Meeting with our capon-mayor is a total waste of time (unless you haven't read the city charter). The mayor can complain, but the actual power resides with (1) the socialist city council, and (2) the county, which doesn't like Portland, except when it's time to pay property taxes.
I think Keith Wilson is a well-intentioned, hardworking and genuinely good human being who naïvely thinks that this problem can be solved somehow by a City and County who have demonstrated over and over again that they're long on ideas and short on performance. All we need to do is spend more money, have neighborhoods be more accommodating and tolerant of the feral among us, and continue to disregard the double standards where law-abiding taxpayers have one set of rules to follow, and those deemed "houseless"or "disabled"(think Meghan Moyer) appear to have well ---no rules to follow. We've been trying this tactic since our "Homeless Emergency" was first declared by Charlie Hales... remember him? Things are way worse now than they were 10 years ago... just take a walk.
This was brought home to me on a trip I took the last two weeks. In the Midwest and in a city larger than Portland I saw not one tent. Let me repeat, not one tent. Bigger city than Portland.... and not one tent. I saw one shopping cart loaded with junk. One guy with a blanket in a park. No tarps, no human feces, no needles and guess what? Virtually no graffiti. We were all over that city for 3 days and it was such a contrast to Portlandia. That city is much more racially diverse than Portland as well. I saw no mentally ill people screaming on the sidewalks, nobody cooking with an open fire in the back alley or under a bridge. And again let me stress, virtually no graffiti.
Something is very wrong with Portland's approach to the homeless, and I find it hard to believe that our often touted "Oregon values" haven't played a role in the mess we find ourselves in.
Meeting with our capon-mayor is a total waste of time (unless you haven't read the city charter). The mayor can complain, but the actual power resides with (1) the socialist city council, and (2) the county, which doesn't like Portland, except when it's time to pay property taxes.
I think Keith Wilson is a well-intentioned, hardworking and genuinely good human being who naïvely thinks that this problem can be solved somehow by a City and County who have demonstrated over and over again that they're long on ideas and short on performance. All we need to do is spend more money, have neighborhoods be more accommodating and tolerant of the feral among us, and continue to disregard the double standards where law-abiding taxpayers have one set of rules to follow, and those deemed "houseless"or "disabled"(think Meghan Moyer) appear to have well ---no rules to follow. We've been trying this tactic since our "Homeless Emergency" was first declared by Charlie Hales... remember him? Things are way worse now than they were 10 years ago... just take a walk.
This was brought home to me on a trip I took the last two weeks. In the Midwest and in a city larger than Portland I saw not one tent. Let me repeat, not one tent. Bigger city than Portland.... and not one tent. I saw one shopping cart loaded with junk. One guy with a blanket in a park. No tarps, no human feces, no needles and guess what? Virtually no graffiti. We were all over that city for 3 days and it was such a contrast to Portlandia. That city is much more racially diverse than Portland as well. I saw no mentally ill people screaming on the sidewalks, nobody cooking with an open fire in the back alley or under a bridge. And again let me stress, virtually no graffiti.
Something is very wrong with Portland's approach to the homeless, and I find it hard to believe that our often touted "Oregon values" haven't played a role in the mess we find ourselves in.