You know what. Fuck those guys.

So - we have an absolute garbage can for an economy, and loads of people for whom homelessness is reality - including young people! who are also part of society! - and the proposed solution of *business owners* is to just get rid of the pesky underclass? Really?

If you really want 'effective tools' for dealing with the rabblerousing hoi polloi, PBA, maybe treating people like human beings instead of obstacles would be a good place to start. The overriding attitude that businesses are entitled to sidewalks and The People are not is elitist, and the PBA takes it to the next level by asserting in various formats that people are not entitiled to exist when they're not actively spending money, which isn't an available hobby for people with no money.

Sincerely: there is something *fundamentally broken* in our economy when gutterpunks are numerous enough to interfere with your vision for downtown, all right? It's not a classically attractive lifestyle to anyone who hasn't been completely abandoned for opportunity. Opportunity is expensive, this is a class issue, and it's eliminationist to regard human beings who have next to nothing as the problem. They are a symptom, PBA. Look for the roots. You have the money to do more than complain.

i've been homeless on the streets of Portland and I've seen police not only walking past panhandlers, but talking to them, petting their dogs. Is the PBA suggesting there aren't enough police to deal with all these "aggressive elements" downtown? It never looked like it to me. They have some really odd timing now that the Clark Center may lose its funding. Where the hell are people supposed to go? i know they don't want to deal with that part of it, they just pass some more laws outlawing being on the streets and, poof all the homeless will magically disappear. Just like in the movies. Eyeroll

Fuck the PBA, just a bunch of classist dick bags. I hope you all get rectal cancer.

Thank you, Chicostix!