Speaking for myself and the testimony I wrote in supporting IRP - it’s not that I think Wilson’s shelter plan is great or a long term solution. In fact, I think it unfairly overburdens the neighborhoods they put these in, because the city does not follow through on their promises they make in regards to keeping the neighborhood safe. Is there some reason the Pearl can’t get even a normal police presence at some point? Why are known hotbeds of drug activity allowed to continue blocks away from the shelter, as the article points out? Going to Safeway is a crappy experience pretty much any time of day and the Asa alcove remains open to drug dealing. Businesses and residents continue to struggle to exist here. Why is it so difficult to just address these things? Why is any camping allowed at all (there are still tents around 405) or disruptive loitering in our parks? People were forced to “choose a side” on the IRP issue because we all know that if they defunded IRP then we’d be stuck living with these low barrier shelters in our neighborhoods AND not even the minimum amount of garbage pick-up or whatever they are providing now, because ultimately this city council doesn’t care about taxpayer livibility whatsoever. The DSA pretending the 4M they were hoping to redirect was going to make any sort of difference to the overall problem if they just used it “their way” was a complete joke, and I hope Mitch Green goes down in the next election for betraying a large part of his constituents with that frankly malicious move on the few services we do receive to help combat the constant issues we deal with.
If Wilson thinks the way to revitalize the city center was imbedding hundreds of low barrier overnight shelter beds, then letting the inhabitants roam the neighborhoods all day, he’s delusional. His plan I’m sure seems more appealing if you don’t live blocks from a shelter. Unfortunately, thousands of us now do.
The weather helps I think. Whether it's getting better or not on the streets, I can't say. But it's better than doing nothing which almost became a reality because of the Morillo/Green sneak attack. This isnt housing. It's a bed for the night in the cold and dreary winter. I hope that most on the street benefit from it. But they are out on those streets from 6am - 8pm regardless. Baby steps. But I want this to succeed so we can get things fully ambulatory.
We are moving a problem around. It is clearly better during the fay around Safeway Downtown, the South Park Blocks and the Portland Art Museum, but the efforts of the expanded Clean and Safe District and the additional foot traffic from the renovated Portland Art Museum have efficiently and effectively moved the daytime drug use and mental health problem elsewhere. With the help of a needed new day center service, OASIS, the flow went back to Old Town, where the bulk of homeless services have been concentrated. People and now able to do laundry, get showers and fresh clothing, connect to services and even participate in medically assisted outpatient treatment. Naturally, the "overflow has to go somewhere, so it moves into the Pearl and any spot that is lacking oversight equal to to what is provided elsewhere. It flows like water. At night, everywhere in the Central City is the province of the homeless with behavioral health and the dealers who service them. I dare you to set an alarm, get in your car and take a drive through Downtown, Old Town, Goose Hollow, Northwest and Lloyd District or the Central Eastside from 1:00 to 3:00 AM. There is a lot of activity, and if you don't have agency with those with behavioral health illness, you will not feel safe. That is why you see so many people sleeping in alcoves and on sidewalks during the day. Clean and Safe does a count monthly during these hours. The numbers are stunning. That is why I believe that the shelters are at once a success and a failure. They work for some, they don't touch the problem for the rest. By now, anybody who reads my comments knows that the problem is lack of treatment, and that as a recovered addict, I am convinced that is because we need to obligate addicts and people with psychosis to engage in treatment; for their own good and for the rest of us. In my opinion, Multnomah County and Portland especially, despite its best efforts, has a problem with democracy. It is too interested in ideology and not asking all voters about all the things they need to be happy and secure. More on that later.
I support Mayor Wilson's shelter plan which is the unfortunate necessity of a city that has made mistakes in handling the homeless and severe mental illness problems downtown and elsewhere. On the other hand, it is missing a necessary component, that being short term, civil commitments in local general hospitals, with hearings within 12 hours by a judge. Many of the severely mentally ill will not go to a shelter, perhaps because they are too paranoid to stand it, or perhaps because they have addictions and are intoxicated. People have to be reasonably civil and mentally stable to handle a shelter and there are security concerns with sheltering people who aren't stable and sober. For those who are breaking public laws, jail may be the solution which will get them someplace warm, with the possibility of mental health care and care for physical problems. If they are severely mentally ill, after punishment for their infraction, they can be committed to local hospital units to detox them, medicate them if necessary, and to help them get stable mentally. When cleaned up and stabilized, they can think about what choices they have for a future off the street, including possible housing if they maintain compliance and abstinence. Effective treatment in the hospital will require a substituted consent model of treatment as many will obstruct proper care for themselves, driven as they are by insane cravings for drugs, or voices and delusions. Finally, let's stop the county from handing out needles to drug addicts and stop PPOP from handing them out also. It is not proper, to give needles to people without a medical prescription, and doctors should not be writing them for this purpose. Much less the county or other organizations. The state and city should follow the lead of Texas and Nevada and outlaw syringe services programs which have legalized something that leads to the spread of drug addiction culture and also the death by overdose by many individuals. It puts more needles on the street often used by multiple people spreading Hepatitis C. Passing out needles is not harm reduction. It is spreading the harm.
Linking the reality of what Portland citizens in general think to the self-selected (and often borderline sane) comments to the City Council is a fool's errand. There's a reason our councillors dine on pizza during "public" comments.
The idea that homelessness (a misnomer) is "getting better" is based on no reliable metrics; the problem is now in the "move it around and no one will notice" phase of the massive giveaway to what's now known as "Homelessness Inc." You would do better to simply watch the daily drop from Kevin Dahlgren--who has never, to my recollection, testified before the City Council--nor would he be invited to.
Speaking for myself and the testimony I wrote in supporting IRP - it’s not that I think Wilson’s shelter plan is great or a long term solution. In fact, I think it unfairly overburdens the neighborhoods they put these in, because the city does not follow through on their promises they make in regards to keeping the neighborhood safe. Is there some reason the Pearl can’t get even a normal police presence at some point? Why are known hotbeds of drug activity allowed to continue blocks away from the shelter, as the article points out? Going to Safeway is a crappy experience pretty much any time of day and the Asa alcove remains open to drug dealing. Businesses and residents continue to struggle to exist here. Why is it so difficult to just address these things? Why is any camping allowed at all (there are still tents around 405) or disruptive loitering in our parks? People were forced to “choose a side” on the IRP issue because we all know that if they defunded IRP then we’d be stuck living with these low barrier shelters in our neighborhoods AND not even the minimum amount of garbage pick-up or whatever they are providing now, because ultimately this city council doesn’t care about taxpayer livibility whatsoever. The DSA pretending the 4M they were hoping to redirect was going to make any sort of difference to the overall problem if they just used it “their way” was a complete joke, and I hope Mitch Green goes down in the next election for betraying a large part of his constituents with that frankly malicious move on the few services we do receive to help combat the constant issues we deal with.
If Wilson thinks the way to revitalize the city center was imbedding hundreds of low barrier overnight shelter beds, then letting the inhabitants roam the neighborhoods all day, he’s delusional. His plan I’m sure seems more appealing if you don’t live blocks from a shelter. Unfortunately, thousands of us now do.
The weather helps I think. Whether it's getting better or not on the streets, I can't say. But it's better than doing nothing which almost became a reality because of the Morillo/Green sneak attack. This isnt housing. It's a bed for the night in the cold and dreary winter. I hope that most on the street benefit from it. But they are out on those streets from 6am - 8pm regardless. Baby steps. But I want this to succeed so we can get things fully ambulatory.
We are moving a problem around. It is clearly better during the fay around Safeway Downtown, the South Park Blocks and the Portland Art Museum, but the efforts of the expanded Clean and Safe District and the additional foot traffic from the renovated Portland Art Museum have efficiently and effectively moved the daytime drug use and mental health problem elsewhere. With the help of a needed new day center service, OASIS, the flow went back to Old Town, where the bulk of homeless services have been concentrated. People and now able to do laundry, get showers and fresh clothing, connect to services and even participate in medically assisted outpatient treatment. Naturally, the "overflow has to go somewhere, so it moves into the Pearl and any spot that is lacking oversight equal to to what is provided elsewhere. It flows like water. At night, everywhere in the Central City is the province of the homeless with behavioral health and the dealers who service them. I dare you to set an alarm, get in your car and take a drive through Downtown, Old Town, Goose Hollow, Northwest and Lloyd District or the Central Eastside from 1:00 to 3:00 AM. There is a lot of activity, and if you don't have agency with those with behavioral health illness, you will not feel safe. That is why you see so many people sleeping in alcoves and on sidewalks during the day. Clean and Safe does a count monthly during these hours. The numbers are stunning. That is why I believe that the shelters are at once a success and a failure. They work for some, they don't touch the problem for the rest. By now, anybody who reads my comments knows that the problem is lack of treatment, and that as a recovered addict, I am convinced that is because we need to obligate addicts and people with psychosis to engage in treatment; for their own good and for the rest of us. In my opinion, Multnomah County and Portland especially, despite its best efforts, has a problem with democracy. It is too interested in ideology and not asking all voters about all the things they need to be happy and secure. More on that later.
I support Mayor Wilson's shelter plan which is the unfortunate necessity of a city that has made mistakes in handling the homeless and severe mental illness problems downtown and elsewhere. On the other hand, it is missing a necessary component, that being short term, civil commitments in local general hospitals, with hearings within 12 hours by a judge. Many of the severely mentally ill will not go to a shelter, perhaps because they are too paranoid to stand it, or perhaps because they have addictions and are intoxicated. People have to be reasonably civil and mentally stable to handle a shelter and there are security concerns with sheltering people who aren't stable and sober. For those who are breaking public laws, jail may be the solution which will get them someplace warm, with the possibility of mental health care and care for physical problems. If they are severely mentally ill, after punishment for their infraction, they can be committed to local hospital units to detox them, medicate them if necessary, and to help them get stable mentally. When cleaned up and stabilized, they can think about what choices they have for a future off the street, including possible housing if they maintain compliance and abstinence. Effective treatment in the hospital will require a substituted consent model of treatment as many will obstruct proper care for themselves, driven as they are by insane cravings for drugs, or voices and delusions. Finally, let's stop the county from handing out needles to drug addicts and stop PPOP from handing them out also. It is not proper, to give needles to people without a medical prescription, and doctors should not be writing them for this purpose. Much less the county or other organizations. The state and city should follow the lead of Texas and Nevada and outlaw syringe services programs which have legalized something that leads to the spread of drug addiction culture and also the death by overdose by many individuals. It puts more needles on the street often used by multiple people spreading Hepatitis C. Passing out needles is not harm reduction. It is spreading the harm.
Linking the reality of what Portland citizens in general think to the self-selected (and often borderline sane) comments to the City Council is a fool's errand. There's a reason our councillors dine on pizza during "public" comments.
The idea that homelessness (a misnomer) is "getting better" is based on no reliable metrics; the problem is now in the "move it around and no one will notice" phase of the massive giveaway to what's now known as "Homelessness Inc." You would do better to simply watch the daily drop from Kevin Dahlgren--who has never, to my recollection, testified before the City Council--nor would he be invited to.