Troutman nailed it. Old Town in downtown Portland is a mess, but that’s a small area. Gun violence is certainly up this year, most of it gang members shooting other gang members. Car thefts are also up. The PD is understaffed, but they’re working on that. The city is supposed to be implementing a group to respond to non-violent problems on the street, so that cops can tackle the more serious issues. Portland’s neighborhoods are generally pretty calm, though there are the sketchier areas like all cities have. I live in Sellwood, which is like a small hometown. Most of Portland is based on the neighborhood concept of having homes surrounding a small business district. I’ve mentioned before that I can walk to nearly everything, including my doctor, dentist, three grocery stores, restaurants and at least two public parks, one of which has a swimming pool.
So much is wrong with what you posted here. Do they have the price of a bus ticket? A quick google says that is going to be around $218. Do you suppose the homeless are just rolling in money?
Ok, so they get together the bus fare. A quick google search shows a studio apartment for $1525, and a one bedroom for $1025, so let’s just say and even thousand. Of course you will need first and last, so you are already up to 2218, and we aren’t even counting utilities. Oh and we don’t have a job yet.
And now you have moved from a place that doesn’t have the worst winters to freaking Chicago, that gets serious winter weather. But yeah, they should totally jump on your idea.
What a maroon.
It’s not just the money, either. Most homeless people have issues with mental illness, substance abuse, or some other impairment of coping skills. They’re not sitting down with their financial advisor and drawing up spreadsheets to analyze the question of “how can I optimize my safety and prosperity?”, and then just ignoring the results out of sheer wanton irresponsibility or to piss off Dinsdale.
When people with those issues live in areas with not-insane housing markets, many of them will be able to access reasonably affordable housing. When they live in areas where housing is insanely expensive (and winter nights aren’t deadly cold), most of them will end up on the street.
I live in far SE Portland. Right near the Springwater Corridor Bike Trail. Anyone who thinks the homeless issue is “no big deal” around here has never been further east than maaaaybe 12th Ave. Zombie RV meth labs catching fire, trash piles drifted six feet deep, 900 car thefts in September alone, hundreds of used needles gathered up in parks every week by SOLV teams–it’s not quite an apocalyptic Mad Max wasteland here just yet but give it six months. Our city government is weak and stalled out, bereft of ideas and solutions and paralyzed by indecision. Call 911 and get put on hold, call police non-emergency and they’ll hang up on you after you’ve waited on hold for an hour. It’s pretty fucked up, not gonna lie.
I’ve long believed that one of the best measures of a society assesses how that society treats its least able members. A measure by which the US fails pretty miserably.
Of course, a flip side is that I do not believe those receiving assistance get boundless choice WRT the assistance they are offered.
I’m a firm supporter of the position that our governments ought to do far more in providing/encouraging affordable housing and free shelter to the indigent. Was it Portland or somewhere else in the NW that homeless and “advocates” objected to the proposal to rework an unused prison for housing, b/c they didn’t like where it was located or the free transportation to get there? 
I also have consistently criticized the decimation of our mental health care system, the end of “welfare” (which has been replaced by SS DIB/SSI), and I’ve not encountered any system that would work better than universal income.
So yeah, the fact that I do not support homeless encampments means that I am a horrible person. 
And, no, I was not imagining that someone facing homelessness move to a $1500/mo studio. To even suggest that as a comparison shows impressive cluelessness. Hmm, how to choose? A tent on the sidewalk or a $1500 studio. Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if there were ANY options in between? Guess what - there are!
I readily acknowledge the challenges of facing up front “moving” costs while awaiting a first paycheck. Fortunately, any number of governmental cash payments over the past couple of years would allow anyone paying the least attention to cover those costs. (I sure wish those payments had been more targeted to those most in need.) But, if someone chooses to spend that $ elsewhere as they slide downhill, well, all I can say is “Stay off my sidewalks!”
Yeah, Chicago here, too, and outsiders sometimes don’t get it. When they yell on and on how everybody is leaving the city, it’s such a hellhole, I get to remind them – well, actually, we gained population from 2010 in the recent census. Notice all those big fucking new residential buildings going up everywhere? Pretty sure people aren’t leaving in droves. Maybe people who share your viewpoint are, but no. And, yeah, twenty years ago Uptown was really sketch, but now, it’s just another gentrifying neighborhood. Still never had need for firearms here. Plus we were ranked #2 most beautiful city in the world by Time Out Magazine readers (behind Prague – okay, that’s a little much, but I think it’s very pretty.) Some people just want places like Portland and Chicago to fail. Fuck 'em.
45 yrs ago it was the hillbillies. Rough area, where several of my HS buddies lived. In some respects, In some respects, I felt safer visiting my other buddies across from Cabrini.
But, yeah - the idea that you’d need/want a gun is not reality based.
My son has lived for nearly ten years on the border between Uptown and Andersonville. No firearms needed. No hassles. People are weird.
Yeah I do not disagree with much of what you stated there. It’s probably a topic for another thread, but generally I agree there is a difference between compassion (help, not punish people who are homeless) and tolerance (no, you cannot set-up a tent on the sidewalk).
I’ve been homeless before. It was due to being young and having very little job experience, and no formal training in a lucrative trade. I worked jobs that paid at or just above the minimum wage and it wasn’t really enough to get by. I also had some financial setbacks, such as having money stolen from me more than once (cash I had withdrawn from a bank to pay a down payment on a cheap apartment in one case). I had no support from family members and friends would let me sometimes crash on a couch temporarily but that was it.
The thing is that I didn’t suffer from mental illness (or at least nothing too serious, I do have my issues but they’re relatively minor) and have never suffered from addiction. I kept at it and eventually got myself into the IT field, originally at the retail level and then into the corporate office environment, and decades later I make a comfortable living, own my own house, have a decent car, a good family, etc. I don’t worry about bills as long as I’m responsible enough with spending (and I am, being poor most of my life taught me to not take money for granted). Someone without those handicaps can pull themselves out of poverty if they are lucky (and I was).
But addiction and/or mental illness (the two often coincide) would have made my journey impossible. I could not have succeeded with those burdens. I can’t judge people who are trapped in that situation. They can’t just pull their life together and step out of the gutter. They have no means to do so.
There actually was a Curious City (NPR/WBEZ) episode about that if you haven’t listened to it. I didn’t realize we had an Appalachian population here, but we did.
Where are these? I have a good job. I make well above minimum wage. I can’t afford to live somewhere, really anywhere, without a roommate.
You are so out of touch it’s disgusting.
What? You mean Next of Kin wasn’t a documentary? 
Not saying it is a GREAT movie. But in the right mood, it id DEFINITELY watchable. Maybe as a double feature w/ something like Road House…
Well, I would have thought the roommate option as a “option in between,” but, anyway, I rent out my HOUSE (1200 square feet, plus 600 square foot basement, with yard, and garage) here in Chicago for $1200/mo in my neighborhood. You can find a single apartment to let for probably around $700-$800/month, maybe cheaper. It’ll vary wildly in the city and where you live, of course, and there are much cheaper places in the US to live, too.
Check Craigslist for rooms to rent. Or google rooms to rent in any of the lower middle class burbs/neighborhoods. Absolutely no problem finding countless offerings at $500 or lower.
Ask your parents what THEIR parents/grandparents did for living space when times were tight. EGADS that you might possibly have to have a - GASP - roommate, as an alternative to sleeping on the streets! 
You forgot to add in the cable bill as well…
Yeah, one of us IS quite out of touch, but I’m not sure it is me.
The alderman for Uptown was recently attacked.
But, he was trying to do a ‘feel your pain’ approach to the homeless rather than have the police involved.
There’s also definitely a gang problem in Uptown, I live very close to there, but I don’t avoid it like it’s a war zone.
Wait, is that Billy Campbell from the future?
The Rocketeer got old!
Homelessness is a ‘wicked’ problem, which means attempts to fix one aspect ofmit make other aspects worse.
Homelessness isn’t just about high house prices. I live in a fairly affordable city, but we have a serious homeless problem.
The thing is, when you domthings to make homelessness more comfortable, or you in some other way reward homelessness, you can bet you are going to get more of it. Put in public bathrooms to stop people from defecating in the street, and you just made it easier to be homeless. Don’t crack down on encampments, and people will start building tent cities.
Here in Edmonton, one plan for ending homelessness is to build infill homes and give them to homeless people. No one seems to realize that the message they are sending is, “If you are homeless in Edmonton, you might score a free apartment”. The supporters of this think this will solve homelessness. Working from basic economic principles, I think it will make it worse.
We are always caught between the desire to help people who are hurting, and the realization that helping to ease fheir pain removes one of the incentives people have to not remain in that situation or to get into it in the first place… This matters on the margins.
We have more homelessness in part because we have made it easier to be homeless.
Well, I feel safe enough to visit Uptown unarmed, but then I don’t go up to groups that are drinking and say, “Stop that! Stop that at once, you naughty peasants!”
Like I mentioned upthread - most homeless previously had a roof over their head in the very city they are now homeless. Something changed to make them homeless - rising rent, cutting of programs that previously helped them, etc. I often hear people suggesting homeless migrate to cities that have more support for them, like Portland and San Francisco - but this is not true. They were not being rewarded for being homeless, they were being supported to NOT to be homeless. One example…