Portland in 2013 saw just 15 murders, and violent crime levels were down to late-60s levels. But Police Chief Mike Reese and other top police brass this morning argued downtown Portland and the central eastside feel as unsafe as ever. “I heard more complaints last year from everyday citizens feeling they were intimidated, they were […]
Homeless
Posted inHomeless
Utah Might End Homelessness by 2015
Well this is a unique approach to homelessness—giving people homes: In 2005, Utah figured out that the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail stays for homeless people was about $16,670 per person, compared to $11,000 to provide each homeless person with an apartment and a social worker. So, the state began giving away apartments, […]
Posted inNews
BREAKING: Hoyt Warehouse Offer No Longer Part of Right 2 Dream Too Talks
illustration by levi hastings Mayor Charlie Hales’ office says it’s pulling back on a proposal to move Old Town homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too into a rented warehouse just blocks away on NW Hoyt—in part because of the high cost of rehabbing the building and some unanticipated zoning challenges that could have kept […]
Posted inNews
Hales’ Office: Meeting with Kotek Helped Decision to Put Off Sit-Lie Revival in Salem
Mayor Charlie Hales told local public safety officials way back in September—an announcement first reported by the Mercury—that he was considering next month’s abbreviated legislative session for the revival of a sit-lie push that faltered last spring despite heavy pressure from the Portland Business Alliance. But now, it seems, that’s no longer the plan. Hales’ […]
Posted inNews
Portland Business Alliance Dismisses Right 2 Dream Too as “Illegal Camp,” Not an “Appropriate Answer” to Homelessness
The Portland Business Alliance has hardly kept its disdain for Right 2 Dream Too—Old Town’s tent-based rest area for the homeless—much of a secret. In December 2012, it asked Commissioner Dan Saltzman to evict the group, citing a crime spike that actual crime numbers proved wrong. More recently, last September, it sent Commissioner Amanda Fritz […]
Posted inEvents
A Rock Show in La Carreta? Yes!
Art by Tuesday Faust La Carreta is the funky, homey Mexican joint at the corner of SE McLoughlin and Holgate. You’ve no doubt driven by it a number of times—and even more likely, you’ve stopped in more than once for their ample Mexican fare and dizzying margaritas. It’s a Portland old-school favorite, unsullied by the […]
Posted inNews
Cold Weather on the Streets: Where to Go, What People Need
They were standing with a group of young people outside Union Gospel Mission. He was wearing snowpants and boots, two jackets and a hat. She was without a hat, in a jacket and gloves, and shivering as she asked me for a smoke. Which I didn’t have. Almost as soon as we started talking, a […]
Posted inNews
Hales and Staff Take Reporters on Field Trip to Proposed Home for Right 2 Dream Too
Denis C. Theriault Mayor Charlie Hales shows off his proposed new site for Right 2 Dream Too: an Old Town warehouse at 320 NW Hoyt. Staffers for Mayor Charlie Hales, eventually joined by the mayor himself, shed more light this afternoon on a potential breakthrough development in the Right 2 Dream Too saga first reported […]
Posted inNews
Updated: Right 2 Dream Too Talks Now Focused on Old Town Property; Pearl Group Wants to Buy Lot 7
portlandmaps.com The weeks-long search for a new home for homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too that’s not in the Pearl District is now focused on an empty warehouse building in Old Town, several sources close to the negotiations have confirmed to the Mercury. The property in question sits at 320 NW Hoyt. It was […]
Posted inNews
Your New Favorite Hashtag if You Care about Homelessness and Poverty: #MyHomePDX
Housing and social justice advocates—troubled by this summer’s tense and difficult conversation around homelessness and poverty—have launched a new social media storytelling campaign meant, in part, to help reframe and recontextualize what’s been a particularly polarized debate. It’s dressed in a Twitter hashtag—#MyHomePDX. And after several days of a soft rollout on Twitter and elsewhere, […]
Posted inHomeless
Politician Decides to Solve the Homeless Problem By Smashing Shopping Carts with a Sledgehammer
Scott Keyes at ThinkProgress says: Noting that he’s “disgusted” with homeless people, [Hawaii state Representative Tom] Brower told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about his own personal brand of “justice”: “If I see shopping carts that I can’t identify, I will destroy them so they can’t be pushed on the streets.” Brower has waged this campaign for […]
Posted inHomeless
It's Not Because of the Homeless. It's Because of the Restaurant Business.
Maybe you didn’t read the Oregonian‘s op-ed pages this weekend. But if you did, you might have learned something surprising. The volunteers at Right 2 Dream Too, the controversial Old Town homeless rest area, are now apparently responsible for the vagaries and indignities of the notoriously fickle restaurant business. We know this because of the […]