I agree totally with Joe. The City government is not being realistic about solutions to this huge problem. Moreover, our so-called representatives are hiding with their heads beneath various pillows. The Mayor and all 3 District Councillors refused to attend a Monday night meeting of the Pearl and NW District Association to discuss this problem.
I agree 100%.......whats wrong with these people? don't they ever go downtown. don't they ever talk to the people who live there. they are making the problem worse not better. tax payers have spent over a billion dollars and there are more homeless now than two years ago. They are just moving drug addicts from neighborhood to neighborhood...please stop
Joe’s comments are spot on. My wife and I moved to the Pearl District in 2009 from San Diego and had six wonderful years living in that neighborhood. Around 2015, things went to hell in a handbasket with two feckless mayors in a row who failed to respond to the rapid decline in livability and safety in the Pearl due to drug addicts destroying and stealing property and assaulting innocent residents on a regular basis. We had enough and sold our Pearl condo for a huge loss in 2023 and now live happily in Clackamas County where law enforcement is present and lawlessness is not tolerated.
I fear this new City Council, largely controlled by the DSA, will never acquiesce to any type of reform which affects their base (NGOs and the Homeless Industrial Complex) nor their ideological affinity for seeing taxpayers not as people to be served, but oppressors to be milked. Admitting drug addiction and mental illness are the problem rather than greedy landlords or “end stage capitalism” would be a bitter pill for the Social Justice Warrior crowd to swallow and I’m not holding my breath that rationality or cost effectiveness will ever enter into their equation.
All of these upcoming vacant condos will make lovely homes for young, hard working, Pearl families, disabled veterans, and students. Think of all of the good we will do in the coming years!
I worked in mental health as a psychiatrist for years in Portland and have a lot of experience treating all kinds of mild, moderate and severe mental disorders. Mental health laws are failing both the city and the citizens who need care. Unfortunately, the latest civil commitment law, HB 2005, which likely will be signed by Governor Kotek, is unlikely to lead to improvement. What is needed is a more practical law, one which functions in the city continuously, would involve litigation surrounding civil commitment in city hospitals and one that would provide both for consideration of the liberty interests of those with mental disorders along with the rights of citizens for a safe, civil, and beautiful public square(environment). I am promoting such a plan, called The Portland Oregon Civil Commitment Plan. It is innovative and addresses what much of the country is feelings, that is despair, over the severely mentally ill "rotting with their rights on", which is what has been happening nationally for years. My plan calls for law enforcement to hold the severely mentally ill accountable, just like others, and follows it up with civil commitment in local hospitals with a maximum duration of 6 weeks. That will give them a chance at changing the course of their life and I think a lot will be successful in doing so. Good modern psychiatric care in hospitals for a relatively short period can be very helpful for those with severe disorders. A plan such as this would make the possibility of shelters more acceptable because it would allow for law enforcement to intervene and jail people creating a public disturbance or violating the law around the shelters, while at the same time allow for hospital care following jail giving the person the opportunity to address their underlying problem.
Wouldn't it have been nice if the denizens of the Pearl had written letters and protested when bums were stuffed into many other neighborhoods? And I don't see them bitching about the many other "services" for the feral in this town, including tax-free flophouses such as the one where three cops met a "formerly homeless" man who had been acting out his mental illness for days before the cops were finally called (where were the owners during that time? Don't ask.). I don't see the Pearl nabobs lobbying for get-serious mental health commitments or a crackdown on illegal block-the-sidewalks camping...or on the moronic do-gooders distributing tents and tarps.
The Pearl has been actively addressing the very problems you’ve pointed out in the surrounding NW area—specifically in areas where we can take direct action. For years now, and entirely at residents’ expense, we’ve stepped up where city and county services have failed us by creating the NWCC. This organization has arguably done more to connect individuals with real, tangible support than any government entity involved.
At the same time, residents here have been consistently pushing for the city and county to implement broad, systemic solutions—because lasting change depends on improvements across all neighborhoods. That is exactly the point being made in this letter, which you seem to have overlooked.
As someone who has also been actively advocating for other parts of the city that are facing similar challenges—including St. Johns and NE Portland—I take serious issue with your implication that people in the Pearl have only recently started to care. That’s flatly false and ignores the significant and ongoing advocacy being done by this community and individuals like myself.
Frankly, it’s absurd to suggest that a neighborhood already bearing more than its share of the homelessness and addiction crisis should now be blamed for the broader failures of city leadership. That expectation is weird and unreasonable—you should turn your anger and expectations towards the people you pay your taxes to, not another eroding neighborhood.
I agree totally with Joe. The City government is not being realistic about solutions to this huge problem. Moreover, our so-called representatives are hiding with their heads beneath various pillows. The Mayor and all 3 District Councillors refused to attend a Monday night meeting of the Pearl and NW District Association to discuss this problem.
I agree 100%.......whats wrong with these people? don't they ever go downtown. don't they ever talk to the people who live there. they are making the problem worse not better. tax payers have spent over a billion dollars and there are more homeless now than two years ago. They are just moving drug addicts from neighborhood to neighborhood...please stop
Joe’s comments are spot on. My wife and I moved to the Pearl District in 2009 from San Diego and had six wonderful years living in that neighborhood. Around 2015, things went to hell in a handbasket with two feckless mayors in a row who failed to respond to the rapid decline in livability and safety in the Pearl due to drug addicts destroying and stealing property and assaulting innocent residents on a regular basis. We had enough and sold our Pearl condo for a huge loss in 2023 and now live happily in Clackamas County where law enforcement is present and lawlessness is not tolerated.
Extremely well said.
I fear this new City Council, largely controlled by the DSA, will never acquiesce to any type of reform which affects their base (NGOs and the Homeless Industrial Complex) nor their ideological affinity for seeing taxpayers not as people to be served, but oppressors to be milked. Admitting drug addiction and mental illness are the problem rather than greedy landlords or “end stage capitalism” would be a bitter pill for the Social Justice Warrior crowd to swallow and I’m not holding my breath that rationality or cost effectiveness will ever enter into their equation.
All of these upcoming vacant condos will make lovely homes for young, hard working, Pearl families, disabled veterans, and students. Think of all of the good we will do in the coming years!
I worked in mental health as a psychiatrist for years in Portland and have a lot of experience treating all kinds of mild, moderate and severe mental disorders. Mental health laws are failing both the city and the citizens who need care. Unfortunately, the latest civil commitment law, HB 2005, which likely will be signed by Governor Kotek, is unlikely to lead to improvement. What is needed is a more practical law, one which functions in the city continuously, would involve litigation surrounding civil commitment in city hospitals and one that would provide both for consideration of the liberty interests of those with mental disorders along with the rights of citizens for a safe, civil, and beautiful public square(environment). I am promoting such a plan, called The Portland Oregon Civil Commitment Plan. It is innovative and addresses what much of the country is feelings, that is despair, over the severely mentally ill "rotting with their rights on", which is what has been happening nationally for years. My plan calls for law enforcement to hold the severely mentally ill accountable, just like others, and follows it up with civil commitment in local hospitals with a maximum duration of 6 weeks. That will give them a chance at changing the course of their life and I think a lot will be successful in doing so. Good modern psychiatric care in hospitals for a relatively short period can be very helpful for those with severe disorders. A plan such as this would make the possibility of shelters more acceptable because it would allow for law enforcement to intervene and jail people creating a public disturbance or violating the law around the shelters, while at the same time allow for hospital care following jail giving the person the opportunity to address their underlying problem.
Wouldn't it have been nice if the denizens of the Pearl had written letters and protested when bums were stuffed into many other neighborhoods? And I don't see them bitching about the many other "services" for the feral in this town, including tax-free flophouses such as the one where three cops met a "formerly homeless" man who had been acting out his mental illness for days before the cops were finally called (where were the owners during that time? Don't ask.). I don't see the Pearl nabobs lobbying for get-serious mental health commitments or a crackdown on illegal block-the-sidewalks camping...or on the moronic do-gooders distributing tents and tarps.
Get real.
The Pearl has been actively addressing the very problems you’ve pointed out in the surrounding NW area—specifically in areas where we can take direct action. For years now, and entirely at residents’ expense, we’ve stepped up where city and county services have failed us by creating the NWCC. This organization has arguably done more to connect individuals with real, tangible support than any government entity involved.
At the same time, residents here have been consistently pushing for the city and county to implement broad, systemic solutions—because lasting change depends on improvements across all neighborhoods. That is exactly the point being made in this letter, which you seem to have overlooked.
As someone who has also been actively advocating for other parts of the city that are facing similar challenges—including St. Johns and NE Portland—I take serious issue with your implication that people in the Pearl have only recently started to care. That’s flatly false and ignores the significant and ongoing advocacy being done by this community and individuals like myself.
Frankly, it’s absurd to suggest that a neighborhood already bearing more than its share of the homelessness and addiction crisis should now be blamed for the broader failures of city leadership. That expectation is weird and unreasonable—you should turn your anger and expectations towards the people you pay your taxes to, not another eroding neighborhood.