Portland's Houseless Thread - Page 3

ceb426 · #41 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 2:34 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by RainDog

Well the link you posted is a map with the location highlighted....

Oops!! I meant "when"

pdxtraveler · #42 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 3:24 PM**

This sounds very interesting. Curious to know more, of course the article was behind the paywall. Too bad I am cheap.

petcarpdx · #43 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 4:48 PM**

Here's an OLive article on the same topic - no paywall!

Quote:

Williams hopes to nail down construction estimates, operating costs and a financing plan by March 2017.

Not enough info from that to nail down a construction timeline, but it sounds like we'll have a better idea in a year.

Derek · #44 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 4:51 PM**

I doubt it'll come to fruition, that land is way too valuable to be a homeless camp. It'll only encourage more homeless people to come to Portland, which is the exact opposite of what we need. I'm not trying to be insensitive, but it's the truth.

eric cantona · #45 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 5:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derek

I doubt it'll come to fruition, that land is way too valuable to be a homeless camp. It'll only encourage more homeless people to come to Portland, which is the exact opposite of what we need. I'm not trying to be insensitive, but it's the truth.

so you have some data to share? because without any, I'd argue that you are being ENTIRELY insensitive. I'd even go as far to say you're being insensitive even if your assumption is correct.

pdxtraveler · #46 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 5:31 PM**

I am so happy Williams & Dame took it upon themselves to really try to find a solution. I hope they are taken more seriously than this article suggests. So far all we have heard are pronouncements and hand ringing, about time someone offered actual actionable ideas.

Derek · #47 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 5:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by eric cantona

so you have some data to share? because without any, I'd argue that you are being ENTIRELY insensitive. I'd even go as far to say you're being insensitive even if your assumption is correct.

Taken a walk around downtown lately? Seen all the tents under freeway overpasses? Our parks littered with feces and needles? Please.

eric cantona · #48 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 6:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derek

Taken a walk around downtown lately? Seen all the tents under freeway overpasses? Our parks littered with feces and needles? Please.

every day. know what I see? fellow humans reduced to living in fucking squalor. you say that a camp is "the exact opposite of what we need". do you have an alternate proposal? should the homeless just fuck off and get out of your way?

I'm not the one to say if more coordinated camping options will be an answer to this crisis. certainly in the short term they'll relieve some of the pressures the city is facing. I have my doubts that it would be any more than a band aid on a tumor, at this point. but doing nothing is most definitely not an option, in my book.

this is not a Portland issue, either. it's all across the country, even globally. it's the direct result of a couple of decades of wealth accumulation of a very small percentage of the population. nothing we do here will stem the tide of homeless in the near term. but we can have compassion and do the right thing and treat these people (yes, even the junkies) like fellow humans. reducing them to shit and needles does nothing to advance the discussion.

Derek · #49 Posted **Jun 30, 2016, 7:00 PM**

All I'm saying is Portland doesn't need a homeless "destination". Obviously I know there's a problem, we all do, but this proposal just gives homeless from around the country even more reason to come here. They're flocking here in droves already, this will only make the problem worse, in my opinion.

"Hey dude! Did you hear about that riverfront homeless camp that just opened in Portland?! Let's go! Oh yeah, drugs are super easy to come by, and the mayor let's you sleep in the parks if we don't get into the camp!"

I don't have a solution unfortunately, I just don't feel like this is it.

maccoinnich · #50 Posted **Aug 15, 2016, 7:15 PM**

Quote:

News from last week:

After A Fraught Hearing, Terminal 1 Might Be Portland's Largest Homeless Shelter Within Months

For all the remarkable things about the debate over Northwest Portland's Terminal 1, the most striking may be how it's scrambled the long-drawn battle lines we're used to when it comes to Portland's homeless.

It's partly the lack of certitude or concrete specifics inherent in the proposal to put a 400-person temporary shelter on the 14.5-acre plot of city-owned land. And it's the immensity of a 1,000-plus person "campus" that could follow in coming years.

For some people, it's the provenance of the plan to begin with: big-time Portland developer Homer Williams, who just three years ago was cutting deals to get homeless people far away from his property.

Whatever the varied reasons, the debate this morning—as a sharply divided Portland City Council approved a resolution that sets the table for a temporary shelter and more at 2400 NW Front—was different than past ones.

...continues at the Portland Mercury.

WestCoast · #51 Posted **Aug 17, 2016, 12:09 PM**

Portland is whoefully short on industrial land like this. If we want to grow our economy and bring in good paying jobs for average working families... it would be better to encourage businesses to come here and create jobs. I guess we live in pretty weird times though - as Eric said, the public prefers band aids to change.

--
And without trying to be too political here, totally agree with Derek on this one in general.

The more we give free stuff away, the more people won't have any motivation to work for anything.

After decades of enabling people to just hang out like this, a further burden falls on the rest of us who work every day to subsidize the behavior of the lazy.
There will be a point where people in society stop wanting to fund free rides for folks who just want to camp, smoke dope and hang out downtown with their dogs.

While there is certainly income inequality in the US (and I'm not sure why anyone considered that fundamentally a bad thing). Giving stuff away doesn't fix the problems.

bvpcvm · #52 Posted **Aug 17, 2016, 2:23 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Portland is whoefully short on industrial land like this. If we want to grow our economy and bring in good paying jobs for average working families... it would be better to encourage businesses to come here and create jobs. I guess we live in pretty weird times though - as Eric said, the public prefers band aids to change.

--
And without trying to be too political here, totally agree with Derek on this one in general.

The more we give free stuff away, the more people won't have any motivation to work for anything.

After decades of enabling people to just hang out like this, a further burden falls on the rest of us who work every day to subsidize the behavior of the lazy.
There will be a point where people in society stop wanting to fund free rides for folks who just want to camp, smoke dope and hang out downtown with their dogs.

While there is certainly income inequality in the US (and I'm not sure why anyone considered that fundamentally a bad thing). Giving stuff away doesn't fix the problems.

What an interesting post.

Mr. Walch · #53 Posted **Aug 17, 2016, 7:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derek

All I'm saying is Portland doesn't need a homeless "destination". Obviously I know there's a problem, we all do, but this proposal just gives homeless from around the country even more reason to come here. They're flocking here in droves already, this will only make the problem worse, in my opinion.

"Hey dude! Did you hear about that riverfront homeless camp that just opened in Portland?! Let's go! Oh yeah, drugs are super easy to come by, and the mayor let's you sleep in the parks if we don't get into the camp!"

I don't have a solution unfortunately, I just don't feel like this is it.

I live in Seattle and the epidemic of homelessness is very similar and people love to blame outsiders coming to the city. Service providers record data about where people are from and the truth is that almost all homeless people are local. Homeless people don't have resources to move and juts like everyone else tent to stay where they have community. Maybe the explosion of homelessness has some thing to do with the spike in rents?

eric cantona · #54 Posted **Aug 17, 2016, 9:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Portland is whoefully short on industrial land like this. If we want to grow our economy and bring in good paying jobs for average working families... it would be better to encourage businesses to come here and create jobs. I guess we live in pretty weird times though - as Eric said, the public prefers band aids to change.

--
And without trying to be too political here, totally agree with Derek on this one in general.

The more we give free stuff away, the more people won't have any motivation to work for anything.

After decades of enabling people to just hang out like this, a further burden falls on the rest of us who work every day to subsidize the behavior of the lazy.
There will be a point where people in society stop wanting to fund free rides for folks who just want to camp, smoke dope and hang out downtown with their dogs.

While there is certainly income inequality in the US (and I'm not sure why anyone considered that fundamentally a bad thing). Giving stuff away doesn't fix the problems.

lovely.

/s

tworivers · #55 Posted **Aug 17, 2016, 10:59 PM**

Haha. If anyone is "lazy", it's the folks at the top milking the system by feeding at the public trough while selling us on the "free market" system and trickle-down economics. I'd like to talk to a few of them about bootstraps and a willingness to actually work for a change instead of being dependent on Mommy and Daddy and the nanny-capitalism state. I could go on about empathy and "family values", too...

Having worked with homeless people for a decade I can attest to the fact that the vast majority of them are essentially refugees in their own city and region. The idea that a significant number of homeless people are encouraged to move to a city based on an increased level of resources is specious and has been shown time and time again to be a myth. It reminds me of the "crime train" line of thinking regarding mass transit.

58rhodes · #56 Posted **Aug 18, 2016, 12:27 AM**

This problem is not an easy fix-that's for sure--but Im not sure I like moving it to port facilities

maccoinnich · #57 Posted **Aug 18, 2016, 1:07 AM**

The last time a ship called at Terminal 1 was in 1989....

eric cantona · #58 Posted **Aug 18, 2016, 2:04 AM**

PICA's last Dada Ball was held there in 2001.

bvpcvm · #59 Posted **Aug 18, 2016, 4:25 AM**

WestCoast, I'd be curious to know your thought process behind this. What steps get you from "poor" to "lazy"?

cailes · #60 Posted **Aug 18, 2016, 5:03 AM**

Portland is the opposite of some places.

For instance, I lived in Indiana in a former life. There, taxes have been cut so low to encourage "job growth" that it has hamstrung social services and the jobs that DO some, usually locate in population centers with the resulting small town fall out being drugs, theft, etc.

Im not sure which is worse. A booming economy with a demographic that is pigeon holed as being a drag or a depressed economy where nobody has great jobs and the competition for what exists is fierce and those who don't succeed are still scratching it out.