Comments

1
I have a good place for these people to go, since they are so fond of spreading garbage everywhere maybe they should go live at the dump. We've had a few drunken homeless people with carts full of garbage move into our neighborhood park recently, and now when you walk by you get screamed at by some old drunk and the park is full of their empty beer cans overturned shopping carts and assorted garbage. Good luck getting the cops to deal with it though as they are too far east to get on the radar.
2
"Our goal is not to arrest people"

That's why out-in-the-open bicycle theft rings and chop shops have proliferated in these camps.
3
β€œAt the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.
We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”
― Mother Teresa
4
we should be helping these people instead of just trying to " sweep them under the rug "
5
I look forward to them getting pushed out here to the east side, where the better people in Inner Portlandia don't have to bother with such trouble. It will be just wonderful.
6
As an advocate that has lived with the homeless for nearly 3 years, I can say this is just more of the same old whack a mole game. Hales caters only to the corporateand has no idea whats really going on, or, he knows and allows more dehumanizing police actions to the same agencies that has failed and more people return to the streets than succeed.
7
It has always proved to be useful to the homeless and to the police to have the police harass our poorest citizens.

Some things that seem to be forgotten:
-The homeless are citizens of this city.
-The homeless are treated like criminals even when they are not participating in criminal activities.
-The homeless are our neighbors, and harassing our neighbors doesn't work to change social behavior.

Some things Portland needs to learn:
-More than half of the homeless in Portland are Portland-grown. They are not someone else's people, but our own.
-The far majority of Americans are disgusted by the sight of homeless, and they come up with excuses for that emotional response later. (Envy Up, Scorn Down by Susan Fiske)
-If we want social change we need to provide opportunity, not harassment.
-The social workers for the homeless are overworked and unable to help the people they have right now.

This event changes nothing. All it does is to communicate to the homeless that they are not welcome here, even though this is their home.
8
For people like myself, you are one disaster, one tragedy, one major illness away from being homeless. It's not because of drugs, alcohol or mental illness, it's because the cost of living and housing doesn't coincide with current wages. If something major happens, you can't save money. Things need to change and they need to change fast or there will be more people living on the streets.
9
This has bad information first off there is about 4,000 homeless in mult. County with %40 disabled on disability or waiting for their disability. ( hud statistics) I am disabled living on ssi and Ssdi $753 a month and most people pay that much just in rent so is it really a surprise that we are homeless? I'm not a drunk or druggie or a criminal. I am living below The federal poverty line on disability. There is no applying for section 8 housing it's been closed to apply for years because the waiting list is so long I can't get a big enough loan to buy a HUD house which is supposed to be for poor people to be able to buy a home, I have good credit but my income is too small I can only get a $40,000 loan I need $80,000-$100,000 so I would need my income to be $1,500 a month. This is what's really going on our Government knows $753 is not enough to live on and they know it's making us disabled be homeless. So our city is bullying us and trying to make us sound like we are druggies and drunks and lazy or criminals. We are a large number of the homeless population at %40 you would think the news would talk about this but know they lie and say they don't even know how many homeless there are FYI there is a count mid January every year. Ours this year was 4,000 homeless people with %40 disabled. Do I need to repeat it agin? %40 so unless our Government builds almost 2000 homes for the disabled homeless and give us section 8 vouchers for those homes we will still be homeless the other option is to supply us with an actual living income like $1,500 a month instead of $753 a month. Either house us us or supply us with an actual living income.
10
Further gentrifying the Portland out of Portlandia... Classism has taken its toll on what once made Portland an interesting, European-Esque, Artistically prolific, and straight-up/no-loft scrapers beautiful place to live.
11
The problem is that kicking around the homeless is just a band-aid for the problem. We need more places like right to dream, non-religious based shelters and day centers for the tired.I work in one of the agencies mentioned in this article and have been homeless myself. What needs to happen is more attention to the root causes of homelessness which is 100% trauma of some sort, addiction, mental illness ect. And along with comfortable housing even if it's a tent and some life skills then they can have a foundation to work from to further succeed in taking steps to a better life. Just like you cannot build a home without tools you cannot improve your life without tools, even the simplest of tasks become hard and overwhelming and that is why we should offer the basics of human needs before going on to task the harder more long term personal issues like mental health and addiction once you plant that seed you can grow from there.
12
To the homeless: Please protest, make lots of garbage, panhandle, and do disgraceful things in front of those businesses that are listed as members of the Portland Business Alliance, in front of the Portland Business Alliance, In the Pearl, and in the neighborhoods of the operators and members of the PBA rich homes. Do this during the day when the wives are at home and the husbands at work. The wife's will certainly start making these PBA people find housing for them then. http://weblink.portlandalliance.com/Directory/DirectoryStartPage.aspx

FYI PBA started the camping ban in 1981. FYI Charlie hales has done nothing to help the homeless, and has spent all citizens money on developers and what big money people want. While taxing the rest of us.
13
30 years of neglect will do this. poop on them!
14
When you have rent triple in cost, a city that recently discovered it has a few million in surplus funds. Whilst every new transplant seemingly is swimming in money as the city bends over like an obliging money guzzling sycophant who is More than willing to forget that this city use to give a rats ass about money or class privilege, but now is willing to be the errand boy for this Bourgeois Shit Show then I guess someone has to pay and why not fuck over someone that has no voice and is use to it. Bring Back Bud Clark!!!!!!!!!
15
LMAO. as a person who has been homeless off and on for the last decade, I agree with the crackdown. Every homeless person knows that people don't wanna see shit like that, hell most of us think it looks like shit, and have a degrading name, "home bum", that we stick to these people. They know they are going to get fucked with, but do this anyway. I don't agree with the ways homelessness is looked at or treated, but I agree that these disgusting trashy campsites need to be taken care of. If I could get away with just having my tent set up in Washington Park, out of the way, I would be psyched, but I cannot, I've had one cut open by rangers, yet people get away with doing this shit in a way dirtier way in the middle of town? Fuck that.
16
The drunk guy shouting in the park and littering all over the place isn't homeless because his rent went up and he couldn't quite afford an apartment anymore. These people are career bums and many of them have severe drug and alcohol problems. Coddleing them isn't helping, time to get out the stick and at least clean up the garbage. If you want to fund programs to get them off the streets fine by me, but if you don't at least get their garbage off the streets.
17
where is affordable housing? where are shelters that don't separate unmarried couples? once you're on the street, getting off the street is very challenging. I took a couple off the street last year because their only options were to be separated or to sleep under a tarp on the sidewalk, and one of them required the assistance of the other to recover from an injury. I took them off the street so they could take care of each other and focus on finding housing instead of just being rousted from place to place.

we actually do need affordable housing in PDX. a few years ago, I fell from middle class to homeless thanks to my kids' dad's need to punish me financially for divorcing him, and there were almost no options for us. Bill Gate's slums, which would have uprooted my kids and moved us out of Portland proper, or moving into a school bus and spending our days migrating up and down the coast were the viable choices we were left with if Habitat for Humanity hadn't taken us. if I hadn't already qualified for SSDI, I imagine we would have been on the street. I can't see that we would have had a choice.
18
The tide of people coming here bringing a ton of money and development has very little chance of slowing. If the weather patterns that have been developing in other parts of the country such as severe drought, hurricanes, and blizzards keep up people will continue to flock here to escape that. As more and more people arrive the economic engine grows larger and the hype grows as well. This in turn only attracts more lost people looking for a place to land, more developers, and more shallow opportunists. This city will be unrecognizable in 10 years. If you don't find a way to fit in (economically and aesthetically) then get the fuck out of the way because nothing is stopping these people from getting what they want. Portland is for sale and investors are buying.
19
I have read these comments and what I have seen my personal self and the places were I have worked that you keep saying that all the people that are moving here are rich sorry wrong I have seen lots of people that have moved here for the benefits that Portland offers to the homeless and also they think Portland is so Kool. They come here expecting all these thing and when they do get housing they turn around and do something stupid and loose it like doing drugs or abusing alcohol and the cops are called and they get kicked out for it. I know lots of homeless and have found drug use in the rooms they have used. Personal I think that if they can't clean up there act then set them a drift and take away their benefits. If they don't want to help themselves then we should not be helping them. I have helped many people find housing most have keep it and some have just screwed it up for themselves by being jerks. So maybe if they would quit spreading the word to all these different states that Portland has great benefits for the homeless we would have more money for the homeless population that is from Oregon or lived here along time.
20
This Rose Festival Mega-Sweep, #RFMS, is yet another cruel and counter-productive anti-homeless action by the Hales administration. Urge all to call Hales' office and ask them to call off the sweeps and put the resources into creating safe, humane temporary housing for all.

Hales spox says β€ͺ#β€ŽRFMS‬ is not a sweep. Says #RFMS being done in response to flood of calls.

Hales phone number is 503-823-4120. 503-823-4120

Talking points:

1. Yes, this is a sweep. Making up a new pr-speak name for it doesn't make it not a sweep. Mass removal backed by force is a sweep.

2. Sweeps are cruel, punitive, and counterproductive. No credible expert on homelessness supports them. They are promoted by two overlapping groups of people--people who believe ignorant sadistic fantasies about the homeless, and people whose bread is buttered by catering to those fantasies.

3. Other than safer managed spaces such as shelters and R2D2, visible places on public streets are the safest places for homeless people. There are not enough safer managed spaces. Until there are enough safer managed spaces, harshing people out of visible public space just makes them easier prey for robbers, rapists, etc. The argument that it improves public safety is a lie.

There are actions being planned against the #RFMS. Filming and observing are important.
21
How about for every homeless camp that gets swept, some yuppie piece of shit in the Pearl gets their shit smashed or vandalized? Its not class war if only one side is fighting, its time for the poor to start fighting back.
22
Good reporting, good discussion.
23
How sad and costly this is. I have been trying to open a transitional camp for the displaced homeless to but the city/county are unable to see that this is the only viable option to help most of our homeless citizens transition into more traditional housing. The financial savings would be great but we can keep our humanity intact. I am starting to believe many of our city/county officials had their humanity surgically removed.
24
No matter how much money the city spends on dehumanizing it's poorest people, it's a waste of time to just keep pushing the homeless around to please hales wealthy friends. And the portland business alliance makes it a habit of violating civil rights as well as human rights. If you want a real education on this subjust, come live with me for one week. You'll ne er say those stereotypical things again. This is my personal challenge to ANYONE with the balls to do it, I'd bet most dont! Can you handle the truth?
26
Reading some of these messages makes me wonder if people understand causes of homelessness. And while there's not one single cause, we've had a prominent homeless population with and without expensive housing. We've had it with and without a good economy. Blaming developers/investors/wealthy (such a simple answer for such a complex problem) or getting more affordable rents isn't going to get a large portion of these people off the streets. Do people really believe someone with a major drug addiction can afford even a $300/month apartment? We have to be realistic in that some of these people are so out of the normal rent/employment situation that it's not going to solve the major problems we all see with homelessness.

To further my argument about high housing costs, why would someone live under a bridge if they could just move to a less expensive area (even in the metro area)? But to the point, having less expensive housing isn't a bad thing for a host of reasons, just don't project it as some homeless panacea it's not.

And to the point, housing for the homeless often isn't an immediate solution to homelessness. Four walls won't make someone not addicted to drugs or mentally ill magically (not that it's not part of the steps in order to treat these conditions) it just doesn't solve some of the life-skill gaps that are occurring.

It's unfortunate it has come to this, but we can see the evidence of a couple years now of turning our backs to appropriate street use and we have always been a destination city for the homeless and it sure seems it has gotten worse over the years. It's time for ABC and XYC city/state/whoever to deal with some of the dysfunction, we just don't have the resources and there are other concerns that need to be looked at other than just homelessness in the city.

I also enjoyed the quote about Mother Teresa. Do you think she'd bring a meth addict into her home? I think not. Don't be silly.

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