Heh, I work in construction and hear those people and think “Do all the people/money behind these new mixed-use developments I keep bidding know about this?”
Yeah, there was a prison built here (Wapato Corrections Facility) that was a total boondoggle. Construction was halted in 2003, probably because of cost overruns. It was then sold to a private concern in 2017 for $5M, then again in 2019 to a local bigshot.
Now to your statement about resistance to using it as a homeless shelter. The new owner (Jordon Schnitzer) is the person who objected to a homeless shelter in this area because of the distance from public services. It’s also located under the approach pattern of the airport in a heavily industrialized part of the city. And where did you get the idea that public transportation is free here? Would you want to live there? I think your emoticon is unwarranted.
However, arguments aside, it was actually initially prevented from being used as a homeless shelter by existing regulations at the time. With some arm-twisting by the new owner (Schnitzer is a big name here), the place was eventually converted and opened in October 2020 with 80 beds and plans for another 400 beds.
Oh, there’s gangs where I live, too (mainly Latin Kings and Satan Disciples, and some Two-Six–but it’s pretty calm compared with the neighborhoods to the north and east – Little Village and Brighton Park), but I feel fine without a firearm. It’s actually better than it was in the 90s. People forget how much the 90s sucked for violence here in Chicago. That said, I have no problems with people carrying protection, even though I don’t feel I need it. I mean, I’ve gone down multiple times to Lem’s on 75th just east of MLK at 1 a.m. in the morning to pick up some tips and links, dressed in formal clothing after work (wedding photography) to pick up a snack, and nobody ever gave me any problems. Now, I would not necessarily wander around the neighborhood like that, but it’s not like danger lurks around every corner. Yes, there can be danger; yes, one should not be naive about it, but it’s not what is painted in many people’s heads.
Thanks. I readily admit my erroneous recollection. I had misremembered that there was opposition from potential residents as to the location, and thought there was proposed to be some sort of free or subsidized shuttle service.
I saw something in a quick google that mentioned a facility being set up as sober housing, charging $250/month or so.
Clearly not enough creative thinking is being done by all involved. Given the firehose of federal spending of late, it would be nice if a chunk of it were going to increase housing in a meaningful way. Instead, I fear much of it is just getting pissed away on immediate needs, and when the firehose fries up, we’ll be much in the same position.
Ahh - memories! The Latin Kings were the main rivals of the Almighty Gaylords who hung out around my grade school on the NW side. But - no, I’m not comparing 60s-70s gangs w/ today’s.
Geez, are we waxing nostalgic over street gangs now? I remember the Gaylords as cocky fucking assholes hanging around my apartment building having beer parties and who wouldn’t leave until we called the cops to start hauling them off. They always came back. We finally moved.
I do like the movie The Warriors though. And West Side Story.
I don’t think anybody imagines that any conceivable policy will totally eradicate the problem of homelessness. But I think your theorizing from “basic principles” ignores empirical evidence from, e.g., “Housing First” type programs, e.g., in Utah, where homelessness was cut 91%.
I seriously doubt that non-homeless people in Edmonton are going to become homeless deliberately just to get a free apartment (of which there’s probably going to be a limited supply). And I doubt you’ll get “caravans of immigrants” arriving from elsewhere to try to score one of those few apartments. Homelessness situations are a lot more complicated than naive simplifications of supply-and-demand principles might suggest.
Cite? I would like to see numbers that prove that homelessness nowadays affects more of the population than it did, say, back in the days of “the great army of tramps” and street waifs back around the turn of the 20th century, or the migrants of the Great Depression, when homelessness was definitely not an easy prospect.
I think it might be more accurate, although less libertarian-affirming, to observe that we have more homelessness nowadays than pre-1980s mostly because we have made it harder not to be homeless. Everything from de-institutionalizing the mentally ill to rising housing prices to “War on Drugs” prohibitions on public housing access for peple with substance abuse issues, etc., has made simply having a place to live a much more challenging task for a lot of people.
No worries. And you’re right: the city has been dysfunctional when it comes to the homeless, but that seems to be the norm with this antiquated commissioner system they have. There are several areas in the city that have been allocated for what are basically tiny home communities, and of course nearby residents are up in arms over it. My POV is that if facilities are provided and you keep yourselves and your area cleaned up, and not harass the people living around you, you’re welcome. The biggest problem with the make-shift camps is that they include everyone from the temporarily homeless to the most violent wackos.
Sorry.
As a school kid, they were just the local greasers some of whom were my good friends, my sisters’ boyfriends, etc. The guys you knew would end up working in garages and factories.
A quick google brought back memories of their sweaters and stuff. Funny to see my local park, bowling alley, burger joints, and freaking grade school described as hotbeds of gang activity! Who knew? Maybe I WAS raised on the mean streets! (No, most definitely not!)
In retrospect, the racial/ethnic aspect is pretty key, as our neighborhood was 100% white, and the Latin Kings represented the Latinxes (isn’t that what we called them back then?) who now completely populate the neighborhood.
Warriors, come out and Play-ay!" 
My grandparents bought a house for $900/ WTF is your point?
OK, you piqued my interest! Where and when did they buy what kind of house for $900?
I lived in Portland for several years, now live 3 hours away, but I have spent a disproportionate amount of time in the city over the past 9 months dealing with my grandfather’s estate after his passing this past spring. While I claim not to be an expert in any way, here are my thoughts:
First, I think the KOIN article represents one view of central Portland six months ago. Remember that the source of the article is a commercial TV station reporter and that commercial TV stations make their money by selling advertising. Recall also that the fees paid to purchase ad time scale with audience size, creating an incentive for TV stations to build audience using what is basically the only programming they directly produce and control – local news. The old saying from print journalism – “if it bleeds, it leads” applies here too. TV news labors under financial incentives to produce audience attracting, sensationalist stories because they can sell ad time at higher rates if they have larger audiences.
Yes, there is a significant homeless problem in the Portland metro area. But it is, unfortunately, not unusual for a prosperous urban area on the west coast. See the following McKensy article on Seattle’s situation where the homeless situation is notably worse than that of Portland, to say nothing of the SF Bay area or Los Angeles. The drivers of Portland’s homeless situation are the same ones that drive Seattle’s situation.
Why-does-prosperous-King-County-have-a-homelessness-crisis McKinsey 2020.pdf (981.4 KB)
“Because billions of dollars in spending and best efforts have been aimed at the symptoms of this problem and not at its root causes.” They go on to argue that “While the region is racking up impressive numbers in terms of job creation and economic growth, its housing growth has not kept pace. The gap between housing supply and demand has driven up prices to the point where the poorest simply can no longer afford housing without public support.”
(My bold)
This is referencing Seattle, but the situation in Portland is much the same.
Oregon Homelessness March 2019 for OCF.pdf (5.6 MB)
“High rents are to blame for the severity of the state’s homelessness crisis. Economists John Quigley and Steven Raphael were among the first to demonstrate that housing affordability—rather than personal circumstances—is the key to predicting the relative severity of homelessness across the United States. 1 They estimated that a 10.0 percent increase in rent leads to a 13.6 percent increase in the rate of homelessness.”
(Again, my bold.)
Central Portland’s recovery from the joint effects of the pandemic and the civil disturbances of mid-late 2020 (which continued with diminished frequency and intensity into this year) has been slow. But it is continuing. With a partial return to in person teaching, PSU does seem a bit more vibrant. I was on campus last December immediately prior to winter break and the place was completely deserted, a significant departure from the bustle I had experienced in on the same streets as a student 4 years prior. That was a direct result of distance learning and still-extant Covid retrictions. However, when I was there 5 weeks ago much of the life on campus had returned. It isn’t universal, however. Much commercial office work remains in the “remote / work from home” mode. This keeps workers out of downtown and off the street and directly contributes to the sense of abandonment downtown. Small shops which depend on workers in the area have been adversely affected. A number have closed. I see this as being primarily pandemic driven.
I did see a story in, I believe, in the Portland Tribune, reporting that when one looks at the percentage of jobs lost during 2020’s covid-driven spike in unemployment which have been subsequently recovered, and compared levels of recovered jobs in the Portland metro area with other parts of the state, Portland has recovered a significantly smaller fraction of jobs lost. This is in part attributable to the outsize share of employment in the hospitality industry here (hotels, restaurants, bars etc.) vs. the rest of the state and the fact that the hospitality industry and tourism were disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
Unknown, of course, is how permanent that will be. Of interest is this publication, Oregon by the Numbers. Particular attention should be paid to comparative poverty measures by county.
https://www.tfff.org/select-books/book/oregon-numbers-0
Of the “top ten” counties that have households in financial hardship, 8 are in central Oregon and 2 are on the coast. Multnomah and Clackamas are tied for 28th, Washington is 25th. The Portland metro area covers all 3, Portland proper is in Multnomah. Oregon has 36 counties.
See also this survey item on homelessness in Oregon generally. Table 5 on page 11 suggests that the unsheltered homeless population (those camping on the sidewalk) is relatively smaller in the PDX metro area than it is in other parts of the state.
Homlessness and Affordable Housing Mult Co 2018.pdf (2.1 MB)
I think the KOIN news story is about is a nostalgic “paradise lost” theme driven by an inaccurate and incomplete recall of many of Portland’s more gritty details as they existed before 2020. I think it’s important to note that Portland wasn’t all fine neighborhoods, endless microbrew brewpubs and harmless quirkiness. What Chefguy said is spot-on: many Portland neighborhoods exist as a microcosm, relishing their own identity and culture. The KOIN story simply fails to acknowledge that a big part today’s situation in central Portland is as much an extension of prior, pre COVID, trends as it is something meaningfully new.
I don’t understand why someone who has some means but can’t afford rent in Seattle or San Fransisco doesn’t just move somewhere else.
When I was getting started that’s what almost everyone did. There were no tech jobs in my home city, so rather than whinge about and demand someone fix the problem, I packed up everythjng Imcould take in my crappy car and moved to where there were better prospects. Almost all of my friends did the same. In fact, only one of them still lives in our home city.
Are young people less willing to do this now? I couldn’t imagine living in squalor in a tent when I could just go elsewhere and live much better. Are people that wedded to their home cities? Or are people more fearful of leaving their home city? Or what?
There are plenty of towns and small cities out there with very reasonable living costs and reasonable available jobs.
I would suspect that a lot of people in this situation were blindsided by unemployment and had no savings to let them move elsewhere. A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck and have little to nothing for a cushion. Another possible scenario is that people have hung on, hoping that things would improve, and then found themselves stranded without any means to get out. If you have money in the bank, then you can take the chance to move elsewhere, although if there is no job waiting there for you, you’re really in a pickle.
And of course there are a lot of people who do just what you suggested. I met one of them a couple of years ago who was the victim of a no-fault eviction from his rental home. He couldn’t find anything to rent in his price range, so sold most of his possessions and left town with his mother for California.
As I said in post #23,
And Atamasama anecdotally corroborated in post #30:
I don’t think it’s employable, stable, competent young people like your and Atamasama’s younger selves who are driving the homelessness crisis in several mild-climate urban areas nowadays.
So, they’d get into their car and drive somewhere cheaper. Will there be a job there? Will the landlord let them move in without first, last and security?
You have to have some savings to do that. Let’s say the cheaper rent is $1000. You need at least $4000 to do this, including money until you get hired and the first paycheck comes.
I like that, just get on a bus and move from San Francisco to …oh, let’s say somewhere in Texas… it would make quite a documentary. Get off the bus and knock on someone’s door…‘Hi, I googled Craigslist on the library computer, I have been living in a tent under a bush for the past three years. I have no job and I make money by holding up a cardboard sign by the freeway exit. … Now, can I see the room you have for rent here in your lower-middle-class three bedroom house? And is it ok for my mom and her dog to come live with me next month because her flophouse is being torn down to build a yuppie condo?’
When was the last time you were homeless with no savings and no job skills, no family support? I’ll wait.
Getting back to Portland, I appreciate the posts indicating the vibe in the news media is a bit hyped along with the vindictive partisan spin, but the city has some real issues that are not unlike some other urban areas.