Keith Wilson best for Portland by a mile

MAYORAL ENDORSEMENT

Portland has been in a homelessness crisis so long, our political leaders accommodate it as the new normal.

Nine years after former Mayor Charlie Hales declared a homelessness emergency, politicians can recite the contributing factors and assign blame to nebulous forces outside their control. If that doesn’t suffice, they blame the COVID pandemic. Limited funding has been exploded as an alibi; local governments now have more money than they can spend, and still the problem gets worse.

Keith Wilson, saying we can end the unsheltered homeless crisis in one year, has crashed a mayoral campaign defined by three uninspiring City Council incumbents. Insiders find his claim shocking and unrealistic, but their expertise may be limited to passively watching past failures and assuming nothing more can be done.

Wilson developed his plan by visiting cities around the country and in Europe that were managing similar challenges successfully. He visited mayors and managers of citywide programs in cities including Boise, New York City, San Diego and New Orleans, plus Amsterdam, Athens and Lisbon.

Wilson has not merely educated himself. He founded Shelter Portland, a nonprofit operating three mid-sized overnight shelters in churches at a cost of $80 per person per month and without a need to build infrastructure. He knows this is only the first piece of the puzzle, but which of his opponents has created and overseen a program that demonstrates what can be done?

Based on his research of comprehensive programs in other cities, he estimates that $25 million a year would turn Portland around. Where would that come from? We’re already spending $300 million a year on homeless services, funds that could be repurposed with plenty left over.

Because Wilson’s revolutionary approach is a lot to take in, he’s bringing top people from around the country, including the Obama administration’s specialist on reducing homelessness, to Portland for a public event, a panel discussion at Franklin High School on Oct. 10.

People who know what they’re doing aren’t afraid to publicize their plans, providing deadlines, goals and numbers. Not everyone who makes plans can produce the results, but they inspire more confidence than those who are unable to specify their goals or strategy and who are unwilling to be held accountable for outcomes.

If voters give Wilson the opportunity to test his plan, he and the rest of the city will know what succeeded or fell short. It would be possible to diagnose what part of the plan went awry and how it might be corrected. With his name on the line, he will not have latitude to change the subject or blame outside forces.

Failing to achieve lofty goals can also bring partial success. If progress should take twice as long or extend only halfway to benchmarks, we would still be far ahead of our current treadmill to nowhere.

In fact, the approach of setting out a clear path with benchmarks could set an example for more productive political discourse on a range of issues.

Wilson, who founded a trucking company that now has a fully electric local fleet, has a broad agenda. Climate change, emergency services and housing construction are all in his platform. He even has an idea to recycle plastic bottles into a paving mixture that will hold up on our streets three times longer than existing asphalt.

Governments cannot be run just like businesses. They can, however, marshal business-like, pragmatic problem solving toward social ends, and do so with transparency and public accountability. With the opportunity Keith Wilson presents, why would we vote for candidates offering the same old, same old?