Providing work opportunities should be on the table, Dirk. After all, countless homeless advocates continually claim that a large percentage of the population is homeless due to a job loss, lack of ability to pay rent, or some other such misfortune, rather than drug use, not being willing to follow the rules of society, etc. So let's help the people who want to work. And let's help the mentally ill and physically disabled who are unable to work. That will leave the druggies and vagrants left, at which point I really hope there aren't any objections to sweeping them out of our city and telling them to take a fucking hike because I don't want my kid's bike stolen when some junkie needs a fix.

Thanks for the article, Dirk.

Being poor and homeless is not a crime. Work farms are the same thing as prison - they deprive people of freedom but in violation of due process among other Constitutional protections. This lawyer is a whack job for suggesting work farms and it'll become clear to rational residents that associating with him is a mistake.

Dirk, please delete the intellectually sloppy term "NIMBY" from your vocabulary. NIMBYS= voters, residents, neighbors. To pretend that untreated schizophrenics defecating on your lawn and tweekers stealing the grill from your apartment balcony are something that Portlanders should humbly accept is bull puckey. When you call people in Lents NIMBYS for being upset about campers, you are taking the kind of faux-progressive snobby position I can't stand.
Being poor is not a crime- stealing and trespassing and destroying the environment are crimes. Setting up a "tiny house" on a street in Cully and luring children is a crime. Stealing a homeless advocate's little dog to sell is a crime. Distributing food and then leaving without cleaning up the inevitable mess is a shame.

"NIMBYs"

The Mercury has never been against name-calling those with whom they disagree. Name-calling is a tried and true tactic of one who has no valid argument. It's childish, immature and petty.