Since June, a woman lived with her three dogs in a van parked in front of Rose Haven Day Shelter at Northwest 18th Avenue and Glisan Street.
While parking more than two hours violates the visitor limit in this area, parking enforcement workers, intimidated by her threatening behavior, failed for months to ticket her.
The dogs barked at all hours, disrupting the sleep of guests at the Northwest Hostel across the street. Multnomah County Animal Services paid a visit, concluding that the dogs were not in danger and leaving a supply of dog food.
The woman applied for and received a residential parking permit, which was revoked when it was learned that she did not submit a valid address.
“Portland Solutions is aware of this situation and has been responding to neighbor concerns,” Laura Rude, spokesperson for the city problem-solving unit, told the NW Examiner on Sept. 18.
“We’ve engaged in extensive outreach and have also coordinated with PBOT, which has issued citations for parking violations and has also offered outreach. We are trying to identify shelter or another option that would move this individual and their pets out of their vehicle and off city streets.
“We are grateful for the community’s patience and understanding as we address complex issues on an individual level across the city. Sometimes problem-solving for just one person can take a whole team of people and can require multiple attempts over a long period of time.”
In mid-September, the van left the area.
A microcosm for our response to drug addiction and psychosis among the homeless population. It is why the ability to house this segment of the homeless population. It is why we are not more resourceful in simultaneously keeping both the community safe while compassionately helping those incapable of helping themselves through a combination of financial resources and free will. We have placed the individual autonomy of the individual over the collective heath of community. If the individual seeking to have their own was is historically disadvantaged they have super-rights whether they have control over themselves or not. That is not compassion. It is an excuse for neglect.
We have made individual autonomy the guiding principle today, irrespective of economic resource. You don’t have to be a communist to see that the cohesion and the heath of society has suffered greatly because of this. It is an issue of motives. What happened to an honest concern about helping one another having agency living on our plant and in our communities with agency-without damaging each other? The City and County have resources to employ to accomplish this with compassion for the individual and the community but something is amiss with the motives.