Letters to the editor
NW Examiner readers reply
Housing First not flawed
The headline in November, “Housing First flawed strategy,” is inaccurate and misleading. The strategy of Housing First has from its inception included the provision of services along with the housing. The fact that these services have not been provided is a failure of implementation, not strategy.
The concept of Housing First is based on the need to place people under roofs while they are receiving services. Trying to provide these services to people living on the street is difficult if not impossible. Place the blame where it belongs—on government’s lack of effort to help those with mental illness or drug addiction after placing them in housing, not on the act of giving them shelter.
Stephen Kafoury
NW Couch St.
Examiner subscribers submitted the following comments on nwexaminer.com
Portland is stuck
I thought Portlanders were fed up with illegal outdoor camping, open-air hard-drug use, trash on sidewalks and streets, random property crime, graffiti and widespread antisocial behavior. But then came Charter Reform and a chance to elect a City Council with the guts to tackle these issues and produce results. … But Portland remains stuck in some leftist ideology where elected representatives place a higher priority on those who contribute little or nothing to the community over those who bust their butts working and dutifully paying the highest civic taxes of any major city in the United States.
David Mitchell
Pearl District issues
I have a new shelter in my neighborhood, and I was just mentioning to my daughter how bad it has gotten in the Pearl. People screaming aimlessly into the night, defecating, doing drugs, sleeping and camping out around Jamison and Tanner Spring parks, people randomly yelling and throwing stuff at you, and nobody answering the phone for any of the recourses provided. In the meantime, property values are consistently going down and property taxes are rising.
Ruby Reichardt
Powell’s Books
I lived in NW for 40 years and now live in Charleston, S.C. I had countless dealings with Powells every year. And I still order books from there sent to me in Charleston. Carpe Libre.
Chuck Duffy
Kate Fulton’s causes
What a remarkable human being. May she continue to pursue her passion for justice.
Paul Douglas
Preschool For All
Thanks for the thoughtful article. It was really infuriating to see Jessica Vega Pederson’s and others’ response when Gov. Tina Kotek pushed to revisit how Preschool For All should be managed. The pushback saying that indexing to inflation would lead to bankrupting the program was particularly galling when they had such a surplus. I absolutely support PFA, but the unwillingness to objectively review how it’s going is crazy.
Cormac Burke
Security guards needed
Outside Safeway is sometimes crowded with transients just before or after dark and almost always especially in the dark alcove opposite Sisters Coffee on Marshall. I think there should be a bright light in that alcove, and it would be fair if the city should pitch in to give Safeway extra security guard hours. Same for extra security at Fred Meyer on Burnside; some of the ample money from the ballot initiative or other city funds might help them too.
Jonathan Blatt
Stephen Kafoury’s letter is very misleading. The Housing First strategy clearly prioritizes housing and de-prioritizes services. The strategy focuses on putting people into permanent housing with no requirements for any kind of sobriety or services mandate. In other words it mandates housing without any conditions. Under housing first policies, people with drug addiction or mental health challenges treatment are put into situations they often cannot handle and that puts other tenants in harm’s way.
The Housing First strategy is clear, and it has clearly failed. https://endhomelessness.org/resources/toolkits-and-training-materials/housing-first/
It is ABSOLUTELY a failure of strategy, NOT implementation.
The CEO of Central City Concern, charged with implementing these failed policies, is recently on the record saying the exact opposite of what Mr. Kafoury claims.
Quote: “Former Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury and Marc Jolin, the prior leader of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, had a very specific strategy that was focused on building housing units and not looking at the broader needs of a population of folks for whom you can’t take a housing-only approach to the intervention.”
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/11/15/the-ceo-of-portlands-largest-social-services-nonprofit-says-things-are-really-bad-now-he-has-the-data-to-prove-it/
Mr. Kafoury favors a policy that, in effect, handcuffs the firefighters and then blames them for failing to put out the fires.
"The headline in November, 'Housing First flawed strategy,' is inaccurate and misleading. The strategy of Housing First has from its inception included the provision of services along with the housing. The fact that these services have not been provided is a failure of implementation, not strategy."
The ubiquitous Stephen Kafoury gets it wrong. It has been well documented that a strategic decision was made not to require residents of social housing to use services designed to help them reintegrate into society. That was seen as traumatizing, re-traumatizing, stigmatizing or something else just as dreadful right out of the social justice handbook.