It is also important to note that mandated treatment is capable of reaching the entire population, including those who are unable or unwilling to seek help.. We need both.
It is always important to examine people’s motives when looking at any political policy stance. This is especially true with the issue of drug treatment in Oregon. An industry has grown up around it. That is not necessarily bad, but it can be if society’s goal is for certain problems to go away or shrink to a manageable level. That is what the goals should be around addiction and related homelessness. Our policies don’t match that urgency and we need to keep asking why. Allan, I think you have hit on one here. We need to make sure our policies match the urgency of the situation. They are not with Moyer, so what are the true motives?
Thank you Allan…..one treatment does not work for everyone and anyone paying attention is coming to the conclusion that deferment is not working in Portland. If Moyer was paying attention she would have already come to that conclusion.
The sheer audacity of anyone connected to the current county leadership claiming they “know” what they’re doing would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so serious. Under this newer administration, homelessness has exploded, and somehow they’ve managed to set the bar even lower than it already was. Anyone with functioning eyes who actually spends time in this city (do these people even live here?) can see hands-off, “we don’t want to violate your rights” posture has done nothing but let the crisis metastasize.
At some point, you’d hope voters wake up and demand leaders with basic common sense and real-world experience—experience outside the homeless industrial complex—who can connect the obvious dots: if the streets aren’t restored to order, the city will keep sliding into decline. There is no “right” to camp on sidewalks, trash neighborhoods, and openly do drugs. There *is* a right for residents to safely walk their own streets and for businesses to operate without daily encounters with unstable, drug-addled street campers. Moyer needs to get a clue or we need to get a new representative.
I attended this Friday meeting, and it was basically Meghan Moyer enthusiastically agreeing with all the problems pointed out, but then quickly pointing her finger at pretty much every other elected official for why we can't do anything about these problems.
A night shelter in the Pearl creating massive negative consequences for the neighborhood? Moyer agrees and apparently sternly told the mayor that more needed to be done. What about the County's resources as the mental health authority, as well as hundreds of millions in homeless services tax revenue every year to address this problem? No plan was mentioned, and certainly Moyer has not proposed a plan before the County Commission.
People with serious mental illness roaming our streets, sometimes hurting themselves, sometimes hurting innocent passersby? Well, that's the governor's fault, and according to Moyer she knows Governor Kotek is upset by her scathing criticism. Beyond upsetting other politicians -- no plan. This January, the state legislature's expanded civil commitment law will go into effect. The county has hundreds of employees that can initiate temporary civil commitment to diagnose and triage the needy. But Moyer didn't see a way to expand civil commitments because, well, the governor isn't doing her job and the judicial commitment process was too cumbersome. (Again, let's not forget that the county is the local mental health authority).
Rampant drug use and overdoses on the streets and a deflection center that is failing to get people into treatment? Moyer acknowledged that numerous counties (including Washington and Clackamas) are doing a better job at getting people into treatment. So why has she not gathered three votes on the County Commission to change our failed policies to ones more similar to that of Washington or Clackamas Counties? Apparently Moyer has a plan, and hopefully the people overdosing on the streets can hang in there long enough for that plan to see the light of day.
Our low cost housing is too expensive? As someone that has built low cost housing for nonprofits, Moyer agrees. She believes the county should build low-cost housing. How does the county get into the the housing business without raising taxes or taking money away from other services? Or for that matter why would the county be any better at lowering construction costs than the city or metro? Well, there's no real plan so the pesky details don't matter much.
I appreciated all the concerned residents that raised good points about the future of their city. However, I came away wondering how our District 1 representative could agree with all the problems but not point to any policies that she's passed on the County Commission that would meaningfully address those problems.
Excellent commentary Allen and spot on! Meghan Moyer’s ideological purity was absolutely demonstrated for all to see when she refused to support Disability Rights’ legitimate and necessary lawsuit against the City for abandoning the sidewalks to squatters, in violation of laws allowing disabled people access. Her elitism has been palpable for years, although she’s apparently toning it down some for less gullible audiences.
The evidence that forced treatment can work, and that voluntary-only approaches have failed at scale, is all true—and it clarifies something many people have suspected for years. The crises of homelessness, addiction, and untreated mental illness didn’t just arise on their own. They are partly the result of choices made by elected officials. When people in power believe that almost any form of pressure or enforcement is wrong, and then turn those beliefs into policy, the public lives with the consequences.
Meghan Moyer has now been unusually open about where she stands. That matters, because it shows that the hands-off approach isn’t an accident or a temporary misstep—it’s a governing philosophy. And it has been imposed on neighborhoods, businesses, and taxpayers who never agreed to it.
For reformers, the next step is straightforward. Either persuade officials like Moyer to change their views, or replace them. But that effort needs to be public and unmistakable. Voters who are angry and exhausted need to see that there is organized opposition to the status quo, and that continued disorder is not inevitable. Quiet disagreement hasn’t worked. Clear disagreement, backed by political action, is the only thing that will.
Thank you, Allan. After reading the first article, I found much of what she said highly questionable. I appreciate the soberness of this follow-up. It is certainly clear that Moyer is a champion of the abuser with no interest in finding help for all on the streets or for the city's citizens.
She is quoted: "...insist(ing) that forcing people into drug treatment does not work. Nor does she support civil commitment to confine people who may be a danger to themselves or others, which she says is enormously expensive, violates their rights and is rarely appropriate."
I am a fellow who understands best, by parsing such claims to see if logic holds true singularly or in whole. We already know that you cite studies that suggests that forced assistance has slightly better results. So her decision to ignore these and favor only studies that support her bias seems likely. I also remind all that she completely supports "forced treatment" of a sort in endorsing a return to drug courts - where a judge requires they complete treatment. That isn't exactly voluntary, now is it?
Specific to not supporting "forced confinement" to protect the individual or the public seems a perfectly reasonable position, were that extreme the only care choice. But it's not. Let's start by looking at rehab or return to prescriptive medical care without 100% confinement. It's obvious that Moyer is a champion of individual rights and freedoms - even for the substance abusing addict (breaking the law) and the mentally challenged incapable of completely rational thinking. Why can't we talk about and find care solutions that don't require complete confinement, perhaps one that offers a return of freedoms commensurate with making treatment progress? I guess the argument is why throw out some good in these efforts because protecting rights is foremost?
I would argue that among abusers the substance dependency need has much greater decision-making-precedence over any innate or instinctive desire to protect oneself (or others) from harm. Obtaining and maintaining a fix is more important than safe shelter, adequate nourishment or respecting a parked car and it's easily burgled contents. At a certain point their ability to make rational decisions must be thwarted by the effects of drugs and their addictive need to remain sedated. What are we really protecting here, the right to self-destruction?
As for expense, I am not immune to such concerns. But, the real question is: is there really a tipping point where expense no longer justifies helping those unable to help themselves? Worse, is there a tipping point where you'd rather maintain status quo with suffering abusers on the streets rather than see they are given the chance for permanent rehabilitation? Across the aisle, when I talk with friends of both parties, we seem to agree on this: do what is necessary to give them direct opportunity for permanent treatment, try to provide protections against relapse and if the individual chooses to return to self-destruction after treatment, assume they can't be helped by society. (That doesn't mean they can't be helped by private charities or religious organizations, but only that municipal secular assistance can offer no solution for those returning to a destructive path. Criminal incarceration when guilty of crime will be the last resort.)
Now as for rights, I am sensitive to this too. And yet, in the first article she only refers to these mentally ill people as "offenders." So am I to assume her meeting only focused on caring for substance abusers who have been arrested and found guilty of a crime, and as "offenders" must perform some court-mandated penance? And her sole preference for this is a drug court requiring them to obtain and complete treatment? That is not a form of "forced treatment?" Or is forced treatment okay, as long as there is no enforced incarceration?
I am confused by her logic.
Those found guilty of crime are often put in forced incarceration, their freedom to move freely in society is taken from them for a proscribed period of time. Does she advocate this be abolished too? Or is it merely fair to take the freedom of criminals, but not criminals with a dependency habit? And I might go so far as to say that it is likely that all substance abusers living on the street, succeed in doing so, only for as long as they are not caught, arrested and prosecuted on any number of violations of law, from trespass, unlawful encampment, theft, sale of stolen goods, conversion of stolen goods, littering, public intoxication, public indecency, public urination and defecation, purchase of unlawful drugs and public use of illegal narcotics. And they regularly break these laws in order to maintain their habit - which becomes the critical life goal over personal, public or property safety. Yea, they are not of very sound mind.
So she concludes that a meager list of biased and not wholly truthful or logical reasons arrives at the conclusion that acting alternatively (to her bias list) is "rarely appropriate." That's pretty magical. But, I see no evidence of a series of logical steps that lead to such a conclusion. What am I missing?
And lastly, was her meeting and discussion really about assisting the mentally ill living on the streets or merely those who are substance abusers? According to a Google search, the federal government reports that only about 50% of all substance abusers suffer mental illness. The rest are abusers without underlying mental health conditions. And how does she want to address both: 1) addicts struggling on the streets that are not yet arrested for a crime and are not labeled "offenders" and 2) the mentally ill that are not substance abusers, but merely choose to live on the streets and off prescriptions that might help them maintain a more emotionally regulated life and possibly provide them more rational thinking. I know my schizophrenic brother is able to make more self-protective decisions when under prescriptive treatment than when off his meds and hearing voices.
It appears Moyer gave us a lot of good reasons to have a dialog about this and look more closely at solutions outside the limits of her bias. But, if we must, I am ready for a debate on where individual rights do or do not take precedence over public rights. In the history of human kind, it appears to me (but, I am happy to be proven wrong) that most laws (moral or otherwise) were created to protect the greatest number (society.) Yes, many may pertain to limiting the actions of the individual, but those actions are meant to be tempered in order to protect the tribe. I am not sure there are all that many sacrifices being asked of these particular homeless types, but I am less certain that asking a few, to benefit society, is wrong either.
To lead with the end, if treatment works, whether voluntary or compulsory, but simply that it works, then isn't treatment started sooner rather than later optimal?
Politicians tolerating civic harms indefinitely without effective interventions and continually asking housed citizens and business owners to subsidize such a process through taxation AND reduced equity or business viability is bound to lead to resentment, which is civically corrosive. Expecting timely effective government interventions, even possibly compulsory ones, is not cruelty.
I don't envy any involved on the public policy side as protecting the rights of individuals is critical, but so is protecting an individual from oneself where health and safety are at stake.
To step back from whether compulsory treatment works, I find myself starting with what are the obligations a citizenry owes to one another and then what is the role of government. These are not wasteful philosophical questions because "what is democracy" if not such philosophical questions as a starting point to which we pass a variety of answers through the prism of the social contract, and representative government in search of public policy solutions.
Where addiction or mental illness severely impairs rational agency for an individual I suggest that a responsibility to others may be mitigated but I don't believe it is erased. I find much of the conversation in Portland to be suggesting that there is a citizenry to whom obligations are solely owed. I accept that it is unreasonable to expect a civic contribution where the conditions of compromised autonomy and agency are, at least in part, the result of social structural failure, yet I also expect the contribution of initiating recovery
I worry some politicians are not merely single issue pols but are now governing as single constituency politicians. Mayor Wilson even went as far as an email asking his constituents, all Portlanders, to make private donations to address the homeless crisis. I have not read or heard from him similar urgency asking his constituents to support local business.
I end as I began, if treatment works, whether voluntary or compulsory, but simply that it works, then isn't treatment started sooner rather than later optimal?
Forces drug treatment will never work. An addict has have the want to quit. I know, I was addicted to meth until I got tired of it and quit. To force someone will only create resentment and they will go back to using.
I think we will see an increase in civil commitment if the county works hard to make it happen. There are still a lot of administrative and legal barriers to making a civil commitment system work both for those with severe disorders, but also for the public welfare.
It is also important to note that mandated treatment is capable of reaching the entire population, including those who are unable or unwilling to seek help.. We need both.
Well said Allan.
It is always important to examine people’s motives when looking at any political policy stance. This is especially true with the issue of drug treatment in Oregon. An industry has grown up around it. That is not necessarily bad, but it can be if society’s goal is for certain problems to go away or shrink to a manageable level. That is what the goals should be around addiction and related homelessness. Our policies don’t match that urgency and we need to keep asking why. Allan, I think you have hit on one here. We need to make sure our policies match the urgency of the situation. They are not with Moyer, so what are the true motives?
Thank you Allan…..one treatment does not work for everyone and anyone paying attention is coming to the conclusion that deferment is not working in Portland. If Moyer was paying attention she would have already come to that conclusion.
Excellent article, Allan.
The sheer audacity of anyone connected to the current county leadership claiming they “know” what they’re doing would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so serious. Under this newer administration, homelessness has exploded, and somehow they’ve managed to set the bar even lower than it already was. Anyone with functioning eyes who actually spends time in this city (do these people even live here?) can see hands-off, “we don’t want to violate your rights” posture has done nothing but let the crisis metastasize.
At some point, you’d hope voters wake up and demand leaders with basic common sense and real-world experience—experience outside the homeless industrial complex—who can connect the obvious dots: if the streets aren’t restored to order, the city will keep sliding into decline. There is no “right” to camp on sidewalks, trash neighborhoods, and openly do drugs. There *is* a right for residents to safely walk their own streets and for businesses to operate without daily encounters with unstable, drug-addled street campers. Moyer needs to get a clue or we need to get a new representative.
I attended this Friday meeting, and it was basically Meghan Moyer enthusiastically agreeing with all the problems pointed out, but then quickly pointing her finger at pretty much every other elected official for why we can't do anything about these problems.
A night shelter in the Pearl creating massive negative consequences for the neighborhood? Moyer agrees and apparently sternly told the mayor that more needed to be done. What about the County's resources as the mental health authority, as well as hundreds of millions in homeless services tax revenue every year to address this problem? No plan was mentioned, and certainly Moyer has not proposed a plan before the County Commission.
People with serious mental illness roaming our streets, sometimes hurting themselves, sometimes hurting innocent passersby? Well, that's the governor's fault, and according to Moyer she knows Governor Kotek is upset by her scathing criticism. Beyond upsetting other politicians -- no plan. This January, the state legislature's expanded civil commitment law will go into effect. The county has hundreds of employees that can initiate temporary civil commitment to diagnose and triage the needy. But Moyer didn't see a way to expand civil commitments because, well, the governor isn't doing her job and the judicial commitment process was too cumbersome. (Again, let's not forget that the county is the local mental health authority).
Rampant drug use and overdoses on the streets and a deflection center that is failing to get people into treatment? Moyer acknowledged that numerous counties (including Washington and Clackamas) are doing a better job at getting people into treatment. So why has she not gathered three votes on the County Commission to change our failed policies to ones more similar to that of Washington or Clackamas Counties? Apparently Moyer has a plan, and hopefully the people overdosing on the streets can hang in there long enough for that plan to see the light of day.
Our low cost housing is too expensive? As someone that has built low cost housing for nonprofits, Moyer agrees. She believes the county should build low-cost housing. How does the county get into the the housing business without raising taxes or taking money away from other services? Or for that matter why would the county be any better at lowering construction costs than the city or metro? Well, there's no real plan so the pesky details don't matter much.
I appreciated all the concerned residents that raised good points about the future of their city. However, I came away wondering how our District 1 representative could agree with all the problems but not point to any policies that she's passed on the County Commission that would meaningfully address those problems.
Excellent commentary Allen and spot on! Meghan Moyer’s ideological purity was absolutely demonstrated for all to see when she refused to support Disability Rights’ legitimate and necessary lawsuit against the City for abandoning the sidewalks to squatters, in violation of laws allowing disabled people access. Her elitism has been palpable for years, although she’s apparently toning it down some for less gullible audiences.
She needs to be voted out of office.
The evidence that forced treatment can work, and that voluntary-only approaches have failed at scale, is all true—and it clarifies something many people have suspected for years. The crises of homelessness, addiction, and untreated mental illness didn’t just arise on their own. They are partly the result of choices made by elected officials. When people in power believe that almost any form of pressure or enforcement is wrong, and then turn those beliefs into policy, the public lives with the consequences.
Meghan Moyer has now been unusually open about where she stands. That matters, because it shows that the hands-off approach isn’t an accident or a temporary misstep—it’s a governing philosophy. And it has been imposed on neighborhoods, businesses, and taxpayers who never agreed to it.
For reformers, the next step is straightforward. Either persuade officials like Moyer to change their views, or replace them. But that effort needs to be public and unmistakable. Voters who are angry and exhausted need to see that there is organized opposition to the status quo, and that continued disorder is not inevitable. Quiet disagreement hasn’t worked. Clear disagreement, backed by political action, is the only thing that will.
Thank you, Allan. After reading the first article, I found much of what she said highly questionable. I appreciate the soberness of this follow-up. It is certainly clear that Moyer is a champion of the abuser with no interest in finding help for all on the streets or for the city's citizens.
She is quoted: "...insist(ing) that forcing people into drug treatment does not work. Nor does she support civil commitment to confine people who may be a danger to themselves or others, which she says is enormously expensive, violates their rights and is rarely appropriate."
I am a fellow who understands best, by parsing such claims to see if logic holds true singularly or in whole. We already know that you cite studies that suggests that forced assistance has slightly better results. So her decision to ignore these and favor only studies that support her bias seems likely. I also remind all that she completely supports "forced treatment" of a sort in endorsing a return to drug courts - where a judge requires they complete treatment. That isn't exactly voluntary, now is it?
Specific to not supporting "forced confinement" to protect the individual or the public seems a perfectly reasonable position, were that extreme the only care choice. But it's not. Let's start by looking at rehab or return to prescriptive medical care without 100% confinement. It's obvious that Moyer is a champion of individual rights and freedoms - even for the substance abusing addict (breaking the law) and the mentally challenged incapable of completely rational thinking. Why can't we talk about and find care solutions that don't require complete confinement, perhaps one that offers a return of freedoms commensurate with making treatment progress? I guess the argument is why throw out some good in these efforts because protecting rights is foremost?
I would argue that among abusers the substance dependency need has much greater decision-making-precedence over any innate or instinctive desire to protect oneself (or others) from harm. Obtaining and maintaining a fix is more important than safe shelter, adequate nourishment or respecting a parked car and it's easily burgled contents. At a certain point their ability to make rational decisions must be thwarted by the effects of drugs and their addictive need to remain sedated. What are we really protecting here, the right to self-destruction?
As for expense, I am not immune to such concerns. But, the real question is: is there really a tipping point where expense no longer justifies helping those unable to help themselves? Worse, is there a tipping point where you'd rather maintain status quo with suffering abusers on the streets rather than see they are given the chance for permanent rehabilitation? Across the aisle, when I talk with friends of both parties, we seem to agree on this: do what is necessary to give them direct opportunity for permanent treatment, try to provide protections against relapse and if the individual chooses to return to self-destruction after treatment, assume they can't be helped by society. (That doesn't mean they can't be helped by private charities or religious organizations, but only that municipal secular assistance can offer no solution for those returning to a destructive path. Criminal incarceration when guilty of crime will be the last resort.)
Now as for rights, I am sensitive to this too. And yet, in the first article she only refers to these mentally ill people as "offenders." So am I to assume her meeting only focused on caring for substance abusers who have been arrested and found guilty of a crime, and as "offenders" must perform some court-mandated penance? And her sole preference for this is a drug court requiring them to obtain and complete treatment? That is not a form of "forced treatment?" Or is forced treatment okay, as long as there is no enforced incarceration?
I am confused by her logic.
Those found guilty of crime are often put in forced incarceration, their freedom to move freely in society is taken from them for a proscribed period of time. Does she advocate this be abolished too? Or is it merely fair to take the freedom of criminals, but not criminals with a dependency habit? And I might go so far as to say that it is likely that all substance abusers living on the street, succeed in doing so, only for as long as they are not caught, arrested and prosecuted on any number of violations of law, from trespass, unlawful encampment, theft, sale of stolen goods, conversion of stolen goods, littering, public intoxication, public indecency, public urination and defecation, purchase of unlawful drugs and public use of illegal narcotics. And they regularly break these laws in order to maintain their habit - which becomes the critical life goal over personal, public or property safety. Yea, they are not of very sound mind.
So she concludes that a meager list of biased and not wholly truthful or logical reasons arrives at the conclusion that acting alternatively (to her bias list) is "rarely appropriate." That's pretty magical. But, I see no evidence of a series of logical steps that lead to such a conclusion. What am I missing?
And lastly, was her meeting and discussion really about assisting the mentally ill living on the streets or merely those who are substance abusers? According to a Google search, the federal government reports that only about 50% of all substance abusers suffer mental illness. The rest are abusers without underlying mental health conditions. And how does she want to address both: 1) addicts struggling on the streets that are not yet arrested for a crime and are not labeled "offenders" and 2) the mentally ill that are not substance abusers, but merely choose to live on the streets and off prescriptions that might help them maintain a more emotionally regulated life and possibly provide them more rational thinking. I know my schizophrenic brother is able to make more self-protective decisions when under prescriptive treatment than when off his meds and hearing voices.
It appears Moyer gave us a lot of good reasons to have a dialog about this and look more closely at solutions outside the limits of her bias. But, if we must, I am ready for a debate on where individual rights do or do not take precedence over public rights. In the history of human kind, it appears to me (but, I am happy to be proven wrong) that most laws (moral or otherwise) were created to protect the greatest number (society.) Yes, many may pertain to limiting the actions of the individual, but those actions are meant to be tempered in order to protect the tribe. I am not sure there are all that many sacrifices being asked of these particular homeless types, but I am less certain that asking a few, to benefit society, is wrong either.
Excellent editorial Allan and much appreciated.
To lead with the end, if treatment works, whether voluntary or compulsory, but simply that it works, then isn't treatment started sooner rather than later optimal?
Politicians tolerating civic harms indefinitely without effective interventions and continually asking housed citizens and business owners to subsidize such a process through taxation AND reduced equity or business viability is bound to lead to resentment, which is civically corrosive. Expecting timely effective government interventions, even possibly compulsory ones, is not cruelty.
I don't envy any involved on the public policy side as protecting the rights of individuals is critical, but so is protecting an individual from oneself where health and safety are at stake.
To step back from whether compulsory treatment works, I find myself starting with what are the obligations a citizenry owes to one another and then what is the role of government. These are not wasteful philosophical questions because "what is democracy" if not such philosophical questions as a starting point to which we pass a variety of answers through the prism of the social contract, and representative government in search of public policy solutions.
Where addiction or mental illness severely impairs rational agency for an individual I suggest that a responsibility to others may be mitigated but I don't believe it is erased. I find much of the conversation in Portland to be suggesting that there is a citizenry to whom obligations are solely owed. I accept that it is unreasonable to expect a civic contribution where the conditions of compromised autonomy and agency are, at least in part, the result of social structural failure, yet I also expect the contribution of initiating recovery
I worry some politicians are not merely single issue pols but are now governing as single constituency politicians. Mayor Wilson even went as far as an email asking his constituents, all Portlanders, to make private donations to address the homeless crisis. I have not read or heard from him similar urgency asking his constituents to support local business.
I end as I began, if treatment works, whether voluntary or compulsory, but simply that it works, then isn't treatment started sooner rather than later optimal?
Forces drug treatment will never work. An addict has have the want to quit. I know, I was addicted to meth until I got tired of it and quit. To force someone will only create resentment and they will go back to using.
I think we will see an increase in civil commitment if the county works hard to make it happen. There are still a lot of administrative and legal barriers to making a civil commitment system work both for those with severe disorders, but also for the public welfare.