Give to the shelters and soup kitchens, and don't give to any panhandler who isn't over aged 40 and visibly a basket case. Portland needs a system of dropboxes around downtown that say "Don't give to panhandlers. Stick money in here instead and we'll give it to local service providers."

I,A: The county is supposed to be in charge of human services. If you are a Portlander and worried about human services funding, you need to fight the use and expansion of Urban Renewal in Portland. It diverts many millions of dollars from the county every year to real estate projects and choo choo trains.

Building more shelters and beds does not solve our homeless problem. Portland's homeless population largely consists of life-style homeless and heroin addicts that move to Portland for its permissive liberal culture towards homelessness and easy access to cheap drugs. Building more shelters will only increase that.

Let's give the homeless bus tickets to san diego, where it is warm enough they won't need a home.

Yes, lets spend even MORE of our tax dollars on the homeless. A+

This city is a god damn mecca for the homeless. I hope they pave a bike lane right over the whole lot of them.

There have actually been a large number of new, taxpayer financed, buildings for the homeless built in Old Town in the last few years. The most prominent, the Bud Clark Commons, was largely funded from River District Urban Renewal Area money. This money comes from the property taxes paid in that area, which includes the Pearl. The Pearl wouldn't have been quite so attractive to developers had the City not spent money upfront on things like street trees and streetcars, removing the Lovejoy Viaduct, building sidewalks and parks, etc... aka the "zoo zoo's and wham wham's" [sic]. This money is also going to pay for the future Multnomah County Health Dept headquarters, on the same block as the Bud Clark Commons. I wonder if they do anything for the unfortunate?

The City Council has a large number of responsibilies, and can't just abandon all the others to cater for one. Indeed, many of the things that certain citizens see as frivlous, actually have large benefits elsewhere.

Without the River District Urban Renewal district, the county could have built a couple of Bud Clark Commons and a couple of headquarters if they wanted to. These "benefits" acruing back to the county from Urban Renewal pale in comparison to revenue lost.

Only if you assume that the same level of development would have occurred otherwise.

We don't need to be rounding up the poor and putting them in concentration camps. Individuals ought to be integrated into mainstream society, provided that all they need is an opportunity; "a hand up, not a hand out."

For the time being, Federal guaranteed student loans and grants are available to most poor folk, and provide a livable cash flow.

Make ALL drugs legal, readily available over the counter and CHEAP by NOT taxing them.

It is the failure of family and Church which ought to be best to know their members who are most in need. If the people on the street have alienated themselves from Church and family, then perhaps they ought to make amends, but all to often, young people end up on the streets in order to escape an abusive home life.

The fascist city government collects and wastes too much money, and needs to be clamped down on.

Dr Minsk: I think you need to make amends to the Church of Shove It Up Your Ass.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

There is or was at one time anyway, a place downtown, serving free coffee. This sounds all well and good, but it used to be a church that provided this, until the city horned in on the action, and started donating money with strings. The trade of is that this is the pretext of veneer under colorable law that the City claims as justification to kick bums off the sidewalk, as there is someplace else provided by the City, for them to go.

I think people often, particularly in Portland, forget there's a city to function. We can't stop everything we're doing and help the sick puppy every time. Advocates in Portland are reaallly annoying. No offense, you guys put your blinders on and forget there's other people and other causes going on around you.

So the economy is bad. That says we should be doing things to increase the local economy and transportation investment, including bike lanes, often facilitates that.

That way when the local economy is improved through sound investment (sound being subjective), more money can be invested into towards the needy.

This isn't rocket science. And there have been more social service buildings built in Old Town just in the last 2 years from some public investment dollars... McDonald, Bud Clark, Blanchet House...just off the top of my head.

Yeah! Let's grind those homeless bums into fertalizer! All those heroin-junky street kids get away with it because we don't have armed kill-squads roaming the streets!!

...the fuck? Did I wander into the Oregonian's comment section on accident?

@Jason Lang -

That is a great idea. Can we get non-union, taxpayer funded kill squads put together before the Christmas shopping season is in full swing? I want to go shopping downtown.