be moved.

The number of needles picked up on our city streets have gone from 9,897 in 2015, to 16,822 in 2016, to a whopping 27,787 in 2017.

Sounds like someone isn't paying attention.

Source: http://www.kgw.com/mobile/article/news/l…

Thank you, Mercury, for calling bigotry what it is.

@Euphonius: 27,787 needles collected in 2017, RV's parked throughout the city spewing garbage, leaking raw sewage, camps all over causing environmental damage and leaving piles of garbage/human waste, piles of stripped bike frames, assaults, theft, intimidation... you know, POINTING TO THE EVIDENCE.

Not liking these things is somehow bigotry in your delusional mind?

The Portland Mercury and extreme leftists such as yourself also have a narrative they're pushing: If you have anything negative to say about the homeless issue, you're a "NIMBY," a cold-hearted person, A BIGOT.

Nice try.

No one is saying ALL homeless people are criminals, like the Mercury's narrative always claims. No one is saying that homelessness is a crime, like the Mercury's narrative always claims.

What people ARE saying is that there are SOME homeless people who are bad actors in this dilemma... yet, we can't even talk about it without some extreme leftist ignoring the EVIDENCE and always attempting to change the subject while name-calling.

The attitude of ignoring reality won't solve the problem. Calling someone a bigot won't solve the problem. Acknowledging REALITY based off of EVIDENCE is a good starting point, yet we aren't even there. SAD!

http://www.kptv.com/story/37361852/man-a…

I know one thing people are doing: gating, locking up, and otherwise obstructing access to recyclables. Which hurts financially but is something I sympathize with, because I've seen plenty bad canning behavior, ranging from peeking in bedroom windows to chucking paper all over the place and yelling at the resident during the resultant confrontation. It was bound to happen when the deposits increased to a dime; now the tweakers can afford their habits going through your bins.

From 10 comments, not a single person stepping up to say "this is what I'm doing or prepared to do to help solve the problem." Smug and lazy? Maybe, but seems pretty fucking on-point in terms of its conclusion. Most of the time I've seen spent on homeless issues in our City has been on complaining.

Hey pdxMB: There's multiple dilapadated RV's parked at the corner of NE 122nd Ave and NE San Rafael St, right behind the WinCo. The city has tagged them with a tow notices, as they have many, many, many, MANY times before. Every time these RV's drive away, they leave piles of garbage, stripped bike frames and plastic containers filled with human waste... a few times they've left stripped cars.

I'll let you know when they leave so YOU can drive over and do something about cleaning the area up. Once you clean the area up, I'll be sure to let you know when they return... as they always do. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Cool?

I live in Old Town/Chinatown. I see needles on a daily basis. I probably see feces three times a week. I see people urinating in public, men and women. I have seem people have sex and seen genitals.

@mustardseed Perhaps you just need to find some new friends.

Euphonius: You have the worst responses to people's comments. How would finding new friends remedy seeing needles, human feces, people urinating, or people having sex in public?

Not doing anything? How about that $258 million housing bond we just passed? Given that homeowners and renters will be making sizable contributions to pay that thing down for the next 20 years, I'd say we've earned the right to gripe about whatever we want.

What can you do ? When none of them want to work or do anything positive for themselves. All they want to do is do drugs , alcohol or live off taxpayers money.

Remember: When OPB interviewed some of the residents, they stated that they were choosing to be homeless. They were able-bodied individuals who literally said that they wanted others to pay for their lifestyles. When the interviewer asked one of the individuals how he felt about people having issues with using taxpayer money to fund said lifestyles, he replied, "They just need to grow a heart, Such bullshit , get off your lazy ass and get a job !

The Portland City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved spending almost $6 million of 10 million budget on a 12-story affordable housing complex on Northeast Grand Avenue in the Lloyd District. The buildings will have 240 studios, one-bedroom and two-bedro apartments. Why not take that money and spend it on our schools or roads , it's nothing but a waste of money , period

Kinda the whole point of having representatives is to offload this kind of thing onto the representatives. I now pay more in taxes so our representatives can theoretically deal with this issue that I don't have time to personally deal with because I'm working more than a full-time job, taking care of my kid, managing a rental property, and maybe with enough spare time each weekend to run my errands.

Just the same as the author here decided his time was better spent writing this shitty, whiny column for his job instead of going out and "doing something" about the homeless issue.

Dear Wm.™,

You have a lovely, whimsically flamboyant name. I like that, as it promises writing that might be bold, different and interesting. But here we have a little mess of an article that does not deliver on the promise in its headline and uses the uninformative results of a poorly conceived poll to draw overreaching and absurd "conclusions." Harummph.

Mercury: smug and clueless as always. And never the complex thinkers.

"Not do anything about it"

Because paying taxes in the form of income, property, booze & pot sales tax, and sneaker taxes like the recent housing bond with the understanding we pay taxes and the gov is supposed to fix large scale city problems in exchange, is "not doing anything"?

GTFO

Also, Portlanders donate $millions (probably more like tens of millions) every year in charity money, supplies, countless time spent fundraising, volunteering for homeless issues.

Not doing anything my ass.

Finally, most of us did do something: we voted for a new Mayor (Wheeler) & City Commissioner (Eudaly) based on their "whole hearted, priority commitment" during their hollow political campaigns to address the homeless crises. That is doing something. Yet those elected officials are failing and flailing around like bureaucrat muppets. We tried!

I'm not sure what Mr Humphries expects people to do exactly. start building brick apartments with their own hands? Allow tent cities in their back yards? Stop living their lives and paying their bills to give to the homeless because gov won't do their fucking jobs?

Please, tell us, Steve, tell us exactly what YOU are doing to solve homelessness? (Besides bitching about people who are concerned about it).

haha Douglas Banter thinks he has a winning point but is just reinforcing the central premise. In fact, his solution is having someone else take responsibility. Classic.