See, this is what you get for closing Peterson’s…
The Portland Coalition Against Poverty is either a bunch of bored college kids with a credit card, looking for a cause, or the most exciting protest group I’ve encountered since coming to the city. I think, in fact, that it’s probably both. But reader, I am in love.
There is NOTHING like a midsummer night’s protest. Especially when people are shouting the name of the boss of Portland Patrol, Inc, at full volume, outside his office. Downtown livability, indeed… 
More after the jump.
Tonight’s protest was introduced by a guy named Marco:
The route took in the headquarters of Clean & Safe, the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct Building, and the headquarters of the Portland Business Alliance:
Lawrence Bishop, 60, was marching, like everyone else, “to repeal the sit/lie ordinance. It’s illegal for people to rest here in Portland. They’re criminalizing it.”
Wesley Flowers was there. He’s pissed off for obvious reasons. 
There was plenty of bannering, plenty of shouting, “FUCK CLEAN AND SAFE,” for example, and “STOP THE SWEEPS!” and “HANDS OFF THE POOR! END POLICE HARASSMENT!” and so on, and plenty of guts. 
And someone’s been reading the newspaper…
The protest was organized in response to last week’s sweeps in advance of the Waterfront Blues Festival. The protesters say they’ve heard the cops have been using stopwatches to give people two minutes to get out from under the bridges, before clean and safe guards messed up their property with bolt cutters. The protest literature was designed to give people a militant (and occasionally, a little over the top, granted) understanding of the key players in downtown’s homeless enforcement community. And I quote:
Portland Patrol are private security officers located at NW 2nd and Davis. They’re paid for by the PBA and the city. They’re among the worst abusers of poor and houseless folks, because they are unregulated. They employ barely literate out-of-towners to patrol our noble streets, and have the gall to give those fools pistols. If you ever forget who they are, just light a cigarette in Pioneer Courthouse Square. They enforce city ordinances on park property. They dispense exclusion tickets to travelers and the weary.
Yeah yeah. But how about this:
Portland Police Bureau. Your friendly neighborhood police station. Downtown precinct, headed by Commissioner Mike Reese, is filled with ill tempered, sadistic cops. Some of them are here with us today. The PPB has a record of abuses a mile long-you might recall their “tasers for lightless bikers” program. They also perniciously hate poor folks. At the City Hall Protest in May, they planted drugs, falsified reports, and created arbitrary requirements for protesters, forcing them to stay in a 4ft arching zone on the public sidewalk. Police exist to protect the property of the rich and the property of the government. Watch them today and see what riles them up.
Then, of course, there’s this:
Portland Business Alliance…the head honchos. Kings of the hill. Rich folks, pursuing profits at the expense of the poor. Look into any evil in Portland, and you’ll find them at the back of it, paying the bills. They forced the sit/lie law through the City Council, with generous campaign contributions, and paid for the city’s legal defenses when the law was declared unconstitutional. Then, in 2007, they got a different version of the same law passed again, at a cost of $150,000. The laws they pass are criminal, and are aimed at social cleansing. The message is simple: poor folks, get out. You’re bad for business.
Yeah, fuck it, “social cleansing,” why not. Like I said: This is what you get for closing Peterson’s…
Community input, indeed.
Dear Mercury,
We appreciate your fair and unbiased coverage of our demonstration. It was an empowering experience for all involved. The community forum we had afterward was the gem of the day, with 75 folks from all classes participating. We sought solutions to the problems of houselessness and poverty. Our follow up forum, on Aug. 15th at 7pm, under the east side of the Hawthorne Bridge, will explore some of those solutions in more depth, and solidify our framework.
Your fears of us being nonchalant college kids with a trust fund can only be reinforced by our plan to provide free fairs to everyone in Portland, through our trimet campaign. We’re also planning to tap those credit cards to establish a 350 bed medium term shelter, complete with job training, community forums, and sustainable gardening. A tip of the hat to the oppressed.
Love,
Portland Coalition Against Poverty
Should we just get a room now, or what?
If there’s one thing this city’s been lacking the past twenty years, Its small organizations promoting Liberal Reform.
Right back atcha…
http://streetroots.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/group-marches-against-sit-lie-camping-ordinances/
Once again a VERY small group of people in Portland want to put the rigths of scum bags ahead of the rights of hard working, tax paying citizens.
Most “homeless” are “homeless” by choice! Ask them, they will say so. If they don’t like the F’in rules they can leave Portland, instead of pissing and craping in my yard.
Hopefully they’ll finish that MAX to Vancouver soon so Clark County can deal with the undesirables.
The homeless in that picture look more like “I hate the establisment and have nothing better to do.” I would like to invite all the homeless downtown to go introduce themselves to this crowd and ask each one if they can spare a sofa for a month or two and maybe a meal.Or maybe thier parents can. Whats really funny is when someone who cant maintain steady work,got into thier situation because they cant control alcohol or drug abuse or the corrupt mental health system and like the systems free perks too much to fix the problem…are calling people who work for a living an pay thier bills and taxes to help support the poor..”illiterate out of towners” Social workers answers to society…lets shove all these downtrodden into the face of the working public and force them to solve the problems we were hired to solve. Dont blame security guards who keep the rest of us from having to smell the filth or the police who protect us from “Anarchists” who dont even know the meaning of the word.
The homeless in that picture look more like “I hate the establisment and have nothing better to do.” I would like to invite all the homeless downtown to go introduce themselves to this crowd and ask each one if they can spare a sofa for a month or two and maybe a meal.Or maybe thier parents can. Whats really funny is when someone who cant maintain steady work,got into thier situation because they cant control alcohol or drug abuse or the corrupt mental health system and like the systems free perks too much to fix the problem…are calling people who work for a living an pay thier bills and taxes to help support the poor..”illiterate out of towners” Social workers answers to society…lets shove all these downtrodden into the face of the working public and force them to solve the problems we were hired to solve. Dont blame security guards who keep the rest of us from having to smell the filth or the police who protect us from “Anarchists” who dont even know the meaning of the word.
There’s a lot of bull shit in your post, but it’s too early in the morning for me to try to tackle it all in some kind of cohesive manner, so let me just ask you this:
Where did your dig at the Anarchists come form? Did I mess them being mentioned somewhere? More importantly: how do you know what they know about the word, what are they doing that you need protection from, and how are the police providing that protection?
Well…I will answer that. While strolling with my wife and son one day near PCS a young man( you know the typical unwashed dreadlocked,all black,brown and green clothing,spikes and patches) felt he needed to run up six inches from my face and snort at me then tell me that I was now infected with his cold….after he backed off he insisted he was an anarchist who wanted to live in a “f—ing” world without laws..do you think this behavior is acceptable? Do you condone this? You do and thats the reality, your protests are more about condoning behavior that the general public finds offensive rude and at times assaultive and invasive rather that really doing something about the problems of the Homeless and mentally ill.
Please post the address of the shelter that will be opening in the Mercury so people can check it out and see what this organization is really doing to help.
By the way I spent years working in crises intervention and mental health around homeless people and also with youth with substance abuse problems.So if you read “Bullshit” in my comments perhaps you just need to re-examine your own agenda for the world vs. the agendas of those who work hard to try and keep it safe for everyone. It may just be that not everyone even those with very liberal ideas do not embrace your world view.
Thats a polite way of putting it I could add some swear words for effect to dramatize my point but I refrain since I think we need to move away from drama and into reality.
Now why is it we blame the Government agencies and not the “non-profit” social service agencies? I think if you examine them close enough you willbe shocked at how much money revolves around within and how little actually is used to adress issues. Why is it we expect Police to do the jobs these people are supposed to be doing? Really I see alot of agencies with people saying “we want to help” but thier band aid solutions are no better than the Police enforcing laws your lawmakers asked them to enforce.
I forgot to answer the direct question on how the Police protect me.They are the forced buffer between the unruly and those who respect the rights of EVERYONE to enjoy a public place peacefully.
I snot on your face.
And I spit in your eye. Youre a rubbish monger a trash purveyor a tabloid gossip guru who couldnt land a job as a real journalist because youre a simpleton with no real talent.
Sam Adams hasn’t officially taken the position of mayor. Therefore,
WE, THE PEOPLE, CALL FOR HIS IMMEDIATE RECALL:
On the basis of Human Rights violations, already deemed so by the ACLU via both the illegal and fascist Sit/Lie Ordinances penned for and by the private Portland Business Alliance,
and the illegal and fascist powers given to their arm of enforcement, including Downtown Clean & Safe, and further perpetrated by the Portland Police Bureau.
We further demand these bodies be individually investigated for violations of human and civil rights and brought to the court of justice.
We will not allow this treason against THE PEOPLE any longer.
The People have SPOKEN.
Youre articles are a testimony to the art of spin and twist..you should be a pal of Karl Rove or Sean Hannity rather than writing.What do you know about the homeless anyway the most homeless youve ever been is being kicked out of mum and dads and being 7,000 miles from your real home. Why dont you try and quit your job and live on the streets for a month and write about that..it might make your articles more believable.I lived homeless for 2 years and traveled just about every western state,slept on floors and in basements..try it in the winter then I might respect anything you utter from that little hole in your head.
Hey “the people” which “the people” are you? have you ever seen anyone tried for treason in the U.S.?
I resolve we kick all people of Western European descent out of this land since they corrupted it to begin with..either that or pay the rent…yours truly..the real people.
Yeah, Akicita, and I met a scruffy looking guy on the bus once who said he was god… Nah, this is to easy.
So how did the police protect you in that situation? And who are you to tell me what I approve of, or what my protests condone? This is the shit I’m talking about. The intellectual laziness you’re bringing to this topic is staggering.
some of the houseless HAVE jobs, Elitist, but its not enough to remedy their debt and living situations.
I am shocked by our sweet city’s discriminatory douche-bags. They only care about people with money, not people
What kind of a dirt bag sack of cockroach trash would support a city ordinance that tells people they can’t occupy a space in a supposedly free country? Huh? Oh, yes, I forgot, not in the NEW America, not in the post 9/11 America, yes, good. Land of the cowards, home of the slaves. LICK MY BOOTS YOU BUM! YEAH, Say hello to officer Jack Boot! Your government loves you boy. Shut up and drink your fluoride.