Great to see this program revived, building on the great success of the Pearl District Foot Patrol which many of us helped establish in the early 2010s to address the same issues as the 2.0 version is dealing with.
Foot patrols in the Pearl go back to the early days of the neighborhood association.
Former Pearl District Association President Neilson Abeel recalls that Carol Smith Larson, Wilbur Larson, Dan Dehen, Larry and Denise Grimes and others were part patrolled in the mid-1990s.
I’d like the city council/mayor/county reps to respond to the fact that most of the homeless in The Pearl have recently come here from other places. I’d like them to tell us whether they think buildings being burned down in our neighborhood and the need for out of pocket private security and citizen foot patrols (while they remove police budget) to maintain even a semblance of normality is reasonable.
This is a result of our permissive to the point of masochistic policies around camping, drug use, and other crime. Cities around the US are getting cleaned up and we are getting dumped on, and this is backed up in the statistics. This should be priority number one for our feckless “leaders” but they’re too busy on their flavor of the week ideologically driven “issues” and shouting into the void how much they hate Trump.
This. There has long been given the narrative that residents of the Pearl are a bunch of NIMBYs preying on those down on their luck. Last I checked being down on your luck doesn’t amount to going to another state to live on the streets there. Obviously it is hard to say without further information from the people themselves how they ended up here, but the result is the same. The city has built an attractive environment for the open-air drug use and dismissal (or enforcement) of basic rules. Drug dealers are not the business owners we’re trying to attract but are. Unless there is a change in consequences we’ll continue to be attracting those that know they will have it easy here.
The Pearl Patrol deserves credit for getting involved, reporting problems, attempting to help connect people with services, and in some cases even getting emergency help to people who needed it. But at the citywide level, this is still a whack-a-mole problem. If increased patrols move people out of the Pearl, they often just turn up in the South Park Blocks or another neighborhood.
Without a broader city and county strategy, we are effectively treating these people as a negative externality, passing them from neighborhood to neighborhood like last week’s garbage. We say we care about them, but too often the practical response is simply to move them somewhere else.
There is also a risk that successful neighborhood patrols reduce the urgency for city and public health officials to develop a real solution. The problems described here—severe addiction, mental illness, medical crises, and chronic homelessness—are simply beyond the capabilities of well-meaning volunteers. No offense to the volunteers, but if Portland Police were unable to investigate murders, we wouldn’t expect a neighborhood patrol to step in and solve homicide cases. The same principle applies here. Neighborhood involvement is valuable, but it cannot substitute for functioning public institutions.
At the end of the day, until we hold the City, County, and State accountable, this problem will not improve—especially if their policies have helped turn Portland into a destination for people looking for a place where street drug use is tolerated with relatively few consequences.
Thanks to everyone, friends and neighbors, on the Pearl Patrol! I’ve been sharing your news with other neighborhood associations interested in replicating your model. You are making a huge difference in multiple ways. I am also advocating that behavioral health be the #1 issue for the City of Portland’s state legislative agenda in 2027. We must address this as well as our need for more public safety resources. Keep up the great work!
Councilor Clark - thank you for being one of the few adult and sane voices on city council. Hopefully District 4 can help you out next year by removing Mitch Green and replacing him with someone who actually cares about the neighborhoods they are paid to represent.
Councilor Clark - thanks for reading and responding.
Wanted to call out a couple of things that I am hoping you can say has the mayor’s attention.
1. If you look at the people in the Pearl Patrol a large portion of them are elderly. I give the PDNA and the volunteers a lot of admiration, but what does it say about the city that what is lauded as a model neighborhood project amounts to a vulnerable population trying to help another vulnerable one, the latter of which has had me now carrying pepper spray because of the psychosis that happens without warning?
2. The surveying done by the Pearl Patrol noting the large percentage of new arrivals from other states is huge. How do we turn around the attractiveness for this, especially when our legal system is not where it should be?
I don’t expect you to have these answers - just hoping the mayor does. Or will.
LA, it's true that a significant percentage of our PDNA volunteers are retired professionals from all walks of life, because their schedules are more free for civic volunteerism. That said, we also have quite a few volunteers who are younger and employed, so we offer a number of weekend and weeknight time slots for walks to accommodate them. Ages 21+ are welcome!
Great to see this program revived, building on the great success of the Pearl District Foot Patrol which many of us helped establish in the early 2010s to address the same issues as the 2.0 version is dealing with.
Foot patrols in the Pearl go back to the early days of the neighborhood association.
Former Pearl District Association President Neilson Abeel recalls that Carol Smith Larson, Wilbur Larson, Dan Dehen, Larry and Denise Grimes and others were part patrolled in the mid-1990s.
I’d like the city council/mayor/county reps to respond to the fact that most of the homeless in The Pearl have recently come here from other places. I’d like them to tell us whether they think buildings being burned down in our neighborhood and the need for out of pocket private security and citizen foot patrols (while they remove police budget) to maintain even a semblance of normality is reasonable.
This is a result of our permissive to the point of masochistic policies around camping, drug use, and other crime. Cities around the US are getting cleaned up and we are getting dumped on, and this is backed up in the statistics. This should be priority number one for our feckless “leaders” but they’re too busy on their flavor of the week ideologically driven “issues” and shouting into the void how much they hate Trump.
This. There has long been given the narrative that residents of the Pearl are a bunch of NIMBYs preying on those down on their luck. Last I checked being down on your luck doesn’t amount to going to another state to live on the streets there. Obviously it is hard to say without further information from the people themselves how they ended up here, but the result is the same. The city has built an attractive environment for the open-air drug use and dismissal (or enforcement) of basic rules. Drug dealers are not the business owners we’re trying to attract but are. Unless there is a change in consequences we’ll continue to be attracting those that know they will have it easy here.
The Pearl Patrol deserves credit for getting involved, reporting problems, attempting to help connect people with services, and in some cases even getting emergency help to people who needed it. But at the citywide level, this is still a whack-a-mole problem. If increased patrols move people out of the Pearl, they often just turn up in the South Park Blocks or another neighborhood.
Without a broader city and county strategy, we are effectively treating these people as a negative externality, passing them from neighborhood to neighborhood like last week’s garbage. We say we care about them, but too often the practical response is simply to move them somewhere else.
There is also a risk that successful neighborhood patrols reduce the urgency for city and public health officials to develop a real solution. The problems described here—severe addiction, mental illness, medical crises, and chronic homelessness—are simply beyond the capabilities of well-meaning volunteers. No offense to the volunteers, but if Portland Police were unable to investigate murders, we wouldn’t expect a neighborhood patrol to step in and solve homicide cases. The same principle applies here. Neighborhood involvement is valuable, but it cannot substitute for functioning public institutions.
At the end of the day, until we hold the City, County, and State accountable, this problem will not improve—especially if their policies have helped turn Portland into a destination for people looking for a place where street drug use is tolerated with relatively few consequences.
This program is a GREAT idea. I hope it continues and expands. City government and police should respond and contribute in kind.
Thanks to everyone, friends and neighbors, on the Pearl Patrol! I’ve been sharing your news with other neighborhood associations interested in replicating your model. You are making a huge difference in multiple ways. I am also advocating that behavioral health be the #1 issue for the City of Portland’s state legislative agenda in 2027. We must address this as well as our need for more public safety resources. Keep up the great work!
Councilor Clark - thank you for being one of the few adult and sane voices on city council. Hopefully District 4 can help you out next year by removing Mitch Green and replacing him with someone who actually cares about the neighborhoods they are paid to represent.
Councilor Clark - thanks for reading and responding.
Wanted to call out a couple of things that I am hoping you can say has the mayor’s attention.
1. If you look at the people in the Pearl Patrol a large portion of them are elderly. I give the PDNA and the volunteers a lot of admiration, but what does it say about the city that what is lauded as a model neighborhood project amounts to a vulnerable population trying to help another vulnerable one, the latter of which has had me now carrying pepper spray because of the psychosis that happens without warning?
2. The surveying done by the Pearl Patrol noting the large percentage of new arrivals from other states is huge. How do we turn around the attractiveness for this, especially when our legal system is not where it should be?
I don’t expect you to have these answers - just hoping the mayor does. Or will.
LA, it's true that a significant percentage of our PDNA volunteers are retired professionals from all walks of life, because their schedules are more free for civic volunteerism. That said, we also have quite a few volunteers who are younger and employed, so we offer a number of weekend and weeknight time slots for walks to accommodate them. Ages 21+ are welcome!