Portland overdose crisis made worse by city’s enabling
Normalizing drug use doesn't work
From Michelle Milla
Yesterday, I watched a man nearly die. A homeless individual overdosed right next to our building. Another unhoused neighbor administered Narcan and revived him. That person saved a life.
Within minutes, Fire Engine No. 3 and an ambulance arrived. I counted seven emergency service professionals on the scene, including someone from Central City Concern, all working with care, precision and urgency.
This is what is happening in our neighborhoods. It is a near constant and coming at a staggering human and financial cost. How many more of these calls can our system absorb before it breaks?
Emergency personnel are doing a damn fine job, but the volume of overdose calls—often preventable—diverts them from other urgent needs. Our safety infrastructure wasn’t designed for this level of burnout and neither were our neighborhoods.
Portland’s overdose crisis is one consequence of the city’s culture of enablement,
in which policies meant to reduce harm have instead allowed harm to multiply. Narcan is saving lives, and it is also being used as a crutch for a system that refuses to intervene upstream. Day after day, emergency responders are dispatched to the same corners, treating the same individuals and often for entirely preventable overdoses.
Normalizing drug use shifts the burden onto first responders and taxpayers alike. We’re living in a city of harm deferral, not reduction. We are not helping people recover, we’re helping them survive just long enough to overdose again tomorrow.
This isn’t about blame. Let’s get real for a minute. Compassion must be matched with accountability, and public safety cannot be an afterthought. Each overdose call isn’t just a moment of crisis, it is a ripple effect tying up resources pulled from a system operating in the deficit of unanswered and delayed calls across Portland and beyond. Our emergency and safety workers deserve so much better than this.
We must ask if this is the city we want?
Michelle Milla chairs Stadiumhood Neighbors, a group formed last year to address livability issues near Providence Park.
If you are using the term “unhoused neighbor” you are contributing to the problem. The woke speak euphemisms need to go. They empower the people who have destroyed the city.
Has anybody looked hard into how much of the activity of Portland's fire engines is being directed at responding to drug overdoses, how much ofd the department's budget is being eaten up for these calls and whether sending a fire truck each time makes any sense?