Another reason the city has gotten better at minimizing sidewalk camping is that they're being sued [by] several disabled people who couldn't navigate the sidewalks. (Not sure where the suit is at present, but I think it's still active.)
That's right and many of us have noticed the same thing. That law suit was filed and things finally started changing. They had better damn well keep changing for the better.
@@Lyn777 I don't think they do. I just used that term to distinguish between tents on sidewalks and tents in parks or underpasses, because those camps aren't part of the lawsuit.
Wish it didn’t have homeless problems no city should ever in first place and they need to never get addictions also go to rehab plus go find a place to live and a place to work at
Former homeless man who still lives in oldtown, personally I've seen many other homeless people just play the victim and refuse to try to obtain a job, mental health services, etc. Even though we were living at the RDNC shelter (which is an incredibly relaxed shelter). I have sympathy for these people to an extent; but at some point they actually have to try to better themselves.
There are people like my neighbor who has not worked in 23 years, sold everything he ever acquired, and now lives with his mother who supports him. He went to the Employment Security Commission and told them his ideal job would be " pirate". He spends his days " resting"(from what????) and drinking.
I met a young homeless guy a few years ago who said he likes being homeless and it's a choice. He said he didn't want to conform to society and follow the rules.
There was just a study done that determined 78% of the homeless in Portland are from out of town. Half of them arrived homeless. Our kindness towards the homeless has crushed us.
Me and a group of my friends took a trip to LA last summer and on the way back our cars check engine turned on in Sacramento…me and one of my friends had work in 2 days so we decided to bus back from sac to Portland, I swear to you 80% of the 30-40 people on the bus were homeless and all of them hopped off somewhere near Portland or in Portland
Yup! Vellyray on TH-cam documents himself talking to them and he always asked where their from and 8/10 people are from out of town and most admit to getting a one way ticket from whoever they came from.
That's my whole problem with this debate. A lot of homeless people on the west coast migrate there from Republican states because it's warmer and more welcoming. But they never admit that - nobody EVER tells the truth about just how much the Democrat states flip the bill, in almost every way, to keep the country afloat. While they enjoy their guns and "freedom of religion", we (the residents of liberal cities) are the ones who have to work overtime and underpaid to pay the taxes that make that possible.
@@darkwoodmovies Where do you get your "facts"? In talking to people on the trail I have found that most come from blue states like Michigan, Illinois and California.
@@luckeduck7347 Wouldn't homeless in California stay there? (real question, not sure what the difference is between CA and OR on homeless care). I'm just going off surveys that determine how many are transplants (at least in California, not sure about OR specifically). I think it ranges from like 15-30% or something? Can't remember, but it's not nothing - and I think more go to SF than LA. It also happens to Hawaii. After digging more into this, seems like a lot of cities (including SF and LA) have actual programs that give free bus rides to homeless willing to relocate somewhere else. The reasoning trends seem to be either 1) the place is too cold, 2) the place is too strict on homeless, or 3) there's too many homeless and the city can't deal with it.
Actually it is worse than you let on. They have just moved out of down town out all the way towards Gresham where I live. Also, If you ask a few homeless they will tell you that Portland makes it easy to be homeless and the word has gotten out all over the west.
The real problem is housing prices, but nobody wants to talk about that. When people can't afford to buy shelter a lot of people end up being homeless. Who would've thought! 🤔
@@peopleofearth6250 so not our rotting society, coddling of mental illness, and drug use? Housing prices might push a portion of people onto the streets, but lot more other aspects that make them stay on the streets.
@@jac1207 People with access to affordable housing tend to use less drugs and be less mentally ill. Therefore the solution to both the drug crisis and the mental health crisis is to make housing more affordable. This is self-evidently true, which means that you literally can't disagree with it without making yourself look stupid or dishonest.
@@peopleofearth6250 Housing prices has very little to do with it. Most people who can't afford housing just move in with friends or family, or otherwise seek government assistance. If you're living in a tent on the street, there's something else going on. I'm sure there is very little correlation to someone's drug use or mental state and how _affordable_ housing is. Typically, such people wouldn't be able to afford a roof over their head if it cost them $100 a month.
I volunteer doing low income tax prep in Portland. There are a lot of single homeless folks who work but can’t get enough money to actually move into housing. Also when an employer finds out their home address is a shelter they are insulted and obviously don’t get the job. A vicious cycle. These homeless are not walking around downtown or other places-they go to community center and take showers. I’ve lived in Portland since 1985, and live downtown. Sometimes when I watch your videos, I think you don’t know the Portland I do.
I'd love to see your videos. Not sarcasm, by the way. There are always multiple perspectives. People living in the same town can have very different experiences.
@@toshasamantha3954 Perhaps. But in a complex situation, there are roles for people to get very close and emotionally involved, and roles for people to be detached and more objective. Having only one tool in the kit is a limitation. Thanks for being part of that diverse perspective. I'm glad to have your voice heard.
I was just talking to a friend the other night, who works in tenant advocacy here in St. Pete, FL, and collects a lot of data on homelessness here. He suggested that the point-in-place survey isn't really reflecting the situation accurately. A lot of homeless people are just starting to camp in more wooded or remote parts of the city, where they're less likely to be hassled, kicked out, or arrested, and are thus not getting counted. Here in St. Pete, rents have risen at an alarming rate over the last 5 years in particular, which has exacerbated the existing homeless crisis, but the data isn't necessarily reflecting the scale of the crisis. I expect it's similar in a lot of other cities.
Agreed! I added a longer standalone comment that argues that this is a housing supply issue. Rent going up is tied to restrictive zoning in US cities. Allow for increased housing density in urban areas will lead to more supply and eventually more affordability. No cops are needed to fix this problem!
@@mustardofdoom I'd also argue against overreliance on zoning as *the* solution. Rezoning can have some positive affect, and can create more density. But, if it's left solely up to the market, there's still that market incentive to build luxury units, which can then be leveraged for speculation purposes, or as a store of value, rather than for actual housing. I'd argue that the best long-term option is for cities to develop publicly-owned land to build communally-owned social housing. That way, the basic necessity of shelter is not left to the whim of the market, and can be democractically controlled by the residents.
So Portland's solution just mirrors the rest of the country. Kick them out, and make them somebody else's problem. If you're in a part of the city or another town with no police presence, "you're not important enough to have a say in where we dump our trash!" It's not even just a general inhumanity towards the homeless. It's a general inhumanity towards anybody not paying downtowns property taxes.
@@dronesaur4328 lolz, umm 🤔 so your genius solution has already been done. It’s called the project’s. 😐 You socialist loving hippies just cannot get out of your own way. 🤦🏻♂️
Here’s another reason I didn’t go to shelters as a homeless person. Safety. Shelters are by no means safe and many actively prey on others in the shelter for their own gear
@@Violet-qf8dr That's why all these "shelters are worse" comments are absolute BS! Noway it's worse then on the streets with zero protection unless you're hooked up with some kind of gang of homeless people who decide to stick together. Same could be done in a shelter. Shelters have RULES and that's the ONLY reason why these people don't like them.
Man, Briggs is getting into some heavy stuff lately. Most of the homeless never will get back on their feet. A difference between cities like Portland and most cities of any size is that most cities make their homeless hide, which it sounds like Portland is starting to do. Many folks in my area, central Ohio, think we have a very small homeless population, because our tent cities are hidden from the public. They are in secluded areas, and many don't even know they exist, much less how many live in them. Another "problem" in Portland is that the city spends a lot of money providing medical care and so forth for the homeless. I don't mean to suggest that it shouldn't, but that is a factor that draws people there.
It’s be cheaper to house them in tiny houses which would give them a stake in the community but the so-called community doesn’t want that either. Fucking hypos.
They just shut down a mental hospital in Oregon that was like 30% of the population of the town. These people are sick and need medical care. I would be so happy to pay such a massive load of taxes if it was actually going to affective programs. Wish taxation with representation was a real thing and not a fantasy
I lived in Orlando. Around 2005 I knew someone whose job it was to go into the local wooded areas all over Orange County and find the military vets who were living in the woods. It was through the VA, and they were looking specifically for veterans who needed health care, especially mental health care. If they could get them into the VA system they could get them help. I was shocked to find out how many people hide on the edges of society
It's sad that half our government loudly claims how they care about our military, fire and police departments, but vote No on helping these hardworking citizens and that party is the RepubliCons. They also pumped the drugs into many communities through the CIA, the truth is coming out and I certainly hope people finally wake up to who is the real enemy.
I hope you will amend this video because that parking lot you mentioned around 1:45 was NOT just full of tents. That was the former home of the old Right 2 Dream Too, a self-managed fully incorporated non-profit homeless camp. It was a safe, drug free camp, the property owner facilitated against the city's wishes. It's one example of many ways the city is thwarting private attemps to help ease the crisis.
If you think it’s bad now, you should have been north of Burnside in the early 80s. Not the first time for stuff like this. It’s funny that, this week, the city announced they would ease restrictions on office buildings retrofitting for residences, and will even foot a little bit of that bill. Now if you could partition off some of that energy for, say, Cully.
I remember doing that in the 80's, by the late 90's I was looking to move, I lived in a neighborhood where the gunfire from the next neighborhood over was, like, 'every night'!
I live outside Medford, Oregon but used to work downtown cleaning a 5 story office building at night. The homeless have gotten out of hand here also. They would check the doors to my building every night in hopes the door was unlocked or not latched. It never fails that someone can find their way in. They would shoot up in the stairways and would camp out in the bathrooms. They would leave sleeping bags, clothes and garbage all over the place. Let me tell you the smell they would leave behind was not easily handled. So locks were placed on all the bathroom doors and security hired. But the crazy thing is that doesn't matter...the homeless will STILL find their way into the building. So because the bathrooms are locked they now will stay in the stairwell and use the wall and floor outside the basement for a bathroom. N0 matter what you do they get inside, cause havoc and are somehow invisible until you find the mess they left! Eventually one gets thrown out by police but the building is known for being able to get inside so there's always somebody new to camp out. Its such a disgusting cycle that during the winter becomes much worse!
I live on the Oregon Coast. I am hopeful with the progress that has been made in Portland, but I can tell you that the Oregon Coast is riddled with enclaves of homeless. It is a beautiful place to camp but for those looking to stay here affordable housing is almost nonexistent. So, here this problem may be ongoing for quite some time. I really don't know how our service workers who provide such essential services can find a place to live on their salaries.
If Portland can't help it's homeless, the rest of the state is even less helpful because the state money usually all goes to Portland and maybe it's surrounding areas and the rest of us just get to deal.
What housing will an unemployable drug addict manage? This would probably look like a group home where treatment is enforced. But hey, that's not what addicts want.
Really struck me last spring driving, not through the Oregon Coast, but close enough… Eureka. A lot of issues. It’s not just the big cities. We’re also talking about a lot of cities that don’t have Portland’s resources… and despite some “popular” misconceptions, those resources are getting diverted to Portland Police.
Unfortunately there's a lot of working houseless people. Seems like a majority of the ones that sleep in their cars and have to have jobs. It's rather expensive to have a vehicle.
I was in Portland not too long ago and there were definitely less tents on the city streets than I was expecting to see, but as soon as we got on I-5 you started seeing large amounts of them just barely out of view off the highway, so I would be inclined to think the issue is not getting a whole lot better, it just moved out of plain sight.
I don't think anyone can say fixed, as a person who works throughout the metro on the daily, I will say I see improvements, not near the finish line yet but I can say it is getting better.
I’ve lived near Portlandistan for 16 years now and this is an accurate portrayal. If you’re considering moving here, think long and hard. Notice anything about all the footage? That’s right, it’s a virtual ghost town with nearly no traffic or pedestrians. Know why? Crime, assault, rampant drug use and defecation in the streets. Why? One word (as Hunter’s dad would say)-Democrat voters. No, it will not improve anytime soon because of the way people vote, and it DOESN’T CHANGE. Crime? Defund and don’t support the police and the rule of law. Drug use? Simple-legalize hard drugs. Homelessness? Keep funding programs that don’t require negative drug testing and GIVE $1,000/month to each homeless resident. Any idea where that money will be spent and what happens when you broadcast to the entire country that your city provides free handouts, free housing, free medical care, and allows legal hard drug possession and use? What happens when you feed ferile cats off your back porch? Hmmmm…it’s all so mysterious.
I grew up in Portland and moved away 5 years ago before it got bad. I’ve been so sad watching it go downhill, but I’m so glad there might be a light at the end of the tunnel ❤️ I love Portland and always will.
Yeah, my city's homeless seem to have disappeared from view very recently, as well. I, too, am in the Pacific Northwest. We didn't implement any new policies, though. We just had a bunch of storms bring snow and flooding through the area. Is Portland getting better, or do your homeless dislike drowning and freezing to death as much as ours do?
The only reasons Old Town and other parts of downtown don't look a scene from "Escape from NY" is that most businesses have left leaving no reason for the homeless to stay in a part of town where asking working people for money and or just stealing from retail stores is no longer sustainable to the tent folk.
im from LA and as liberal as they come. i see homeless ppl every day and it’s just so hopeless. honestly (and this might be controversial) they need to force ppl into getting help. criminalize the vagrancy and drug use, round them up and make them get treatment. it’s an endless cycle until they force the most vulnerable members of our society to get the help they need :(
You're not "as liberal as they come" if you believe in tough love like that. On the current scale, that makes you a moderate, at best. Quite a few people who are far more liberal than you would even call you a fascist for saying that. To be clear, I agree with you. I just wanted to make sure you knew where you _actually_ stand in all of this. Welcome to the middle.
@@TheCharleseye I'd call polyphonicdavid a facist. People need living wage jobs. Medical coverage. Affordable housing. Oh, and Charles, you're not the middle. You're a neo facist. Most people are homeless because of medical debt and high homing costs.
You aren’t a Liberal, your people have Hijacked the term. The Authoritarian Left, a True Fascist that’s what you people are. Lock up People who do not want help? Who says that? What you’re stating is Unconstitutional and UnAmerican
I am so glad to see visible progress is finally being made. I spent a lot of time in Portland long ago, we're talking 25 years, and I loved it. I really, really hope that beautiful town recovers, and that some of whatever works in a situation as bad as it had become can be applied elsewhere.
Walmart recently announced that they are going to close all of their Portland stores due to shoplifting. I honestly don’t know if it’s going to get better at all.
@@nobodyimportant7804 Real brilliant statement. There are thousands of Walmarts throughout the nation that are in very affluent areas that don't have the issues Portland has. I am sure there are many lower income people and seniors on fixed incomes that would disagree with your smug and snobbish comment.
Ways to actually fix concentrated homelessness 1. Build a ton more homes (single family) 2. Build even more homes (multifamily) 3. Fine every small city/state/county that ships their homeless to big cities with programs instead of actually helping their people 4. Build even more housing ( huge apartments with small businesses at the bottom) Its that simple (this will also fix a lot of other problems)
I have lived in Portland and visited quite often. On my last visit a few months ago, I told my friend who still lives there that it was like Hoarding Without Walls. I first came to Oregon in 1980 and was amazed at how many people lived full-time in tents along the river; this was in Eugene. I see it as a mindset of Oreginians that tolerated alternative living as it was called back then. This belief no longer is valid and hasn't been for a long time. Homeless living does not mean you can trash the area around you. I lived in Pearl District back in 2010 and enjoyed all that Old Town had to offer. It seemed as if the people of Portland lost the will to stop the trashing of their city. I also lived in SE Portland during 2021.
As a former resident of Troutdale we all know that the solution is to move all their problems to East County. They want to push their problems to have Gresham and Troutdale to solve. They tried to do it with the Spring water Trail but Gresham pushed back. Portland needs to deal with their issues and quit diverting them to East County. My opinion.
It seems to me that putting up an area to camp with, bathrooms and sanitation, allowing them to camp for a reasonable fee. they can live their lives as they please within the campground limits and offer resources to get back on their feet and help with drug addiction. They don’t belong on the city streets..
Downtown Portland Native here. The problem isn't any better - it just shifts from street to street. I don't think it's going to get any better under Mayor Ted Wheeler, either - he's too focused on being everybody's friend and doesn't want to be the bad guy in any scenario.
Seattle has had some progress too... still a long way to go, but some progress. Last summer I visited Vancouver BC. It was so much worse than Portland or Seattle. It was so sad.
I went there for a week about a year ago and spent a lot of time walking around in and near old town. It was pretty wild. So many homeless people in tents and doing drugs right out in the open.
If housing is no longer affordable, then maybe the problem is at the top, with property taxes. Some people have a job, and work full time even, but can't afford a house because it makes it impossible to live. If you are also paying utilities, they are sky high as well. Food is sky high, insurance is sky high, it's a mess.
Glad to hear things are getting better, 4 of my favorite west coast cities are San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. What would also help, don't legalize every drug and bring jobs back from overseas, my whole life was working a trade school job and loved it. Thanks for posting.....
There are plenty of jobs. Lack of jobs was not the problem this past yr employers were desperate to hire. The problem is that a full-time job doesn't pay the bills here. There are people living in their cars working 2 jobs. 50% of the homeless here work full time! Drugs are not "legal" they have been decriminalized. Meaning that people will not go to jail for being addicts. Being an addict is a mental health condition, not a crime. Those people need help and compassion, and being locked in a cell only adds to their suffering. People do drugs because they are suffering from things like childhoods trama and they deserve love and to be treated as humans. Studies show that addiction comes from a lack of human connection. Putting them in jail and treating them like trash only makes their condition worse when they are released. Would be different if jails actually had better systems designed to rehabilitate people. Things like life skills, coping skills, teaching them a trade , letting them earn an online degree, teaching them better social skills, etc. It should be a socially enriching, supportive environment, but it isn't anything close. Some prisons have some programs in place, but jails don't. Jail is usually for anyone with a short sentence of less than 1yr. Social isolation alone can cause severe mental health conditions that last a lifetime. Some jails have a 23-hour lockdown, even for those at low risk, and we'll behaved, due to lack of funding. Adding more people to a strained system isn't helping anyone. Jail should be for those who have inflicted harm on others, not those who have only hurt them selves and merely made others uncomfortable. They are not picking up crack at the local crack store. Nothing has changed except that people are not getting charges that follow them through life, making it impossible to get housing or a job when they do recover. Addicts can now safely call the authorities in the case of an overdose. They are also more likely to seek help, knowing that there won't be consequences if the wring person found out that they have a problem. Decriminalization of drugs does not create homelessness. It prevents it. Its not like thousands of people were clean from drugs, and then it became decriminalized, and they took up using Crack. It gives those who had a problem all along, the chance of a future off of the streets.
@@emilye709 This will take some time to reply to, alot to read. But I can say, the jobs I was talking about are the well paying jobs that were offshored. Alot of people are saying "decouple from china," and I agree with that.
@emilye709 I wonder if jail time helped some people get sober enough to get their act together in the past. How do we connect more so there aren't so many lost people? Part of the answer to me is to slow immigration and have a government that cares about its people.
Briggs, it was around 2017ish that I started seeing tent cities popping up on SE Powell Blvd., by my mother-in-law's house. I had a job at Daimler Trucks on Swan Island from 2018-2019, and I couldn't believe the number of homeless encampments along the greenways on all the roads leading to Swan Island from I-5 😢
Briggs, I am one of your avid followers. In 1975 I worked in Portland, OR. At that time the city was proudly working on their "restaurant scene" near the river. Driven thru many times, in 2016 my wife and I were touring OR and stayed just outside of Portland. We went to Powell's Bookstore, Japanese gardens, the rose gardens etc. We witnessed some homeless and indigents downtown and a big police presence. Now Sept, 2022, we went to Portland for an event. We stayed outside closer to Lake Oswego. I can attest some homeless have moved west of the city. Oregon is a beautiful state we travel the coast Hwy 1 or Route 97. We no longer need to visit Portland.
Just a heads up about shelters. It's not the case that the only reasons a homeless person might not want to stay in a shelter are if they don't want to follow rules or they want to do drugs. Shelters are incredibly dangerous. Other homeless people steal their stuff or attack them. Shelters are also generally pretty dirty and badly maintained. It can also be hard to consistently get a bed, depending on demand, and if you can't call a place your own it often feels better to just have a consistent place to be, even if that place is a tent by the train tracks. Many homeless people feel safer on the streets or especially in encampments, and if the weather isn't too bad I can see their point. Shelters aren't the answer, especially if they're privately contracted, as the management company has a profit motive to keep costs down and tends to cheap out on maintenance and security. Obviously this is a generalization and not all shelters are badly run or dangerous, but I've heard these complaints from multiple homeless people and in multiple investigations.
Ah, the days when you could find a place 20 blocks from the river for less than $900 a month. Just 15 years ago, really. Then VROOM! A lot of people who moved here when it was less expensive were often the most affected by what happened next. Some could afford to move out. The problem is when you have people buying up property for short-term rental (Air BnB, etc.) or for mid-term flipping. The corporate renters, furthermore, are literally being told by an algorithm to keep the rent higher than to rent 100% of units. This drives issues in several major cities.
@@PCSPounder I mean.. stuff hasn't changed THAT much.. You can get a newer studio apt (500sqft) for $1300/mo in a nice and walkable area (E Burnside and SE 28th).. Hell.. I found a 1/1.5 830sqft townhouse with 2 car garage for $1100 in Vancouver across the river.. Deals are there folks.. You just gotta look, lol..
@PCSPounder Seems like the corporate renters are using an algorithm across many cities. Seems like some service started up around the pandemic and corporate renters hopped on board to jack up prices. I don't have the facts to back up that suspicion.🤔
No way. My GF and I were driving on 26 and where it meets 405, there were many tents that were behind a fence that the average person wouldn't be bothered to climb.
I’m homeless and my problem is it doesn’t feel like there’s any spare money for a place. It takes all damn day to make $100 and all of that goes into my gas tank, my stomach, or a landlord’s pockets that same day. God forbid a car repair needs doing (I have a few piling up right now I just can’t get to right now). Life is very unaffordable nowadays. Even people like me who work every single day can’t comfortably afford rent anymore. Rent feels like this luxury I shouldn’t be splurging on right now. I spend that $70 on not even 24 hours at a cheap motel and it’s gone forever. It’s so so damn hard to get ahead. It blows my mind that drugs are even the conversation nowadays when cost of rent is easily the main factor for the homeless crisis. You know rent is too high when working all day every day doesn’t pay the rent AND be able to have some emergency savings put aside. It just sucks. People will look down on me like it’s all my fault. I’m doing my best. I didn’t get to pump out 5 kids and get section 8 housing and food stamps and a whole free ride. I am single and childless. I work and invest for everything I have. I don’t live lavishly by any means. But I just can’t save up first, last, deposit, etc etc. to get moved into a stable home somewhere I want to be with the way the system is designed. It’s designed to keep everyone SCRAPING by because if we all had a huge savings built up, their precious system would collapse. They need us scraping by so they can treat us like garbage. It sucks but it is what it is. Hoping I die or something so I don’t have to grind my whole life away sleeping in my car. It’s exhausting.
It hasn't gotten better overall, just in Old Town. Homelessness isn't just a liberal city issue. I've visited Phoenix 3 times over the past few months & they have a ton of homeless people. The Phoenix homeless folks seem a bit more mellow though. The ones in Coronado Park were polite. There are encampments in Portland that are basically chop shops defended by guys with guns.
My last car ended up in one of those places. Now I just avoid Portland. I used to love to visit up there. Traffic is appalling, too, and I came here from L.A. (Go ahead and hate me, I don't care).
That of what I just saw looks mild. Sad s(h)ituation, but mild. In Chicago, it's still kinda bad. But the governor of Illinois took the pandemic money, put people in hotels, put money into job training and helped 1000's of people get their lives together. And a friendly reminder... Not all homeless people have mental issues or do drugs. Many people had a natural disaster (think of California and Turkey/Syria). Many people lost their jobs. Many people got sick. Got divorced. Lost a spouse or a loved one. Lastly... If people, as in people within their own communities, would help each other, the need for government help would be less needed. As in if parents don't teach financial responsibility to their kids, kids won't know how to earn or manage money.
That's right!....But very few americans have the brains to see it the way you do. When the big war finally hits( and yes it's a coming), only the homeless will survive, as the weak middle and upper classes just won't be able to take it.
So gotta correct some things you said, I've grown up in Portland for most of my life (15ish years, I'm 20 now), The Chinatown "parking lot" is not a functional parking lot, it hasn't been for years. It was serving as a organized housing relief for homeless people who could not get into the very few and often strict shelters we have, it worked as a okay temporary solution, however around 2015-16ish from my memory after Sam Adams left it was cleared and has been empty most of the time. It was supposed to be made into a community space however it just sits gated off with a single table. Most of the city's homeless issues are at this point directly the fault of the city council and government/landlords who have increased rents at the limit (9.99%) multiple times. The city conducts sweeps on camps constantly which has just displaced and actually made more of a mess in general as the sweepers do not ever seem to care about properly disposing of trash and often rip apart camp sites and leave lots of things scattered around. During a major winter storm this past winter (Feb 2023) the city conducted sweeps during this storm leading to multiple homeless people becoming injured from the cold. The treatment that I've seen homeless people endure in Portland is truly disgusting and hits a almost human rights abuse level of severity. Talking with these people throughout my life in pdx has really given me an insight on how kind and just misunderstood a lot of these people are. Many do want to be in shelters and go throughout treatment there just is not enough existing. If this is gonna be truly fixed it's gonna take actual investment into affordable housing and preventive measures and also investment into rehabilitation that can actually help these people. Please I ask that you just take a second to think about the situations many of these people have been forced into and to treat them with humanity. We cannot make progress without taking the time to uplift people who are in these hard situations. Anyways I hope to see the city I loved so much improve and go in the right direction on helping this people. But currently most efforts on the city's part has been more harmful recently than helpful.
It's nice to see your humanity, thanks for sharing. Homeless folks are very diverse. Most statements which describe them in a single way are true for some, false for others. You speak of gaining insight into how kind and misunderstood a lot of homeless folks are, and I'm sure you are correct. It's great to keep reminding people of that. However the largest danger to homelesss folks (at least where I live) - is other homeless folks. Many are afraid to leave their tents because they stuff will be stolen before they get back. Some refuse shelters because they don't feel safe there. Rapes and violence happen too often. There are kind and misunderstood folks, mixed in with some real problem cases, and it's hard to tell which kind lives in a given tent. And humans are complex. The local paper profiled a homeless couple who were organizers and peacemakers and counselors to many around them, good people whom many appreciated. But the man was also physically abusive - to the woman and others - when under the influence, and eventually the woman fled from him. Yes, the same person can be kind and generous sometimes, and dangerous other times. I've known violent bikers who can be kind and helpful at other times. One size does not fit all. I would like to see those who can be helped, be helped. It appears to be extremely expensive tho. In San Francisco, it seems to be hard to create permanent shelter for less than $700K per person, and ongoing maintenance and support services provided by the city cost more than most housed blue collar workers earn. It's hard to tell somebody who is working and paying rent and struggling to make ends meet, that we are going to give housing to somebody else, and spend more city money on them than said worker earns with their labor. To take another example of why it's so difficult, you mention cleanup workers not respecting the property of homeless folks, and I've heart heart breaking stories of that. But when the workers tried to collect possessions to store for later retrieval it's incredibly difficult and expensive to safely extract, sort, tag and protect - and most of it doesn't get collected anyway. Even people who were initially very sympathetic, who work on things like cleaning up homeless camps, wind up burning out and becoming cynical. AND - that's due to dealing with a subset. It's not the fault of ALL homeless folks. Again, great diversity. But how do we deal with that complex stew?
I live in the Pearl & work downtown and actually go into the office every day. Definitely fewer tents on sidewalks in front of businesses, but I’ve seen a lot more tents under the Steel bridge on-ramp off Naito and under the Fremont bridge on-ramps in Slabtown.
In this particular area of Portland, I have personally witnessed a grown man pull out his -you know what- and do his business on the sidewalk in the middle of the day. With younger children near by, I’ve witnessed homeless ppl shooting up drugs, tourist getting their bags snatched while standing in line at voodoo doughnuts, homeless ppl coming into pine street market and yelling at the top of their lungs..just to name a few of the exciting things Portland has to offer.
i lived in a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment just across the river in 98. it was $600 a month. for 3 bedrooms. rent has not followed the rise of inflation, its way above that. but social security, ssi .. heck ,even minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of rent because all those are based on this concept of 'inflation' which is based on BS, not the actual cost of living. the cause of homelessness , nation wide.. isn't hard to figure out. Relatively speaking.. people are getting paid lots less than they used to. Fixing it isn't complicated either. pay people more. even if we just went back to 1998 levels , which did work out fine back then. it didn't destroy the economy, it didn't ruin buisnesses. it just wasn't as good for CEOs an the ultra rich.
Back in 2007, the homeless situation was fairly under control. There were maybe 1,500-2,000 people in the streets. They mainly stuck to Oldd Town, SE 11th and 12th Ave industrial area, Eastbank Esplanade, Burnside, etc. The summer would bring in the transients, but they would leave when the rains came. I don't know what changed in the 2010s. Sam Adams had the city put up signs to keep the sidewalks clear. I just don't know.
As someone who's lived in Oregon their whole life, I can say whole heartedly that it's the laws that cause 90% of the problem. HUGE encampments all over Portland, Salem, Eugene, etc. I'm done with the rain, cold, homeless, laws, traffic, tax, etc. Everyone in this state is miserable and wants to keep to themselves. Exploring the country, I've realized that a lot of these states don't have these problems (especially the grouchy, bitter people). Moving to Florida and never looking back.
I’ve lived in Florida 40+ years…good luck, you’re going to need it. Florida has tons of issues as well. The cost of living here has become atrocious. The state has one of the highest car insurance rates, worst school systems in the country, and is one of the lowest paying compared to COL. Good luck trying to get homeowners insurance and if you do, it’s through the roof! Rental prices are some of the highest, it’s specifically a problem here because salaries are so low. FL has more sinkholes than any other state in the nation. Sadly, we also have homeless people. Instead of cold, it’s sweltering about 11 months out of the year. If you don’t like rain, wait until you experience a Florida summer, lol! It’s like a monsoon everyday. It doesn’t just drizzle here, it dumps rain and lightning is everywhere. We have hurricanes and tornadoes, alligators and venomous snakes all over. Nothing but flatlands, unless you want to visit the beaches, swamps, and natural springs, there’s not much else to get excited about. The traffic and crowding has gotten worse since everyone is flocking here (3rd largest state in the country). These are just some of the issues. I won’t get into political climate or a Governor who is too busy campaigning rather than fixing issues within the state. If you think people are miserable and rude in OR, you’re in for a ride here! Most of the native Floridians are long gone, there’s no such thing as southern hospitality here. Pretty much everyone living here is from up north. It’s probably a nice place to visit, but living here long term is another story. I guess I’m searching for greener pastures as well because I can’t wait to get out of Florida!
@@glasslinger Houston and Orlando are more alike than they are different. But Florida is even worse for the average employee than Texas is. My friends who are doing okay in Florida tend to be "remote workers" and not dependent on local market pay.
Thank you for this more realistic view of the Portland situation. I was there last year, and the homelessness is/was surreal, but it's still an amazing city with some of the best people I've ever met.
Plus Portland is the homeless solution for many areas outside of the area. Number of years ago I watch channel 12 interview with an Idaho official who said a bus ticket to the west coast was their policy with the homeless
You hear so many stories about these bus ticket programs that, at least for the last decade, it’s easy to get the impression that the United States has the most well-traveled homeless population on earth. I’m damn sure, however, that the pandemic-related increase was primarily local. That’s when we worked hardest to discourage travel, and yet there was a boom here and everywhere.
Not as bad as they make it sound? You're joking right.....? I'm a born and raised Oregonian, from Eugene. I've been going up to Portland my entire life and in the years leading up to the pandemic, I was up there at least once a month for about 5 years. I spent a lot of time in the downtown area and it's fucked and super sad... so saying it's not as bad as they make it sound is far from the truth... for business owners it's WORSE than people can imagine... hopefully that changes.
Dang! Portland is looking lots better than Denver and the Denver Metro area. We have folks who have been sleeping in the same doorway for at least 2 years...kids used walk by there on their way to school. And in a different part of town they had a tent city across the street from an elementary school where residents complained about the feces and drug needles on the ground. Portland is looking pretty good, compatibility.
i remember the 1st time going to portland as an adult, was driving around at about 2 am, every store front along every street had homeless people sleeping on it, never went back.
really should make it illegal for employers to discriminate not hiring someone because they have a criminal history. Civilians shouldn't be taking justice into their own hands. Bounty hunting is illegal for a reason. Baring someone who's ALREADY served their time from being able to provide for themselves and re-enter society is down ride frikin evil. If the person becomes a cereal offender then we really should stop letting them out to begin with. But business owners shouldn't be able to discriminate, period.
Sounds like you don't know Portland, for one there was like 2 Walmarts in all of Portland, Most people in Portland don't support or shop at Walmarts. 2nd- 17 States largest employeer is Walmart, in Oregon its not even top 10.. 3rd- Opening a walmart has negative tax revenue for cities. Do a little research city planning and infrastructure. Stores like a walmart do very little for cities, the only real way cities maintain or take care of current roads and infrastructure is by popultion gains, once that dries up and you gave away all your precious land for shit companies like walmart your cities start to go broke. Also Walmart have shutdown like 100 stores around the nation. Not just a Portland thing but a nice Fox news headline.
The City of Portland has designated areas outside of the old town district where the homeless can camp, I think they have to obtain a permit. It's just a shell game, Portland hasn't done anything to substantially decrease the homeless population. The summer months are approaching, wait and see what happens in Portland and Seattle.
Its an awful problem here in Jacksonville, FL too. They've broken up the tent cities downtown before major events, but the people have just shifted to vacant lots and urban wooded areas. Any decent sized area with trees or brush now have a little path into the woods strewn with litter and shopping carts and makeshift tents. Some of these people are working jobs too.
The causes are drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness and a permissive culture regarding addiction. Local officials are more concerned about catering to fringe activists than to the quality of life in the city. If the government won't respond and they can't be voted out of office, then boycot downtown businesses and public events until things change. At this point, instead of taking public transportation through Portland, I'm driving rental cars to and from the airport. Downtown Portland transportation is unsafe once the Metro police stop riding after the evening rush hour.
Sure do miss Portland. Miss the food,miss the shopping,miss the rain and the trees and the smell of firewood. Miss the coffee, miss new seasons,miss the Mississippi St fair, blazers games Also its funny you mentioned boise... had to come back to boise from Portland and I miss alot of the good things as mentioned about Portland
This homeless catastrophe started in The once great state of California when the Benevolent Governor closed it’s mental hospitals without preplanning, “Shut them down, private enterprise will fix it”. it sure did.
Didn't a couple of Walmarts in Portland move out due to theft, etc? That's pretty bad. Which businesses would like to move into an area that Walmart couldn't be successful in? Yikes.
There’s more to the story about that lot in Chinatown. It used to be an adult bookstore and one of the city commissioners took offense to it. They use the fire Bureau to shut that down and tear the building down. The owner of the lot, then turned it into a homeless camp out of spite.
They're moving them all out to southeast Portland. Opening homeless camps on 82nd ave, a main thoroughfare on the eastside. Crime was already bad out there. Now it's going to be insane. Thank Portlands horrible Mayor and city Commissioner's for that. They are taxing people right out of Portland to pay for homeless. People are leaving. 12 thousand plus have left Portland area. Businesses are leaving in droves. Yes Downtown looks a little better because they've been pushed out Eastside.
I think I missed out on watching that Nick Johnson video about Portland a few years ago. Anyways yeah looking at what you showed That isn't a particularly bad homeless situation. Where I'm from in Santa Rosa which I mean at least when googling the average rent here is higher than it is in Portland although that could just be dependent on where you go, but there's definitely a noticeable homeless problem here. I mean you go anywhere in the Bay Area you're going to find homeless. Anywhere in wine country you're going to find homeless people. I had actually thought about moving a few hours up north to eureka because it's a much more affordable part of California but it's been stated there's a lot of homeless people there too and I've taken a visit there and yeah there's definitely some homeless people but I mean to me it's nothing new because we get plenty of almost people here in Santa Rosa. It's cool to see that Oregon or at least Portland itself is trying to Actually do something about the homeless situation. Would really pisses me off here in California is it twice I've seen during elections there had been a proposition on the ballot that would have enforced rent control and each time it failed. The voters were too stupid to realize that the ads that are talking against it are just looking at one minute detail that makes it look like it's bad when if you actually read the proposition the con is kind of non-existent. All the con was was to get rid of the old system in favor of the new system which is what these real estate companies used against the proposition in their advertisements because that was technically true but in reality it wouldn't have hurt anything to pass the proposition it would have just been beneficial to all except I guess the real estate companies. They're trying again with putting rent control on the ballot this year, but I'm afraid it might fail again. Another thing that's really infuriating is that every election I see so many propositions on the ballot that talk about raising taxes to do something and they keep passing in flying colors and look I understand taxes are important I'm not like completely anti-tax, but when there's propositions that propose raising taxes to actually make improvements to the state and all that has happened from them are the taxes increasing and we have never seen the results of it then just vote no on those stupid propositions because it's just an excuse to raise our taxes and get nothing out of it.
I was just in Portland for a week. It seems like there are a lot of designated spaces for tent encampments and a lot of tents along the freeways. It also seems like all the tents are new and the spaces are mostly cleaned up. The city itself was pretty clean compared to other cities I have visited. If they keep trying to make it clean and designated I think it's a step in the right direction.
The left downtown Portland. But, they're all in the suburbs now. Moving their way towards beaverton and hillsboro. Crazy drug addicts trying to get into my car after I got in. Running infront of my car when I got the green. Almost got a few
@@db-rc5fr I'm weak due to an illness. Before I could handle my self if it became physical. But unfortunately now, I don't the house without my gun. And yes, I do hand my carry license
I grew up just outside of Portland and still live nearby. 20 years ago, I could take the MAX to pioneer square as a teenager and stay out till midnight, and not once was I concerned for my safety. That is not the case now, and I'm a grown adult.
as a Portland resident who's lived in a tent for a time in the past (not in Portland, though), I'm continually amazed that anyone would choose to be IN the city in a tent. That said i just stopped going into downtown at ALL -- and honestly am kinda happier for it. Downtown sucked before the tents took over, too (entitled pedestrians and bikers walking into traffic constantly, no parking, etc...), but I still had to go down there sometimes, now I don't. Kinda doesn't matter if they clean it up, the habits broken now ;)
@@certifiedforkliftdriver9987 Actually i'm usually using an electric unicycle -- the aforementioned parking/traffic hassles make cars more annoying than useful there. I tried being a good Portlander using Trimet, it just cost 3 hours a day to do my 30 minute commute (on the days when they didn't interrupt service for something), so yeah, I use a car when i'm going more than 20 miles in a given day's trips.
I appreciate the dashcam footage as well as your experiential comparisons I drove west from the Portland airport a few years ago and in one section of the highway, the ENTIRE THING was lined with tents like it was Walking Dead or something
There are some people who just want to live on the street, doing drugs or what ever, but you touched on the truth about rampant homelessness when you mentioned that the cost of living is too high. Can people afford a tiny one room apartment for $1,200 dollars a month? No. Back in the day, the rule of thumb was that your "rent" should be one week's salary, so to live comfortably with a $1,200 rent you would have to be earning, at the least, $4,800 dollars per month. I also want to mention that I've been following the news about massive homelessness in America since long before the pandemic. The pandemic may have killed off a lot of homeless people, so it may look like the homeless situation has improved, but the economics situation in America is getting worse. We see empty shelves in a lot of stores all over America, and the cost of goods has risen sharply. The sharp rise in prices is partially hidden by the fact that we are getting less quantity for much higher prices. The box that holds the chocolate brownies is about the same size as it was before but the contents slosh around in that box like an entire brownie is missing; yet, the count of brownies is still 8 per box. "Profit = income - expenses" puts the entire environment, including ourselves, on the 'expense' part of the equation. Businesses want to avoid and or eliminate all expenses. If we want to eliminate homelessness and rescue our environment, then we will need a new "Global Economic Model" that is based on an entirely new dictionary definition of profit. How about this definition: Profit = our gratefulness and loving care for the environment and sustenance that it provides to all of us.
I have heard all the Walmarts are closing in Portland from mass shoplifting and kinda wondered if it's true or just some news blowing things out of proportion as usual
As someone who have been actually living here, yeah, it's true. On the surface, they're saying they're shutting down due to "revenue sales" going down, but that's just nonsense, anyone with enough brain knows that it's due to rampant shoplifting that has been going on for a long time. They shutting down on March 24th this year, and whatever stock they couldn't sell is going to other stores in the other counties.
@@bladekite2607 Yeah, the store has been there a very long time. I think 30 years now? The store might have already existed long before I was born. I was born in the 90's. It went through a remodel for a modern update quite a while back. I asked one of the greeters if they were being transferred to other stores. It's a mixed story. Some will be automatically transfer while others say that they have to apply again.
It's the two in Portland proper, several still there in the suburbs. Still, it's shocking they can make money in every town of 40,000 or so but not in east Portland. They were tight-lipped but crime must been the key reason. Leaves a pretty big grocery desert.
Easy answer: The business left... Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Chickfila, Target, Dollar General are just some of the major brands that left. Countless other businesses left. Thus, there's no where for the homeless to steal from or even work part time....Thank a local politician
"....they are just someplace else...." - Briggs. Yes, that's like Santa Monica, California. The city does not allow anyone to set up a tent, build a shack, or live in a van. Hence they have no homeless but, the homeless are just someplace else.
Portland is doing something, but it looks for the most part that it's just the police forcing people to move on (at last - Portland cops doing something 🙄). Check out some of the other areas across the river and let us know what's going on in the Hollywood District and over a long 82nd please. It's been several months since I have been there, but there were a few places I recall that there were quite a number of tents, RVs, etc.
You might want to check out a you tuber called Velly Ray he takes videos of all the camps in se Portland. He shows the real deal, even does interviews with some people. Very sad, it might be some what better downtown, but they're still lots of homeless camps in Portland metro area. Some are in the vicinity of 82nd and Powell.
This video is a perfect example of the dehumanization of the lower class and impoverished in service of business owners and profits. I love how your view of "fixing" the homeless problem, is getting as many of them out of sight as possible. Maybe advocate for changes in our broken system that can help the large portion of Americans who can barely afford a roof over their head, and worst. Maybe the problem would actually be fixed, instead of kicking it away out of sight and pretending you fixed it.
I've been to Los Angeles, CA, Seattle, WA, and Honolulu, HI where there are a lot of homeless people, but they are not very aggressive compared to the homeless living in San Francisco. I have never been to Portland, OR, but I hope someday I can travel there and other cities in Oregon.
I live in San Francisco born and raised moved to the Tenderloin about two years ago no one has been aggressive towards me but everyone's experiences aren't the same keep your head on a swivel
from this video i see a walkability issue. big blocks? wide roads? as someone on the east coast, i cant help feel a little empty seeing this. verticality adds character, imo.
Another reason the city has gotten better at minimizing sidewalk camping is that they're being sued [by] several disabled people who couldn't navigate the sidewalks. (Not sure where the suit is at present, but I think it's still active.)
I agree. Things changed rapidly after that lawsuit was filed. It's too bad that it took that lawsuit to force the Mayor to actually do his job. . .
That's right and many of us have noticed the same thing. That law suit was filed and things finally started changing. They had better damn well keep changing for the better.
Do they call it "sidewalk camping" now ? OMG! 😲
@@Lyn777 I don't think they do. I just used that term to distinguish between tents on sidewalks and tents in parks or underpasses, because those camps aren't part of the lawsuit.
Wish it didn’t have homeless problems no city should ever in first place and they need to never get addictions also go to rehab plus go find a place to live and a place to work at
Former homeless man who still lives in oldtown, personally I've seen many other homeless people just play the victim and refuse to try to obtain a job, mental health services, etc. Even though we were living at the RDNC shelter (which is an incredibly relaxed shelter). I have sympathy for these people to an extent; but at some point they actually have to try to better themselves.
There are people like my neighbor who has not worked in 23 years, sold everything he ever acquired, and now lives with his mother who supports him. He went to the Employment Security Commission and told them his ideal job would be " pirate".
He spends his days " resting"(from what????) and drinking.
@@ColKorn1965 resting from existence. It's pain.
@@ColKorn1965 I think drinking is part of be a pirate
@@jusebacho I think collecting "booty" is the primary goal of most pirates.....I'll have to ask the next one I encounter.🤔
I met a young homeless guy a few years ago who said he likes being homeless and it's a choice. He said he didn't want to conform to society and follow the rules.
There was just a study done that determined 78% of the homeless in Portland are from out of town. Half of them arrived homeless. Our kindness towards the homeless has crushed us.
Me and a group of my friends took a trip to LA last summer and on the way back our cars check engine turned on in Sacramento…me and one of my friends had work in 2 days so we decided to bus back from sac to Portland, I swear to you 80% of the 30-40 people on the bus were homeless and all of them hopped off somewhere near Portland or in Portland
Yup! Vellyray on TH-cam documents himself talking to them and he always asked where their from and 8/10 people are from out of town and most admit to getting a one way ticket from whoever they came from.
That's my whole problem with this debate. A lot of homeless people on the west coast migrate there from Republican states because it's warmer and more welcoming. But they never admit that - nobody EVER tells the truth about just how much the Democrat states flip the bill, in almost every way, to keep the country afloat. While they enjoy their guns and "freedom of religion", we (the residents of liberal cities) are the ones who have to work overtime and underpaid to pay the taxes that make that possible.
@@darkwoodmovies Where do you get your "facts"? In talking to people on the trail I have found that most come from blue states like Michigan, Illinois and California.
@@luckeduck7347 Wouldn't homeless in California stay there? (real question, not sure what the difference is between CA and OR on homeless care).
I'm just going off surveys that determine how many are transplants (at least in California, not sure about OR specifically). I think it ranges from like 15-30% or something? Can't remember, but it's not nothing - and I think more go to SF than LA. It also happens to Hawaii.
After digging more into this, seems like a lot of cities (including SF and LA) have actual programs that give free bus rides to homeless willing to relocate somewhere else. The reasoning trends seem to be either 1) the place is too cold, 2) the place is too strict on homeless, or 3) there's too many homeless and the city can't deal with it.
Thank you for this video, it was one of the most informative videos I have seen about the current state of portland and the homeless population.
Actually it is worse than you let on. They have just moved out of down town out all the way towards Gresham where I live. Also, If you ask a few homeless they will tell you that Portland makes it easy to be homeless and the word has gotten out all over the west.
The real problem is housing prices, but nobody wants to talk about that. When people can't afford to buy shelter a lot of people end up being homeless. Who would've thought! 🤔
@@peopleofearth6250 so not our rotting society, coddling of mental illness, and drug use? Housing prices might push a portion of people onto the streets, but lot more other aspects that make them stay on the streets.
@@jac1207 People with access to affordable housing tend to use less drugs and be less mentally ill. Therefore the solution to both the drug crisis and the mental health crisis is to make housing more affordable. This is self-evidently true, which means that you literally can't disagree with it without making yourself look stupid or dishonest.
@@peopleofearth6250 Housing prices has very little to do with it. Most people who can't afford housing just move in with friends or family, or otherwise seek government assistance. If you're living in a tent on the street, there's something else going on. I'm sure there is very little correlation to someone's drug use or mental state and how _affordable_ housing is. Typically, such people wouldn't be able to afford a roof over their head if it cost them $100 a month.
@@Toastmaster_5000 You're just lying. Straight up.
I volunteer doing low income tax prep in Portland. There are a lot of single homeless folks who work but can’t get enough money to actually move into housing. Also when an employer finds out their home address is a shelter they are insulted and obviously don’t get the job. A vicious cycle. These homeless are not walking around downtown or other places-they go to community center and take showers. I’ve lived in Portland since 1985, and live downtown. Sometimes when I watch your videos, I think you don’t know the Portland I do.
I'd love to see your videos. Not sarcasm, by the way.
There are always multiple perspectives. People living in the same town can have very different experiences.
@@zephsmith3499 The camera lens puts an emotional distance between a person and what they are taping, for the most part.
@@toshasamantha3954
Perhaps. But in a complex situation, there are roles for people to get very close and emotionally involved, and roles for people to be detached and more objective. Having only one tool in the kit is a limitation.
Thanks for being part of that diverse perspective. I'm glad to have your voice heard.
I was just talking to a friend the other night, who works in tenant advocacy here in St. Pete, FL, and collects a lot of data on homelessness here. He suggested that the point-in-place survey isn't really reflecting the situation accurately. A lot of homeless people are just starting to camp in more wooded or remote parts of the city, where they're less likely to be hassled, kicked out, or arrested, and are thus not getting counted.
Here in St. Pete, rents have risen at an alarming rate over the last 5 years in particular, which has exacerbated the existing homeless crisis, but the data isn't necessarily reflecting the scale of the crisis. I expect it's similar in a lot of other cities.
Agreed! I added a longer standalone comment that argues that this is a housing supply issue. Rent going up is tied to restrictive zoning in US cities. Allow for increased housing density in urban areas will lead to more supply and eventually more affordability. No cops are needed to fix this problem!
@@mustardofdoom I'd also argue against overreliance on zoning as *the* solution. Rezoning can have some positive affect, and can create more density. But, if it's left solely up to the market, there's still that market incentive to build luxury units, which can then be leveraged for speculation purposes, or as a store of value, rather than for actual housing.
I'd argue that the best long-term option is for cities to develop publicly-owned land to build communally-owned social housing. That way, the basic necessity of shelter is not left to the whim of the market, and can be democractically controlled by the residents.
So Portland's solution just mirrors the rest of the country. Kick them out, and make them somebody else's problem. If you're in a part of the city or another town with no police presence, "you're not important enough to have a say in where we dump our trash!"
It's not even just a general inhumanity towards the homeless. It's a general inhumanity towards anybody not paying downtowns property taxes.
It’s the same here. Portland has cleaned up downtown for the businesses and tourists, but the camps are cropping up in the neighborhoods now.
@@dronesaur4328 lolz, umm 🤔 so your genius solution has already been done. It’s called the project’s. 😐 You socialist loving hippies just cannot get out of your own way. 🤦🏻♂️
Here’s another reason I didn’t go to shelters as a homeless person. Safety. Shelters are by no means safe and many actively prey on others in the shelter for their own gear
I'm curious how a tent is easier to secure. Can't someone just break into or rip open a tent? Can you leave a tent and no-one will mess with it?
@@Violet-qf8dr That's why all these "shelters are worse" comments are absolute BS! Noway it's worse then on the streets with zero protection unless you're hooked up with some kind of gang of homeless people who decide to stick together. Same could be done in a shelter. Shelters have RULES and that's the ONLY reason why these people don't like them.
@@Violet-qf8drhe does have a point.
Man, Briggs is getting into some heavy stuff lately. Most of the homeless never will get back on their feet. A difference between cities like Portland and most cities of any size is that most cities make their homeless hide, which it sounds like Portland is starting to do. Many folks in my area, central Ohio, think we have a very small homeless population, because our tent cities are hidden from the public. They are in secluded areas, and many don't even know they exist, much less how many live in them. Another "problem" in Portland is that the city spends a lot of money providing medical care and so forth for the homeless. I don't mean to suggest that it shouldn't, but that is a factor that draws people there.
They did the same in Vegas. The moved the major encampment off to a highway under pass.
It’s be cheaper to house them in tiny houses which would give them a stake in the community but the so-called community doesn’t want that either. Fucking hypos.
They just shut down a mental hospital in Oregon that was like 30% of the population of the town. These people are sick and need medical care. I would be so happy to pay such a massive load of taxes if it was actually going to affective programs. Wish taxation with representation was a real thing and not a fantasy
I lived in Orlando. Around 2005 I knew someone whose job it was to go into the local wooded areas all over Orange County and find the military vets who were living in the woods. It was through the VA, and they were looking specifically for veterans who needed health care, especially mental health care. If they could get them into the VA system they could get them help. I was shocked to find out how many people hide on the edges of society
It's sad that half our government loudly claims how they care about our military, fire and police departments, but vote No on helping these hardworking citizens and that party is the RepubliCons. They also pumped the drugs into many communities through the CIA, the truth is coming out and I certainly hope people finally wake up to who is the real enemy.
I hope you will amend this video because that parking lot you mentioned around 1:45 was NOT just full of tents. That was the former home of the old Right 2 Dream Too, a self-managed fully incorporated non-profit homeless camp. It was a safe, drug free camp, the property owner facilitated against the city's wishes. It's one example of many ways the city is thwarting private attemps to help ease the crisis.
I miss the days of walking around downtown Portland at night with no issues
If you think it’s bad now, you should have been north of Burnside in the early 80s. Not the first time for stuff like this.
It’s funny that, this week, the city announced they would ease restrictions on office buildings retrofitting for residences, and will even foot a little bit of that bill. Now if you could partition off some of that energy for, say, Cully.
I remember doing that in the 80's, by the late 90's I was looking to move, I lived in a neighborhood where the gunfire from the next neighborhood over was, like, 'every night'!
I miss the days of walking downtown on a Saturday afternoon without constantly being accosted for a damn cigarette.
I live outside Medford, Oregon but used to work downtown cleaning a 5 story office building at night. The homeless have gotten out of hand here also. They would check the doors to my building every night in hopes the door was unlocked or not latched. It never fails that someone can find their way in. They would shoot up in the stairways and would camp out in the bathrooms. They would leave sleeping bags, clothes and garbage all over the place. Let me tell you the smell they would leave behind was not easily handled.
So locks were placed on all the bathroom doors and security hired. But the crazy thing is that doesn't matter...the homeless will STILL find their way into the building. So because the bathrooms are locked they now will stay in the stairwell and use the wall and floor outside the basement for a bathroom. N0 matter what you do they get inside, cause havoc and are somehow invisible until you find the mess they left! Eventually one gets thrown out by police but the building is known for being able to get inside so there's always somebody new to camp out. Its such a disgusting cycle that during the winter becomes much worse!
However the problem isn't going away by simply ignoring.. it's going to get worse
I live on the Oregon Coast. I am hopeful with the progress that has been made in Portland, but I can tell you that the Oregon Coast is riddled with enclaves of homeless. It is a beautiful place to camp but for those looking to stay here affordable housing is almost nonexistent. So, here this problem may be ongoing for quite some time. I really don't know how our service workers who provide such essential services can find a place to live on their salaries.
If Portland can't help it's homeless, the rest of the state is even less helpful because the state money usually all goes to Portland and maybe it's surrounding areas and the rest of us just get to deal.
What housing will an unemployable drug addict manage? This would probably look like a group home where treatment is enforced. But hey, that's not what addicts want.
Really struck me last spring driving, not through the Oregon Coast, but close enough… Eureka. A lot of issues. It’s not just the big cities. We’re also talking about a lot of cities that don’t have Portland’s resources… and despite some “popular” misconceptions, those resources are getting diverted to Portland Police.
Coos Bay?
Unfortunately there's a lot of working houseless people. Seems like a majority of the ones that sleep in their cars and have to have jobs. It's rather expensive to have a vehicle.
I was in Portland not too long ago and there were definitely less tents on the city streets than I was expecting to see, but as soon as we got on I-5 you started seeing large amounts of them just barely out of view off the highway, so I would be inclined to think the issue is not getting a whole lot better, it just moved out of plain sight.
I live in Gresham and commute to downtown Portland on a daily basis. Go check out East Portland. No, Oregon hasn't fixed it's homeless issue.
Exactly
I don't think anyone can say fixed, as a person who works throughout the metro on the daily, I will say I see improvements, not near the finish line yet but I can say it is getting better.
I’ve lived near Portlandistan for 16 years now and this is an accurate portrayal. If you’re considering moving here, think long and hard. Notice anything about all the footage? That’s right, it’s a virtual ghost town with nearly no traffic or pedestrians. Know why? Crime, assault, rampant drug use and defecation in the streets. Why? One word (as Hunter’s dad would say)-Democrat voters. No, it will not improve anytime soon because of the way people vote, and it DOESN’T CHANGE. Crime? Defund and don’t support the police and the rule of law. Drug use? Simple-legalize hard drugs. Homelessness? Keep funding programs that don’t require negative drug testing and GIVE $1,000/month to each homeless resident. Any idea where that money will be spent and what happens when you broadcast to the entire country that your city provides free handouts, free housing, free medical care, and allows legal hard drug possession and use? What happens when you feed ferile cats off your back porch? Hmmmm…it’s all so mysterious.
I grew up in Portland and moved away 5 years ago before it got bad. I’ve been so sad watching it go downhill, but I’m so glad there might be a light at the end of the tunnel ❤️ I love Portland and always will.
Just hope that light isn't an oncoming train.
when Walmart leaves , just maybe things are that BAD ???
Portland has some nice vintage clothing stores.
@@gregorycyr9272 and your point 🤔
@@diana7043 Point is Portland has some nice vintage clothing stores.I like vintage clothing from the 70s.
I’m amazed with how clear those streets were.
Yeah, my city's homeless seem to have disappeared from view very recently, as well. I, too, am in the Pacific Northwest. We didn't implement any new policies, though. We just had a bunch of storms bring snow and flooding through the area. Is Portland getting better, or do your homeless dislike drowning and freezing to death as much as ours do?
This is why I love severe weather so much.
@@TVHouseHistorian let nature take its course!
@@Gfysimpletons that’s right.
So, sounds like they'll be back in a month or so.. I know some species of homeless are migratory
They will cycle back from California in the warm months.
the reason the NW has so many homeless is partly because cali closed down some psych hospitals and got everyone bus tickets north
The only reasons Old Town and other parts of downtown don't look a scene from "Escape from NY" is that most businesses have left leaving no reason for the homeless to stay in a part of town where asking working people for money and or just stealing from retail stores is no longer sustainable to the tent folk.
Yes, and thinking folks will stop enabling this disaster with handouts. Save handouts for housed treatment centers.
You stated that its not as bad as the media makes it out to be ,yet big retail businesses are leaving one after another.
im from LA and as liberal as they come. i see homeless ppl every day and it’s just so hopeless. honestly (and this might be controversial) they need to force ppl into getting help. criminalize the vagrancy and drug use, round them up and make them get treatment. it’s an endless cycle until they force the most vulnerable members of our society to get the help they need :(
You're not "as liberal as they come" if you believe in tough love like that. On the current scale, that makes you a moderate, at best. Quite a few people who are far more liberal than you would even call you a fascist for saying that.
To be clear, I agree with you. I just wanted to make sure you knew where you _actually_ stand in all of this. Welcome to the middle.
@@TheCharleseye I'd call polyphonicdavid a facist.
People need living wage jobs. Medical coverage. Affordable housing. Oh, and Charles, you're not the middle. You're a neo facist.
Most people are homeless because of medical debt and high homing costs.
You aren’t a Liberal, your people have Hijacked the term. The Authoritarian Left, a True Fascist that’s what you people are. Lock up People who do not want help? Who says that? What you’re stating is Unconstitutional and UnAmerican
Couldn’t agree more.
What does criminalize the vagrancy mean????... What's a vagrant and why are they a criminal? I hope you have a good answer boy!
The mental health issue in Oregon is at it's worst in the state and city government
I am so glad to see visible progress is finally being made. I spent a lot of time in Portland long ago, we're talking 25 years, and I loved it. I really, really hope that beautiful town recovers, and that some of whatever works in a situation as bad as it had become can be applied elsewhere.
It will never happens as long as the Marxists are in power.
Walmart recently announced that they are going to close all of their Portland stores due to shoplifting.
I honestly don’t know if it’s going to get better at all.
@@faheemabbas3965 Walmart leaving town is a good sign that things will improve. They are a cancer on communities.
@@nobodyimportant7804 Real brilliant statement. There are thousands of Walmarts throughout the nation that are in very affluent areas that don't have the issues Portland has. I am sure there are many lower income people and seniors on fixed incomes that would disagree with your smug and snobbish comment.
@@billmM3605 It is not smug or snobbish, Walmart has destroyed many communities and the world would be better off with it.
Ways to actually fix concentrated homelessness
1. Build a ton more homes (single family)
2. Build even more homes (multifamily)
3. Fine every small city/state/county that ships their homeless to big cities with programs instead of actually helping their people
4. Build even more housing ( huge apartments with small businesses at the bottom)
Its that simple (this will also fix a lot of other problems)
I have lived in Portland and visited quite often. On my last visit a few months ago, I told my friend who still lives there that it was like Hoarding Without Walls. I first came to Oregon in 1980 and was amazed at how many people lived full-time in tents along the river; this was in Eugene. I see it as a mindset of Oreginians that tolerated alternative living as it was called back then. This belief no longer is valid and hasn't been for a long time. Homeless living does not mean you can trash the area around you. I lived in Pearl District back in 2010 and enjoyed all that Old Town had to offer. It seemed as if the people of Portland lost the will to stop the trashing of their city. I also lived in SE Portland during 2021.
Thx 4 sharing ❤
Thank you, Briggs, for this really important perspective.
As a former resident of Troutdale we all know that the solution is to move all their problems to East County. They want to push their problems to have Gresham and Troutdale to solve. They tried to do it with the Spring water Trail but Gresham pushed back. Portland needs to deal with their issues and quit diverting them to East County. My opinion.
I agree and Gresham needs to keep pushing back. Portland needs to take care of their problems and not dump them in Gresham.
It seems to me that putting up an area to camp with, bathrooms and sanitation, allowing them to camp for a reasonable fee. they can live their lives as they please within the campground limits and offer resources to get back on their feet and help with drug addiction. They don’t belong on the city streets..
Walmart CLOSED all the WM stores in Portland.
Update; Cracker Barrel is also closing all stores in the Portland area...
that kind of food isnt really popular here
@@gavinjohnson8063 Hmmm, Wal-Mart food? Interesting!
@@rockeerockey6941 no, cracker barrel
Downtown Portland Native here. The problem isn't any better - it just shifts from street to street. I don't think it's going to get any better under Mayor Ted Wheeler, either - he's too focused on being everybody's friend and doesn't want to be the bad guy in any scenario.
Seattle has had some progress too... still a long way to go, but some progress.
Last summer I visited Vancouver BC. It was so much worse than Portland or Seattle. It was so sad.
You mean the East side? Or the entire city all 4 sections of Vancouver BC?
@Joy Webster I did not visit the entirety of the city. Downtown between gas Town and the international district was the worst I've ever seen. 😫
I went there for a week about a year ago and spent a lot of time walking around in and near old town. It was pretty wild. So many homeless people in tents and doing drugs right out in the open.
In my opinion what they’re doing is like sweeping dirt under the carpet.
If housing is no longer affordable, then maybe the problem is at the top, with property taxes. Some people have a job, and work full time even, but can't afford a house because it makes it impossible to live. If you are also paying utilities, they are sky high as well. Food is sky high, insurance is sky high, it's a mess.
Glad to hear things are getting better, 4 of my favorite west coast cities are San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. What would also help, don't legalize every drug and bring jobs back from overseas, my whole life was working a trade school job and loved it. Thanks for posting.....
Marijuana legalization has nothing to do with China failing to curb the import of fentanyl and the Biden admin turning a blind eye to that fact
There are plenty of jobs. Lack of jobs was not the problem this past yr employers were desperate to hire. The problem is that a full-time job doesn't pay the bills here. There are people living in their cars working 2 jobs. 50% of the homeless here work full time!
Drugs are not "legal" they have been decriminalized. Meaning that people will not go to jail for being addicts. Being an addict is a mental health condition, not a crime. Those people need help and compassion, and being locked in a cell only adds to their suffering. People do drugs because they are suffering from things like childhoods trama and they deserve love and to be treated as humans. Studies show that addiction comes from a lack of human connection. Putting them in jail and treating them like trash only makes their condition worse when they are released. Would be different if jails actually had better systems designed to rehabilitate people. Things like life skills, coping skills, teaching them a trade , letting them earn an online degree, teaching them better social skills, etc. It should be a socially enriching, supportive environment, but it isn't anything close. Some prisons have some programs in place, but jails don't. Jail is usually for anyone with a short sentence of less than 1yr.
Social isolation alone can cause severe mental health conditions that last a lifetime. Some jails have a 23-hour lockdown, even for those at low risk, and we'll behaved, due to lack of funding. Adding more people to a strained system isn't helping anyone. Jail should be for those who have inflicted harm on others, not those who have only hurt them selves and merely made others uncomfortable.
They are not picking up crack at the local crack store. Nothing has changed except that people are not getting charges that follow them through life, making it impossible to get housing or a job when they do recover. Addicts can now safely call the authorities in the case of an overdose. They are also more likely to seek help, knowing that there won't be consequences if the wring person found out that they have a problem. Decriminalization of drugs does not create homelessness. It prevents it. Its not like thousands of people were clean from drugs, and then it became decriminalized, and they took up using Crack. It gives those who had a problem all along, the chance of a future off of the streets.
@@emilye709 This will take some time to reply to, alot to read. But I can say, the jobs I was talking about are the well paying jobs that were offshored. Alot of people are saying "decouple from china," and I agree with that.
@@emilye709 sounds like you twisted a pickle before typing all that garbage 😅
@emilye709 I wonder if jail time helped some people get sober enough to get their act together in the past.
How do we connect more so there aren't so many lost people? Part of the answer to me is to slow immigration and have a government that cares about its people.
Why they understood the need for “working class” housing in the 50’s and 60’s but not in present day is completely mind boggling…
Briggs, it was around 2017ish that I started seeing tent cities popping up on SE Powell Blvd., by my mother-in-law's house. I had a job at Daimler Trucks on Swan Island from 2018-2019, and I couldn't believe the number of homeless encampments along the greenways on all the roads leading to Swan Island from I-5 😢
Briggs, I am one of your avid followers. In 1975 I worked in Portland, OR. At that time the city was proudly working on their "restaurant scene" near the river. Driven thru many times, in 2016 my wife and I were touring OR and stayed just outside of Portland. We went to Powell's Bookstore, Japanese gardens, the rose gardens etc. We witnessed some homeless and indigents downtown and a big police presence. Now Sept, 2022, we went to Portland for an event. We stayed outside closer to Lake Oswego. I can attest some homeless have moved west of the city. Oregon is a beautiful state we travel the coast Hwy 1 or Route 97. We no longer need to visit Portland.
Portland's anti 2A laws and avoidance of prosecuting criminals means I am not interested in visiting again.
Just a heads up about shelters. It's not the case that the only reasons a homeless person might not want to stay in a shelter are if they don't want to follow rules or they want to do drugs. Shelters are incredibly dangerous. Other homeless people steal their stuff or attack them. Shelters are also generally pretty dirty and badly maintained. It can also be hard to consistently get a bed, depending on demand, and if you can't call a place your own it often feels better to just have a consistent place to be, even if that place is a tent by the train tracks. Many homeless people feel safer on the streets or especially in encampments, and if the weather isn't too bad I can see their point. Shelters aren't the answer, especially if they're privately contracted, as the management company has a profit motive to keep costs down and tends to cheap out on maintenance and security.
Obviously this is a generalization and not all shelters are badly run or dangerous, but I've heard these complaints from multiple homeless people and in multiple investigations.
When I lived in Clackamas and visited Portland in 2000, rentals were quite reasonable and pet-friendly. Sad how things have turned out in 23 years,
Oh, very pet friendly still and reasonably affordable based on the median and/or average wages for the area.
Ah, the days when you could find a place 20 blocks from the river for less than $900 a month. Just 15 years ago, really.
Then VROOM!
A lot of people who moved here when it was less expensive were often the most affected by what happened next. Some could afford to move out. The problem is when you have people buying up property for short-term rental (Air BnB, etc.) or for mid-term flipping. The corporate renters, furthermore, are literally being told by an algorithm to keep the rent higher than to rent 100% of units. This drives issues in several major cities.
@@PCSPounder I mean.. stuff hasn't changed THAT much.. You can get a newer studio apt (500sqft) for $1300/mo in a nice and walkable area (E Burnside and SE 28th).. Hell.. I found a 1/1.5 830sqft townhouse with 2 car garage for $1100 in Vancouver across the river.. Deals are there folks.. You just gotta look, lol..
@PCSPounder Seems like the corporate renters are using an algorithm across many cities. Seems like some service started up around the pandemic and corporate renters hopped on board to jack up prices. I don't have the facts to back up that suspicion.🤔
Thank you Briggs. I’m glad to see you haven’t written Portland off for the quick clicks like so many others. Appreciate you and your channel.
No way. My GF and I were driving on 26 and where it meets 405, there were many tents that were behind a fence that the average person wouldn't be bothered to climb.
I’m homeless and my problem is it doesn’t feel like there’s any spare money for a place. It takes all damn day to make $100 and all of that goes into my gas tank, my stomach, or a landlord’s pockets that same day. God forbid a car repair needs doing (I have a few piling up right now I just can’t get to right now). Life is very unaffordable nowadays. Even people like me who work every single day can’t comfortably afford rent anymore. Rent feels like this luxury I shouldn’t be splurging on right now. I spend that $70 on not even 24 hours at a cheap motel and it’s gone forever. It’s so so damn hard to get ahead. It blows my mind that drugs are even the conversation nowadays when cost of rent is easily the main factor for the homeless crisis. You know rent is too high when working all day every day doesn’t pay the rent AND be able to have some emergency savings put aside. It just sucks. People will look down on me like it’s all my fault. I’m doing my best. I didn’t get to pump out 5 kids and get section 8 housing and food stamps and a whole free ride. I am single and childless. I work and invest for everything I have. I don’t live lavishly by any means. But I just can’t save up first, last, deposit, etc etc. to get moved into a stable home somewhere I want to be with the way the system is designed. It’s designed to keep everyone SCRAPING by because if we all had a huge savings built up, their precious system would collapse. They need us scraping by so they can treat us like garbage. It sucks but it is what it is. Hoping I die or something so I don’t have to grind my whole life away sleeping in my car. It’s exhausting.
It hasn't gotten better overall, just in Old Town.
Homelessness isn't just a liberal city issue. I've visited Phoenix 3 times over the past few months & they have a ton of homeless people.
The Phoenix homeless folks seem a bit more mellow though. The ones in Coronado Park were polite. There are encampments in Portland that are basically chop shops defended by guys with guns.
My last car ended up in one of those places. Now I just avoid Portland. I used to love to visit up there. Traffic is appalling, too, and I came here from L.A. (Go ahead and hate me, I don't care).
Here in PHoenix we have had a lot of Californians move down. Guess they brought the homeless with them so they can feel right at home
@@suzankathleen3953 Everyone truely wants to be loved there, Suzy!😂
My daughter lived in Portland and went out to go to work and found a homeless guy sleeping in the back of her truck. It's definitely out of control
Another thing that affects all west coast cities is that we're the end of the line. There's nowhere else to go.
They can swim to china. or rather their corpse can float there once they die of fentanyl
lot of THESE people have been given options to have a place to live and have refused...they are crazy.
That of what I just saw looks mild. Sad s(h)ituation, but mild.
In Chicago, it's still kinda bad. But the governor of Illinois took the pandemic money, put people in hotels, put money into job training and helped 1000's of people get their lives together.
And a friendly reminder... Not all homeless people have mental issues or do drugs.
Many people had a natural disaster (think of California and Turkey/Syria). Many people lost their jobs. Many people got sick. Got divorced. Lost a spouse or a loved one.
Lastly...
If people, as in people within their own communities, would help each other, the need for government help would be less needed. As in if parents don't teach financial responsibility to their kids, kids won't know how to earn or manage money.
That's right!....But very few americans have the brains to see it the way you do. When the big war finally hits( and yes it's a coming), only the homeless will survive, as the weak middle and upper classes just won't be able to take it.
Often it's not about "money management," it's about just not making enough money to pay rent AND utilities AND buy food.
So gotta correct some things you said, I've grown up in Portland for most of my life (15ish years, I'm 20 now), The Chinatown "parking lot" is not a functional parking lot, it hasn't been for years. It was serving as a organized housing relief for homeless people who could not get into the very few and often strict shelters we have, it worked as a okay temporary solution, however around 2015-16ish from my memory after Sam Adams left it was cleared and has been empty most of the time. It was supposed to be made into a community space however it just sits gated off with a single table. Most of the city's homeless issues are at this point directly the fault of the city council and government/landlords who have increased rents at the limit (9.99%) multiple times. The city conducts sweeps on camps constantly which has just displaced and actually made more of a mess in general as the sweepers do not ever seem to care about properly disposing of trash and often rip apart camp sites and leave lots of things scattered around. During a major winter storm this past winter (Feb 2023) the city conducted sweeps during this storm leading to multiple homeless people becoming injured from the cold. The treatment that I've seen homeless people endure in Portland is truly disgusting and hits a almost human rights abuse level of severity. Talking with these people throughout my life in pdx has really given me an insight on how kind and just misunderstood a lot of these people are. Many do want to be in shelters and go throughout treatment there just is not enough existing. If this is gonna be truly fixed it's gonna take actual investment into affordable housing and preventive measures and also investment into rehabilitation that can actually help these people. Please I ask that you just take a second to think about the situations many of these people have been forced into and to treat them with humanity. We cannot make progress without taking the time to uplift people who are in these hard situations. Anyways I hope to see the city I loved so much improve and go in the right direction on helping this people. But currently most efforts on the city's part has been more harmful recently than helpful.
Maybe if u got the chance, you and your folks can move away to somewhere less expensive & safer
It's nice to see your humanity, thanks for sharing.
Homeless folks are very diverse. Most statements which describe them in a single way are true for some, false for others.
You speak of gaining insight into how kind and misunderstood a lot of homeless folks are, and I'm sure you are correct. It's great to keep reminding people of that.
However the largest danger to homelesss folks (at least where I live) - is other homeless folks. Many are afraid to leave their tents because they stuff will be stolen before they get back. Some refuse shelters because they don't feel safe there. Rapes and violence happen too often.
There are kind and misunderstood folks, mixed in with some real problem cases, and it's hard to tell which kind lives in a given tent.
And humans are complex. The local paper profiled a homeless couple who were organizers and peacemakers and counselors to many around them, good people whom many appreciated. But the man was also physically abusive - to the woman and others - when under the influence, and eventually the woman fled from him. Yes, the same person can be kind and generous sometimes, and dangerous other times. I've known violent bikers who can be kind and helpful at other times. One size does not fit all.
I would like to see those who can be helped, be helped.
It appears to be extremely expensive tho. In San Francisco, it seems to be hard to create permanent shelter for less than $700K per person, and ongoing maintenance and support services provided by the city cost more than most housed blue collar workers earn. It's hard to tell somebody who is working and paying rent and struggling to make ends meet, that we are going to give housing to somebody else, and spend more city money on them than said worker earns with their labor.
To take another example of why it's so difficult, you mention cleanup workers not respecting the property of homeless folks, and I've heart heart breaking stories of that. But when the workers tried to collect possessions to store for later retrieval it's incredibly difficult and expensive to safely extract, sort, tag and protect - and most of it doesn't get collected anyway. Even people who were initially very sympathetic, who work on things like cleaning up homeless camps, wind up burning out and becoming cynical.
AND - that's due to dealing with a subset. It's not the fault of ALL homeless folks. Again, great diversity. But how do we deal with that complex stew?
I live in the Pearl & work downtown and actually go into the office every day. Definitely fewer tents on sidewalks in front of businesses, but I’ve seen a lot more tents under the Steel bridge on-ramp off Naito and under the Fremont bridge on-ramps in Slabtown.
It's just the old shell game.
In this particular area of Portland, I have personally witnessed a grown man pull out his -you know what- and do his business on the sidewalk in the middle of the day. With younger children near by, I’ve witnessed homeless ppl shooting up drugs, tourist getting their bags snatched while standing in line at voodoo doughnuts, homeless ppl coming into pine street market and yelling at the top of their lungs..just to name a few of the exciting things Portland has to offer.
It's a dumpster fire. I'm glad I moved to rural Oregon. RIP old Portland. It was perfect in the early 2000s
@@user-sm7pm1df3e I feel the same about seattle honestly
defunding the police does not help
i lived in a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment just across the river in 98. it was $600 a month. for 3 bedrooms.
rent has not followed the rise of inflation, its way above that. but social security, ssi .. heck ,even minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of rent because all those are based on this concept of 'inflation' which is based on BS, not the actual cost of living.
the cause of homelessness , nation wide.. isn't hard to figure out. Relatively speaking.. people are getting paid lots less than they used to.
Fixing it isn't complicated either. pay people more. even if we just went back to 1998 levels , which did work out fine back then. it didn't destroy the economy, it didn't ruin buisnesses. it just wasn't as good for CEOs an the ultra rich.
the homeless problem in Portland was still terrible back in 2013. What you said about Chinatown existed back then.
Back in 2007, the homeless situation was fairly under control. There were maybe 1,500-2,000 people in the streets. They mainly stuck to Oldd Town, SE 11th and 12th Ave industrial area, Eastbank Esplanade, Burnside, etc. The summer would bring in the transients, but they would leave when the rains came. I don't know what changed in the 2010s. Sam Adams had the city put up signs to keep the sidewalks clear. I just don't know.
Portland is a hellhole. You'll never change my mind. If Walmart has to leave an area, that tells you something
As someone who's lived in Oregon their whole life, I can say whole heartedly that it's the laws that cause 90% of the problem. HUGE encampments all over Portland, Salem, Eugene, etc. I'm done with the rain, cold, homeless, laws, traffic, tax, etc. Everyone in this state is miserable and wants to keep to themselves. Exploring the country, I've realized that a lot of these states don't have these problems (especially the grouchy, bitter people). Moving to Florida and never looking back.
I’ve lived in Florida 40+ years…good luck, you’re going to need it. Florida has tons of issues as well. The cost of living here has become atrocious. The state has one of the highest car insurance rates, worst school systems in the country, and is one of the lowest paying compared to COL. Good luck trying to get homeowners insurance and if you do, it’s through the roof! Rental prices are some of the highest, it’s specifically a problem here because salaries are so low. FL has more sinkholes than any other state in the nation. Sadly, we also have homeless people. Instead of cold, it’s sweltering about 11 months out of the year. If you don’t like rain, wait until you experience a Florida summer, lol! It’s like a monsoon everyday. It doesn’t just drizzle here, it dumps rain and lightning is everywhere. We have hurricanes and tornadoes, alligators and venomous snakes all over. Nothing but flatlands, unless you want to visit the beaches, swamps, and natural springs, there’s not much else to get excited about. The traffic and crowding has gotten worse since everyone is flocking here (3rd largest state in the country). These are just some of the issues. I won’t get into political climate or a Governor who is too busy campaigning rather than fixing issues within the state. If you think people are miserable and rude in OR, you’re in for a ride here! Most of the native Floridians are long gone, there’s no such thing as southern hospitality here. Pretty much everyone living here is from up north. It’s probably a nice place to visit, but living here long term is another story. I guess I’m searching for greener pastures as well because I can’t wait to get out of Florida!
@@Steffy0914 Holy crap! Sounds like you are describing Houston TX!
@@glasslinger Houston and Orlando are more alike than they are different. But Florida is even worse for the average employee than Texas is.
My friends who are doing okay in Florida tend to be "remote workers" and not dependent on local market pay.
Thank you for this more realistic view of the Portland situation. I was there last year, and the homelessness is/was surreal, but it's still an amazing city with some of the best people I've ever met.
Plus Portland is the homeless solution for many areas outside of the area. Number of years ago I watch channel 12 interview with an Idaho official who said a bus ticket to the west coast was their policy with the homeless
You hear so many stories about these bus ticket programs that, at least for the last decade, it’s easy to get the impression that the United States has the most well-traveled homeless population on earth.
I’m damn sure, however, that the pandemic-related increase was primarily local. That’s when we worked hardest to discourage travel, and yet there was a boom here and everywhere.
Not as bad as they make it sound? You're joking right.....?
I'm a born and raised Oregonian, from Eugene. I've been going up to Portland my entire life and in the years leading up to the pandemic, I was up there at least once a month for about 5 years. I spent a lot of time in the downtown area and it's fucked and super sad... so saying it's not as bad as they make it sound is far from the truth... for business owners it's WORSE than people can imagine... hopefully that changes.
Dang! Portland is looking lots better than Denver and the Denver Metro area. We have folks who have been sleeping in the same doorway for at least 2 years...kids used walk by there on their way to school. And in a different part of town they had a tent city across the street from an elementary school where residents complained about the feces and drug needles on the ground.
Portland is looking pretty good, compatibility.
I live in CO but hadn't been to Denver in a while. Last time I was there I was kinda shocked how bad it is.
I can't believe the feces on the ground! , they SHOULD sling it into the trees branches! 😮
your delivery is on point....and your honesty is appreciated....love your channel...
i remember the 1st time going to portland as an adult, was driving around at about 2 am, every store front along every street had homeless people sleeping on it, never went back.
really should make it illegal for employers to discriminate not hiring someone because they have a criminal history. Civilians shouldn't be taking justice into their own hands. Bounty hunting is illegal for a reason. Baring someone who's ALREADY served their time from being able to provide for themselves and re-enter society is down ride frikin evil. If the person becomes a cereal offender then we really should stop letting them out to begin with. But business owners shouldn't be able to discriminate, period.
Hi Briggs. This is different than what I see on the news. I think you're right about the media "click bait". Thanks and have a great weekend.
Online shopping has had the most dramatic impact on downtowns and malls, along with the pandemic and work from home.
You know it’s bad when Walmart closes its doors and leave. That’s a lot of tax money saying goodbye
Sounds like you don't know Portland, for one there was like 2 Walmarts in all of Portland, Most people in Portland don't support or shop at Walmarts. 2nd- 17 States largest employeer is Walmart, in Oregon its not even top 10.. 3rd- Opening a walmart has negative tax revenue for cities. Do a little research city planning and infrastructure. Stores like a walmart do very little for cities, the only real way cities maintain or take care of current roads and infrastructure is by popultion gains, once that dries up and you gave away all your precious land for shit companies like walmart your cities start to go broke. Also Walmart have shutdown like 100 stores around the nation. Not just a Portland thing but a nice Fox news headline.
The City of Portland has designated areas outside of the old town district where the homeless can camp, I think they have to obtain a permit. It's just a shell game, Portland hasn't done anything to substantially decrease the homeless population. The summer months are approaching, wait and see what happens in Portland and Seattle.
Its an awful problem here in Jacksonville, FL too. They've broken up the tent cities downtown before major events, but the people have just shifted to vacant lots and urban wooded areas. Any decent sized area with trees or brush now have a little path into the woods strewn with litter and shopping carts and makeshift tents. Some of these people are working jobs too.
The causes are drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness and a permissive culture regarding addiction. Local officials are more concerned about catering to fringe activists than to the quality of life in the city. If the government won't respond and they can't be voted out of office, then boycot downtown businesses and public events until things change.
At this point, instead of taking public transportation through Portland, I'm driving rental cars to and from the airport. Downtown Portland transportation is unsafe once the Metro police stop riding after the evening rush hour.
Sure do miss Portland. Miss the food,miss the shopping,miss the rain and the trees and the smell of firewood. Miss the coffee, miss new seasons,miss the Mississippi St fair, blazers games
Also its funny you mentioned boise... had to come back to boise from Portland and I miss alot of the good things as mentioned about Portland
This homeless catastrophe started in The once great state of California when the Benevolent Governor closed it’s mental hospitals without preplanning, “Shut them down, private enterprise will fix it”. it sure did.
From someone who lived in the Portland area who left late last year I can tell you that this is a really accurate video on Portland homeless issue.
Didn't a couple of Walmarts in Portland move out due to theft, etc? That's pretty bad. Which businesses would like to move into an area that Walmart couldn't be successful in? Yikes.
There’s more to the story about that lot in Chinatown. It used to be an adult bookstore and one of the city commissioners took offense to it. They use the fire Bureau to shut that down and tear the building down. The owner of the lot, then turned it into a homeless camp out of spite.
They should be forced to take rehab if they're not providing anything for the community
Hey Briggs, I live in downtown Seattle. Would you be interested in doing a homeless situation video here? It is a mess.
I support this. I moved out of Seattle partly because of the homeless/druggie problem
Thank you for the update. I always wanted to live in Portland or at least visit, so I'm waiting or the right time. Such a beautiful place to me.
They're moving them all out to southeast Portland. Opening homeless camps on 82nd ave, a main thoroughfare on the eastside. Crime was already bad out there. Now it's going to be insane. Thank Portlands horrible Mayor and city Commissioner's for that. They are taxing people right out of Portland to pay for homeless. People are leaving. 12 thousand plus have left
Portland area. Businesses are leaving in droves. Yes Downtown looks a little better because they've been pushed out Eastside.
I think I missed out on watching that Nick Johnson video about Portland a few years ago. Anyways yeah looking at what you showed That isn't a particularly bad homeless situation. Where I'm from in Santa Rosa which I mean at least when googling the average rent here is higher than it is in Portland although that could just be dependent on where you go, but there's definitely a noticeable homeless problem here. I mean you go anywhere in the Bay Area you're going to find homeless. Anywhere in wine country you're going to find homeless people. I had actually thought about moving a few hours up north to eureka because it's a much more affordable part of California but it's been stated there's a lot of homeless people there too and I've taken a visit there and yeah there's definitely some homeless people but I mean to me it's nothing new because we get plenty of almost people here in Santa Rosa.
It's cool to see that Oregon or at least Portland itself is trying to Actually do something about the homeless situation. Would really pisses me off here in California is it twice I've seen during elections there had been a proposition on the ballot that would have enforced rent control and each time it failed. The voters were too stupid to realize that the ads that are talking against it are just looking at one minute detail that makes it look like it's bad when if you actually read the proposition the con is kind of non-existent. All the con was was to get rid of the old system in favor of the new system which is what these real estate companies used against the proposition in their advertisements because that was technically true but in reality it wouldn't have hurt anything to pass the proposition it would have just been beneficial to all except I guess the real estate companies.
They're trying again with putting rent control on the ballot this year, but I'm afraid it might fail again. Another thing that's really infuriating is that every election I see so many propositions on the ballot that talk about raising taxes to do something and they keep passing in flying colors and look I understand taxes are important I'm not like completely anti-tax, but when there's propositions that propose raising taxes to actually make improvements to the state and all that has happened from them are the taxes increasing and we have never seen the results of it then just vote no on those stupid propositions because it's just an excuse to raise our taxes and get nothing out of it.
I was just in Portland for a week. It seems like there are a lot of designated spaces for tent encampments and a lot of tents along the freeways. It also seems like all the tents are new and the spaces are mostly cleaned up. The city itself was pretty clean compared to other cities I have visited. If they keep trying to make it clean and designated I think it's a step in the right direction.
The homeless have mostly moved from downtown and into the neighborhoods.
The problem remains.
The left downtown Portland. But, they're all in the suburbs now. Moving their way towards beaverton and hillsboro. Crazy drug addicts trying to get into my car after I got in. Running infront of my car when I got the green. Almost got a few
Same with the LA area. They’re widespread and moving into the nicer areas.
@@db-rc5fr
I'm weak due to an illness. Before I could handle my self if it became physical. But unfortunately now, I don't the house without my gun. And yes, I do hand my carry license
I grew up just outside of Portland and still live nearby. 20 years ago, I could take the MAX to pioneer square as a teenager and stay out till midnight, and not once was I concerned for my safety. That is not the case now, and I'm a grown adult.
u can stay out til midnight Arron , you really have grown! 😅
as a Portland resident who's lived in a tent for a time in the past (not in Portland, though), I'm continually amazed that anyone would choose to be IN the city in a tent. That said i just stopped going into downtown at ALL -- and honestly am kinda happier for it. Downtown sucked before the tents took over, too (entitled pedestrians and bikers walking into traffic constantly, no parking, etc...), but I still had to go down there sometimes, now I don't. Kinda doesn't matter if they clean it up, the habits broken now ;)
sounds like you live life through your car. get out more
@@certifiedforkliftdriver9987 Actually i'm usually using an electric unicycle -- the aforementioned parking/traffic hassles make cars more annoying than useful there. I tried being a good Portlander using Trimet, it just cost 3 hours a day to do my 30 minute commute (on the days when they didn't interrupt service for something), so yeah, I use a car when i'm going more than 20 miles in a given day's trips.
I appreciate the dashcam footage as well as your experiential comparisons
I drove west from the Portland airport a few years ago and in one section of the highway, the ENTIRE THING was lined with tents like it was Walking Dead or something
Good to hear some better news about Portland. Globally it had become notorious for rioting, looting and homeless problems.
And most of the reports of rioting and looting was, of course, hyperbole generated by certain "media" outlets.
Yes, the media loves to talk about Portland as it was a couple of years ago, but like the video shows, it's getting better.
There are some people who just want to live on the street, doing drugs or what ever, but you touched on the truth about rampant homelessness when you mentioned that the cost of living is too high. Can people afford a tiny one room apartment for $1,200 dollars a month? No. Back in the day, the rule of thumb was that your "rent" should be one week's salary, so to live comfortably with a $1,200 rent you would have to be earning, at the least, $4,800 dollars per month. I also want to mention that I've been following the news about massive homelessness in America since long before the pandemic. The pandemic may have killed off a lot of homeless people, so it may look like the homeless situation has improved, but the economics situation in America is getting worse. We see empty shelves in a lot of stores all over America, and the cost of goods has risen sharply. The sharp rise in prices is partially hidden by the fact that we are getting less quantity for much higher prices. The box that holds the chocolate brownies is about the same size as it was before but the contents slosh around in that box like an entire brownie is missing; yet, the count of brownies is still 8 per box. "Profit = income - expenses" puts the entire environment, including ourselves, on the 'expense' part of the equation. Businesses want to avoid and or eliminate all expenses. If we want to eliminate homelessness and rescue our environment, then we will need a new "Global Economic Model" that is based on an entirely new dictionary definition of profit. How about this definition: Profit = our gratefulness and loving care for the environment and sustenance that it provides to all of us.
I have heard all the Walmarts are closing in Portland from mass shoplifting and kinda wondered if it's true or just some news blowing things out of proportion as usual
It's true, I read in The New York Times.
As someone who have been actually living here, yeah, it's true. On the surface, they're saying they're shutting down due to "revenue sales" going down, but that's just nonsense, anyone with enough brain knows that it's due to rampant shoplifting that has been going on for a long time. They shutting down on March 24th this year, and whatever stock they couldn't sell is going to other stores in the other counties.
That's kinda sad for all workers who're gonna lose jobs....
@@bladekite2607 Yeah, the store has been there a very long time. I think 30 years now? The store might have already existed long before I was born. I was born in the 90's. It went through a remodel for a modern update quite a while back. I asked one of the greeters if they were being transferred to other stores. It's a mixed story. Some will be automatically transfer while others say that they have to apply again.
It's the two in Portland proper, several still there in the suburbs. Still, it's shocking they can make money in every town of 40,000 or so but not in east Portland. They were tight-lipped but crime must been the key reason. Leaves a pretty big grocery desert.
Easy answer: The business left... Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Chickfila, Target, Dollar General are just some of the major brands that left. Countless other businesses left. Thus, there's no where for the homeless to steal from or even work part time....Thank a local politician
"....they are just someplace else...." - Briggs. Yes, that's like Santa Monica, California. The city does not allow anyone to set up a tent, build a shack, or live in a van. Hence they have no homeless but, the homeless are just someplace else.
Thank you for making this video!
Portland is doing something, but it looks for the most part that it's just the police forcing people to move on (at last - Portland cops doing something 🙄). Check out some of the other areas across the river and let us know what's going on in the Hollywood District and over a long 82nd please. It's been several months since I have been there, but there were a few places I recall that there were quite a number of tents, RVs, etc.
You might want to check out a you tuber called Velly Ray he takes videos of all the camps in se Portland. He shows the real deal, even does interviews with some people. Very sad, it might be some what better downtown, but they're still lots of homeless camps in Portland metro area. Some are in the vicinity of 82nd and Powell.
This video is a perfect example of the dehumanization of the lower class and impoverished in service of business owners and profits. I love how your view of "fixing" the homeless problem, is getting as many of them out of sight as possible. Maybe advocate for changes in our broken system that can help the large portion of Americans who can barely afford a roof over their head, and worst. Maybe the problem would actually be fixed, instead of kicking it away out of sight and pretending you fixed it.
I've been to Los Angeles, CA, Seattle, WA, and Honolulu, HI where there are a lot of homeless people, but they are not very aggressive compared to the homeless living in San Francisco. I have never been to Portland, OR, but I hope someday I can travel there and other cities in Oregon.
I live in San Francisco born and raised moved to the Tenderloin about two years ago no one has been aggressive towards me but everyone's experiences aren't the same keep your head on a swivel
lower property taxes for apartments. can lower house costs. rents.
It looks so much better. Portland is one of my very favorite cities.
from this video i see a walkability issue. big blocks? wide roads? as someone on the east coast, i cant help feel a little empty seeing this. verticality adds character, imo.