Housing May 4, 2016 at 4:00 am

It's Being Forged in a High School Geometry Class

Comments

1
This sounds like a really, really good step in the right direction. It's not the end game but it's far more "compassionate" than tarps and pup tents. Now if we can just get some sort of monitoring/enforcement and the state to pony up some funds we might be able to get somewhere.
3
Ok, so whose back yard, Charlie? Yours?
And so now the City of Portland will be in the Landlord business.
Who will bear the legal expenses for evictions, the crimes, the assaults?
Does C.O.P providing shelter condone theft of shopping carts @ over $150 cost?
How's that work when C.O.P gets sued by Safeway?
It's not like the word hasn't spread, Portland is a homeless mecca, maybe they will form their own government, declare themselves a suburb and start demanding representation and a C.O.P budget. Perhaps a "Shopping Cart Safety Alliance" for shopping cart lanes and fancy paint on C.O.P streets and sidewalks.
I'm all for assisting the truly needy, but putting out a neon "Homeless Vacancy Now" sign for the taxpayer to fund is short-sighted and ludicrous, not to mention being a legal minefield, dangerous precedent and frankly, fiscally irresponsible.
Maybe they need a living wage job with adequate health and mental health coverage instead. You know- a hand up instead of a handout.
4
"We're trying to learn what may work to address the housing crisis from the perspective of those who are houseless,"

Please spare me. Don't sell me your way of life at a smaller and lesser scale and call it good-will. Call it what it is: a dog house.

If you want to empathize then observe from this perspective. Survive- with: THAT is compassion by the latin roots of the word, it is not fuzzy irrational emotions telling you everyone would be better off if they had what you had. 'solving' homelessness is not as simple as shoving everyone in a box.

Departitionedhousing.com

6
..I know my comment sounds ungrateful, but understand two things;

1) people could easily construct themselves such a thing as this and much better WERE THEY ALLOWED TO.

2) There are numerous examples of peoples/ leaders doing more harm with the urge to "do something" when they don't understand what they are doing. In this case, it is just reafirming the stereotype that putting people in their own box solves homelessness. This is irrational as it is unsustainable in a capitalist market driven by property ownership and it also fails to acknowledge the possibility that the standard way of life of owning ones own property and being subject to constant privacy/ isolation is in fact what triggered the underlying cause of homelessness in the first place.

So thanks for the good intentions, but if you don't know what your doing just keep the floor open for those who do because people love jumping on bandwagons and you will get one rolling right on down [another] cliff.
7
No public urination without representation.

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