Tent city.
Portland had been in the sweet spot. Now, not so much.
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| Beautiful Portland |
Portland possessed a mental niche among cities.
It was Goldilocks, not too big, not too small, just right. It was smaller and cheaper than the two great centers of American technology, San Francisco/Silicon Valley and Seattle, but it had a tech community that could feed off both. Portland was located midway between them, cheaper, more user-friendly, better weather than Seattle, a tiny bit "undiscovered" and avant-garde. It was like Brooklyn had been a couple of decades ago, back when urban pioneers began making it hip. Portland shared something with Austin, another cool city. It had higher taxes than Austin, yes, but Portland was on the West Coast near the tech epicenters, and it was liberal and Democratic, and it was not an island oasis trapped in godawful Texas.
Portland was hip and cool. It called itself "weird," and was proud of it. It had a mayor who posed for a poster "Expose yourself to art;" that was funny and cool. It kept pushing light rail and it had a free transit area downtown. It had an NBA basketball team and it had the University of Oregon track team. If you were young and you jogged, or better yet ran, Oregon was a welcome space. Oregon had craft beer and Willamette Valley pinot noirs. The comedy show "Portlandia" was a big exaggeration, but people had to admit that it wasn't entirely wrong. 
The year 2020 was the summer of its discontent, made inglorious on the national news by the sustained, nightly violence and vandalism that operated under the cover of the George Floyd protests. The violence hijacked the protest message in Portland more than any other city. Trump, Fox, and the GOP exaggerated the problem, but as with Portlandia, there was truth in it. Portland's Democratic leaders appeared unwilling and unable to control the problem of nightly street violence. Too many people agreed that violence is the language of the oppressed. Portland was liberal and progressive, and no one wanted to seem unsympathetic to the protests or seem remotely Trump-like.
The summer of discontent came on top of another problem, one long in the making and so multifaceted in its causes that it confounds solutions that are politically possible: Homelessness. It is a visible problem. People live in tents on the median strips between lanes on highways and alongside them. On park land. On the bits of open space at the entrance to bridges and tunnels. On sidewalks. The relatively affluent homeless--people with enough money for a car or decrepit RV-- park along roadsides. Most lack toilet facilities, and all lack regular garbage service, so trash accumulates.
This blog has suggested a solution to street violence surrounding protests and Capitol insurrections. Distinguish between legal peaceful protest and illegal activities and arrest people doing illegal acts. Prosecute them. Jail them. The difference between legal and illegal preserves Americans' ability to protest.
There is no easy solution to homelessness, though. Few people live on the streets because they refuse to live in nice homes. Homelessness is a result of poverty, mental illness, family breakups, housing costs, poor choices, substance abuse--in short every problem that faces people and America.
Scenes from Portland this week. No longer the sweet spot.
Scenes from Portland this week. No longer the sweet spot.
12 comments:
Homelessness has become a major problem everywhere. Mental illness, drug addiction, life choices, and down on their luck have all contributed. What is society to do? It’s a problem. Provide shelter services that some won’t use would help alleviate some of the numbers. Regan opened up the hospitals saying community mental health would provide the needed services, but then later cut the funding for community mental health. What happened? The mentally ill ended up in jail. In America, prisons provide the needed care for the mentally ill. Jails don’t get to tell the police, no, we don don’t want them. It costs more, but it is the only solution the police have. The mentally ill will get the attention one way or another. The same goes for drug addiction,including alcohol addiction. More alcohol, drug treatment centers? People resent having to pay for all those things, viewing them as free loaders, but read this: they won’t go away on their own.
What, no pics from Forest Park?
Portland is well on its way down the path of increased crime and social disorder that led to the election of New York City Mayor Rudi Giuliani in the 1990s once even the liberals on the Upper West Side couldn’t stand it anymore.
The answer to homelessness seems pretty simple - build homes.
The problem is that those with homes (and those who build and finance them) don’t want “affordable” homes built. A massive program to build affordable apartments in, say Ashland, would result in landlords having to reduce their rents and seeing their property values plummet. Hedge funds and REITs that bought up apt complexes would lose value. It would result in homeowners seeing their property values drop as the invisible hand of supply and demand wiped the bubbly home values out. It would result in our roads, our schools, our shops being more crowded. It would require Ashland to lose its charming small town air and build high density housing. There would be pressure from low income residents to (perish the thought) allow fast food establishments in town! It would require us to reopen closed schools, increasing property taxes. It would require us to lose our pretty views. We would have to cut down trees!!!
The cost to us all of homelessness is an externality. It is a cost that we aren’t directly charged. Like the health costs of air pollution or of global warming…. Hard to directly assign and measure, so easy to ignore. The cost of seeing disturbing filth on the streets, of not allowing your children to go to the park unattended, for fear of them being accosted by a deranged street person, of having a generation of children grow up without a secure roof, of having your car broken into at night by transients living down the street in an old school bus…. These are not seen as costs, but as someone else’s annoying problems to be eliminated, but not at my expense!
Everyone (including me) whose home value has shot up in the past few years has directly economically benefited from homelessness. We can take those profits to the bank, and never have to personally consider the other side of the ledger.
"Affordable" housing as a response to homelessness is a myth, but not because it couldn't be offered and tried. Its efficacy is a myth, because the majority of homeless are compunctionless career takers with no intention of changing or contributing.
How many folks living in the tents and vehicles depicted are remotely capable, even when willing, of obtaining and maintaining regular employment so as to reliably meet a rental obligation, even after that's been subsidized into a fractional amount?
"Free" housing, then? Are there ANY rules, with the state or city as landlord? If they could smoke cigarettes, use drugs and come and go at will, most would would already BE in shelters. Will destructive, sex/drug trafficking "tenants" be (gasp!) evicted?
Take Antifa pop-anarchism conjoined with mouthbreathing, jejune BLM ingratitude, combine it with Portland's longstanding, feckless West Coast white-liberal-savior moralizing, and we have today the very apotheosis and nadir of the "progressive" worldview.
I like Art's comments, but I would have cut them by about two thirds.
Back in the 60's, states realized they could save money by 'mainstreaming' mental health. What it amounted to was kicking the mentally ill out of institutions and letting them wander without supervision or services. It may have saved a little in the short term, but at what cost?
Mike: if u r referring to them in triplicate I agree. No clue how that happened but rest assured, I blame myself.
Mr Trigoboff, you’re an optimist. I’d hope you’re right.
Mr Baden, “Everyone (including me) whose home value has shot up in the past few years has directly economically benefited from homelessness. We can take those profits to the bank.” You can take those profits to the bank only if you move to some other state.
Mr Low Dudgeon, “ Take Antifa pop-anarchism conjoined with mouthbreathing, jejune BLM ingratitude, combine it with Portland's longstanding, feckless West Coast white-liberal-savior moralizing, and we have today the very apotheosis and nadir of the "progressive" worldview.” You’ve got this.
Sally,
In the words of the recently-departed Jackie Mason:
They told me, “Cheer up, things could be worse.”
So I cheered up, and things got worse.
So who wants to live in a housing project? Where gangs roam the hall way knocking out the lights intimidating the infirm and old. Where bannisters are broken off and urine fills the air. Where the doors are smaller and the Windows fewer to save building costs. A whole lot of people would love it. Beats a tent. At least there is a toilet to flush. And if you know the right tenants you can have protection. Of course the elevator doesn’t work and the noise above and next door means you have to sleep with ear plugs. And sometimes you get strange stuff dripping from the ceiling. But it beats a tent and a cardboard bed. Thanks Ronald Reagan , dumping the electroshocked onto the street with shopping carts, the promised social worker never showed up. Can’t even find a cheap motel to crash for the night and a meal ticket at Denny’s.The mission beds are full up. Kick’em out of the greenway, fire starters that burned out Phoenix and Talent. Amerika the beautiful.
A lot has changed since the flower children of the 60’s.
I left Beaverton in fall of 2019 after 45 great years of living there. I still stay in touch with friends, and even pay to receive the Oregonian and Pamplin newspapers - online, of course.
Here new homes start at $200K, and are snapped up as soon as they are built. Existing homes start even lower.
If there's a homeless problem here, it's surely not visible. I've discussed this with many locals, and their response is "they are hard to find".
My friends still in the Oregon metro areas have mixed reactions - it's terrible, it's not as bad as some report, and there's not really a problem because "I" don't see it.
I'm amused by the previous tiny home efforts - only $300K+!
Why is it that a new home on a tiny lot costs $400K+ in Washington County, while a new, 1500 sq ft 3/2 hurricane-sturdy home is only $200K here in Central Florida (with AC, separate water for irrigation and potable use)?
I've exchanged comments with my Oregon representatives simply asking if they have looked at other states who seem to get more for their tax dollars.
Finally, the tolerant leaders simply let Oregon's problems get out of control, and they lack the will power to enforce existing laws and clamp down. Hard decisions are necessary.
It will be too late when those who pay the bulk of the taxes decide things are better elsewhere. That goes for people as well as businesses.
Yes, leaders need to make those hard decisions. Hopefully, a few are still in Oregon.
PS of course, there are problems here in Florida. But nothing like what Oregon, California, and Washington State are experiencing.
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