Homeless in Portland

Portland has an issue with the homeless situation and one of the biggest questions is how can we fix it?

To see how we got here we need to realize a few things, one is something people have been wanting to do and that is who is to blame for this whole affair and three parties once can look at Portland’s problems and all of them will lead to something that the citizens will not like to hear. Those three parties are the city council and all the people who had been on it since Wheeler got into office filling in for Hales when he left. Hales leaving by the way has got to be the biggest dodge this side of the matrix because if he knew it or not this cannot be tied so much to him.


Every city commissioner whether they were on before or came on after has to look at the major portion of the blame because for all the power and privilege they could not get any less done without a plan. Jo-ann Hardesty who ran on a campaign against the homeless boulder project trying to craft herself as their champion has shown to be one of the biggest failures to her position in recent memory from how she has bungled the riots with the rest, how she has not been able to get the educational capabilities up to the quality and despite asking for more power she has not been able to handle her normal business in position.


Ted Wheeler, is someone that I thought had to be trying to burn the city down, but since those moments years ago. I wish I could say his quality has also gone up but that would be a bit of a stretch by most standards and even his most ardent defenders have so little to stand on that any time dealing with them online would bring memories of screaming children as both would have no idea what the situation would entail and is just mad because they are on the wrong side of the emotional exchange. Let me say it clearly, I do not think the mayor of Portland is doing this out of spite. I think from his actions in an office he is either very emotional or very stupid and while not pure malice can sometimes look like it at times. His time dealing with the riots as they began, the attack on Andy Ngo, the clash of pro-trump and Antifa groups, the pandemic, the riots, and the side effects have been nothing but a complete failure and one where he still got re-election because the only other person running ran on a campaign dubbing herself the Antifa mayor, from the same group of people that the group never existed and it was just an idea.
So we have the city commissioners and two of the greatest hits among them, but we also need to look at the Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt whose work about trying to make the justice system fair has led to the most murders in recent history, the most gun violence in recent history, the most assaults n recent history and is such a rampaging buffoon I honestly think that Hitomi Tanaka or any other busty porn star with six weeks of training and an effort to do a good job will do better, and just for the record Hitomi Tanaka does not have a law degree either. Mike Schmidt will go down as the worst amongst everyone who has committed to the position and save for people trying to outclass his glittering capstone in the processes of legal failures upon a community I doubt it will ever be overcome. Under him, there has been a loss of prosecutors that Portland has ranked in the bottom third of prosecutors per 100,000 people according to KATU.

https://katu.com/news/katu-investigates/portland-multnomah-county-playing-catch-up-reducing-violence-da-says

Few people would like to talk about how the police are just blaming without remembering one thing. In the setup, we have as of this writing and the one that has been used for the past decade or so the last word on the police department is the mayor. We have also lost enough police officers that even the Daily Mail is picking up the story and even did an article six months ago expounding upon it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10186699/Portland-PD-788-cops-lowest-number-1989-amid-violent-crime-surge.html

On top of these two parties in Portland’s power structure being as useful as a wet fart in a toilet paper shortage, we have to move on up to the governor of the state who could be outclassed by several things one may work within a day like a cheese sandwich, a pencil, the previously mentioned wet fart, and that is to name a few. Kate Brown could only be called a success if her goals were to destroy education, raise suffering and actively try to make everyone less skilled and more miserable. In that metric, she has actually done a half-decent job.

Now the most painful part, all of these people have been elected and the city commissioners including Wheeler have not one election but two. That means the people say their work and thought they are good for the ob and that makes me wonder. Do people know what these people do? Kate Brown has been in since 2015, JoAnn Hardesty since 2019, Schmidt was placed in after the previous DA retired, and Wheeler since 2017 after the previous mayor retired and then won his own election.


Mind you some may take all this and see all the democrats and think I am anti-democrat, I am not. I am however very much anti idiot and both of the big parties are filled with zealotry that their own beliefs are the proper ones. Let me explain, no, the party line is not the code to live one’s life Further away from that there is some issue in the citizens that people in some portion want to support all manner of action as long as it makes them feel good in the short term. This will wreak havoc in the long term and while some see that we have to get away from the soft feel-good way of voting and people need to spend a little time to figure out what needs to be done to go from where we are to where we want to be. Otherwise, the people we will have to blame the most for this are ourselves and while I have been trying through various things among everything else and I am doing more about it now.

I think it is clear that we need to get a better quality of the person in the office and we need to realize as citizens that doing something good sometimes will not be easy.

Things that would be more effective in office than the politicians and day listed above.

Unfashionably Late

I had plans to get something out talking about the progress on projects and about how it all was building to seemingly more and more and it was going to be very warm and fuzzy. Except for those why may know the history of this blog may remember that this was originally established when due to family issues I was forced out with very little notice.

Then the plan was to do a pat on the back because despite learning of the homeless situation and learning what has built into it, there really wasn’t much to crow about. I was right. There are problems and people really dragged their heels to work on it. I will however still post this gif because some people really wanted to argue about how right I was.

Sometimes it does help when some people actually listen to what is being said.

With that out of the way now we have some issues, I have been trying to stay away from the homeless situation to some degree because I am no longer homeless, except something that has been sticking in my craw has come to be a full-blown annoyance and I feel I have to write about it here and that is I would expect someone from the portland scene to write about the situation and nothing has been done of it since then. I did not want to be the loudest voice trying to talk about my home city on this subject but it has been two full years since I wrote more in-depth on it and I feel that I need to again, especially with how the city has failed its citizens both in housing and not.

I am not going to say that I will be doing so many articles a day but there are some things I think need to be looked at and my place is as good as any. On top of all that it seems that no one really wants to talk about how the problem will need to be handled for the sake of as many people as possible. Right now, what I am worried about is a group of people in Portland trying to make decisions quickly to make up for years of inactivity and going too far on it making their efforts that much of complete failure.

Does this mean that I am stopping anything? Nope, in fact, provided I can get my list of smaller things done I will see how people can just be subbed to that as it seems some of you really like to hear about that subject.

You know the drill, stay strong.

Brainstorming on the Police Issue

I am absolutely positive that this post will piss everyone off, but it needs to be said.

Currently the police are having a lot of issues. Some are calling for the disbanding of police department because they may need to get violent. Here is the thing I have a big problem with the police I am not a guy who says he loves the police. Full disclosure I have had police idiocy cost me something very dear and those officers specifically I got an axe to grind the size of Argentina.

There is a need that only the police can handle. We have cut back police response in Portland and we are at the lowest sized force in 23 years. Considering how gun violence has gone up and continues to go up it means we have some major problems that need to be worked out and the police are going to have to help with that because currently our Mayor is using private security and that as damning of his work as all the city commissioners, and it should because has previously noted they have failed.

How do we fix it though is the question and to do so would take a multi faceted plan to answer questions where people have an issue. First, it is to help the officers, in Portland it takes 2 years to be a full officer, and in it I would add also some study in law. I would try to restructure the training so we aren’t losing so much as upgrading in different areas and I feel a little bit of time learning the law will give them a little confidence to further add some capabilities explaining how things are in the laws they defend.

Another thing is that we need to take a look at what counts as the over bearing hard left trying not to hurt anybody’s feelings instead of solving problems style of politics needs to end. It is not working and after close to six years for Mayor Ted Wheeler and the four for Commissioner Hardesty. There is very little to show for the hundreds of thousands of dollars their paychecks have given.

Kowtowing to political groups for clout was a disgusting move as it painted the city in a corner and one it will take years to get of. Some who sympathize or claim they are a different group then antifa despite wearing the same colors, using the same tactics, and fighting the supposed same enemies is a lark.

All of this sounds like a big thing where some think I will get several american flags call myself a hardline gop and exclaim the virtue of pence.

Honestly, if you look back when BLM was getting a foothold in the city I did have some hope for them to be a positive change, and despite not liking how Antifa had started in the city with the proud boys I thought they could do good. I still think they can, but they need to change, and they need to do it.

When a large group of people throw Molotovs at a police station, set trash on fire, break windows and rob places that is a riot and at first sign it needs to be stopped no matter who it is and use the best tools to do so. I would offer two sets of tools as equal as I could make them taken from the capabilities and tactics from police around the world to do what they need to do and give them the best chance to succeed. Have the city vote. Don’t want tear gas or smoke, I have no problem then providing water cannons or dye cannons in case there were crimes done at such events.

When the city votes on set of items is being used that is it. No cutting tools out of the toolbox. Next we need to increase transparency. I would want in my hypothetical city a website ran by the city of Portland where the vest cams of officers would be posted with only being the defining details being blurred. If people want to complain they can do it from their home as well but it would be something where both sides would be heard. You would have a website where you can log in, check some video, and if they see something that the officers didn’t then there would be a line of communication where those things spotted, plans tweaked and further evolved. It provides nowhere to hide for those who are bad officers and good officers will be seen more.

Better training, a noted and understood tool set and near complete transparency. The counter point would be, crimes need to be charged, and if I found out my DA was releasing people based on political ideology I would see what could be done to either back the police who were doing their jobs, and to make sure others understood his failings weather we have to see if he had to be disbarred, whether some talk with peers above him has to be checked. In any case their would be options on the board to fix the problem either under his own power or under something greater. I say this because currently the district attorney for Multnomah County has caught a whole river full of hook kissers and let them go when normally they would be given jail time.

For those who want to just motor on from this wall of text, D.A needs to do their job, training and tooling the police would be redone, using input form the city and we are using transparency to open up communications online

Portland, We Have A Problem.

Portland has exploded in terms of gun violence. It is one of the things that has may me want to breathe fire. I will be as neutral as I can be because honestly I do not think either side is the all evil. I will say however to anyone wondering that we have had Mayors we ran themselves as Democrats for 29 years. Bud Clark was an independent and his term ended December 1992 and the last Republican mayor was Connie McCready who was a female journalist who was mayor only after someone else died, and was the mayor during the St. Helens eruption. No shade there I just found that an interesting tidbit, and it may save you during a trivia night.

Point of the whole matter, what if you in front of your screen were brought with news that your home city had gun crime that had gone up close to 300% between two years. Some may ask, what are the details, and I will further explain. What if from January 2019 to December 2020 shootings gone up three times over, and on top of that reports are just coming out that this year in a single month we have had almost a hundred shooting incident in a month.

Those are from the City of Portland’s own tally. What if from 2019, to 2020 we went from almost 400 incidents to almost 900?

Knowing we are almost at hundred in a month we can break a thousand this year, and that makes me want to take the circus dive challenge in to a barrel of alcohol strong enough I would forget my own name. This is disgraceful.

Some may then bring up that the majority is driven by the police shootings.

There are some and even some errors made by some officers but they are in the clear minority versus everything else.

We are looking at a huge increase in gun violence and here is the problem. The number one move to get away from such things is move out, great for some, but what if you cannot, what if you are stuck. Portland has few positives right now but cheap and safe ways to move out of the city is not one of them. People are going to be more apt to fight, they will brawl and more people will be shot and it will be at the feet of the city commissioners and the mayor. Not about their politics, but about execution they have failed to such a degree that all of them should refund their wages back to the city and remove themselves in shame for the failure that their tenure has been. All of them, fail after fail after fail and now there is more blood in the streets then ever.

It is not just about shelter, it is about safety, and being somewhere where some can learn good habits and now, we as a state decided that having small amounts of hard drugs is only a fine. No one can tell me how this will actually help, so if anyone will volunteer such secrets I would be appreciative. Some say they have faith they know what the politicians in this city are doing. I trust them as far as they can throw me and since I am a card carrying member of the super heavyweight division, and I actually know a little about defending being thrown that ain’t an inch.

We as a city need to do better. Our homeless, our citizens, our people deserve better. While I tried to inject some humor in places how can anyone feel safe when you know it takes twelve minutes on average for police to help you in high risk crimes like shootings when you know when every second counts.

The world will get better but it will take time.

Stay strong and stay safe.

Writer 404 Error – Venom Spitting Mad

A dozen pages, thousands of words, most of which I am being less of an educator or explainer and more of a yelling yahoo. It didn’t sound right so I did not pull the trigger and because of things going on in my city that meant I was guilty by something I hoped those reading this would not be and that is overly bound to emotion. I am glad I didn’t post what I had written it wouldn’t have helped anybody and so we continue.

Where do we go from there? Plenty of things have come up that as either changed or through the venom I was spewing in my own anger that we still have not gone over.

We may as well start with how the homeless situation has changed, and it has been changed for the worse. Section 8 the usual last bastion of hope is enough to do if you have the time, but if you are single you must realize that you are at the bottom of the list no matter what gender you are. Section 8 goes to families first and of those minorities, disabled and veterans push them up higher. I would say do the paperwork to get on the list as it does not take very long, but do not expect it to save you.

Through the new presidency the amount cut from section 8 had not been replaced and states have not been able to figure out the problem per each of their borders. Portland has gotten much worse and you can count dozens of tents on your way to work in the city. It had a major homeless problem and between the rent issue, the pay issue, the pandemic and the lack of health care, mental care or beds for those who need it, the population has led to many turning into simply living in trash heaps or small tent towns that go down inlets or sidewalks.

Commissioners of the City and of the state have failed at the problem, and it is only getting worse so as we go forward make sure to best equip yourself with the skills, tools, tips, and tricks to help yourself get out of there.

Stay Strong and Stay Calm

If you like what I do please let me know, it does put a smile on my face to know people read these. There are things I have not done to these pages and soon their will be more then just these blog posts and I hope you enjoy at least some of them.

Feeling Nothing but Hate

Let me tell you a small story, a long time ago, a young boy was abused by his family, he had been beaten daily, past discipline, his joints were twisted, his being concussed multiple times and due to his size when he begun going to school other kids had tried to further the damage. Making an example in his first able time to defend himself he broke a classmate’s wrist who tried to put him facedown in the bark.

Years passed and the fights continued, being part of a town going through a drug boom facilitated the ease of fighting and a police department so dirty and hands off had only made one needed to brawl at times.

He was known for brutality in fights and was willing to injure himself and others to make a point. Things had happened he lost people in horrible ways and it stung him deeply. After the last funeral he went to he thought the world was against him. That is the point we are talking about because a lot of people may be feeling this in their lowest, that their world that they inhabit actively hate them and that those who do not agree with them are the enemy.

From that story let me give this piece of advice of anyone with that exact mindset thinking the world can be reforged if enough anger is cast at it blindly. It won’t. You will hurt your own cause enough that you will be deemed a failure and a fool in relation to it. Anyone on the basis of that cause will look at you and deem you unfit to even be made knowledgeable of any coming changes in your direction, and some will take the hatred you have garnered from your own actions or lack there of and deem you the problem.

Blm, Antifa and the Proud Boys are groups with exactly that, both sides have actual problems and both have insults flung at them from the other just for the sake of emotional prizes and it just does not work.

Be mad, sure, think the world hates you? Most times it just doesn’t care, but if you can focus it on positives then make it work. For that to be achieved it is something that needs to work for all sides. Of the conflict. Focus your anger at the trappings of the cycle rather then those who execute and you will find your capabilities much more warmly received.

Alright enough of the Dr. Phil talk.

Stay Strong.

End of the Year Problems

Still working on progress here between health issues but I had a lot of rough pages that should be coming in posts over the next couple days. Many areas are coming out of lockdown and here in Oregon we still have to deal with a lot of it.

At the end of the year a lot of protections on the rent pause will be lifted and many areas will be suddenly trying to charge many people however months rent were left unpaid. Repeat for car payments, for utility bills, and for several more things there are a lot of things asking for a lot of money to a lot of people that many may not be used to.

The first thing for many people would be to try and turtle hoping that they get pushed down the list. It will not work because many times these companies have been running for the time and have had less money brought in the never making it twice as difficult. Some people may think that the situation has deemed some extra mercies, but you need to put yourself in a position that shows you are willing to work with people.

Businesses, whether it is a car dealership or a bank or even your landlord, when you take initiative in a way that is respectful and honest will be much more lenient and much more accepting to work with you going over any options they can come up with. You may have to take a deep breath, but hiding will ruin more then just being honest to it. You do not want to take that damage to your credit because it will just make the recovery period that much longer.

Stay stronger and be honest and you can get through it.

Pandemic Chaos

I still have friends who are homeless for one reason or another, some have health problems where staying would only make it worse believe it or not. (We tried on that one) Talking to them through all the chaos has been pretty sobering, because whatever hope had been is completely gone. My home has been completely devoid of hope for many people left living on the street.

The pandemic has made the city look at its plans and the signs of the failure have been noted earlier before. One that was done where I was ready to go all political and rant and rave, but honestly reading over it, it didn’t bring anything more to the conversation. I am not happy about Portland for various reasons and I am working on a long term plan to make it better.

Want something done right, do it yourself. I will say that this chaos has been something that ripped away a lot of facades and right now there isn’t a lot where people can hide. Less stabbing in the back and more people against you at the start, but if you can explain to people where to put their passion then a mountain can be moved daily.

Let’s just say a lot is currently in the fire. We all can get better and I hope that through this blog you can see how you can do more as well from homelessness to disaster relief to things that can even make camping a little easier, and that is where I think I will keep it. Mostly on those subjects so if you are homeless a lot of the info can be useful still and even if you camp it can be beneficial.

Stay Strong and Stay Tuned

Something I have Been Working On – Together We Rebuild

I had worked on some sticker designs for various things and while I am still working on the one for the blog, this had come in and I am thrilled about it.

Together we Rebuild, this will be on the product page soon, but i think with everything going in my home stat this could be a nice little thing. I just bought a hundred to give some away and what not. I think right now, everyone just needs to know that no matter how bad things you think are, together as a group of different people, with different opinions will work to make our lives better in the light of those who try to break it down.

Stay Strong.

When the State Burns

Yup, Oregon it is not fun. In any case here are some tips if you find yourself ready to bolt.

Get packed. Take a bag for each of the people leaving and have it as ready as can be. Mine is laying with just enough space for my laptops and tech gear, I can toss them and run if needed. Clothes, papers, cash, etc. make it as much as you can. Take another bag for snacks and make sure to take a whatever is needed for the pets. Sounds like a lot but the point is to have the packing almost completely done so that at moments notice during disaster you can bail.

Gasoline may be hard to get if you try to leave with the crowd so having the tank on your car filled is going to be important and if you have a spare then you want to fill it before you need it. Make sure you get some snacks and drinks that would keep you going during the however long drive to get to a safe place.

If you are going to be in the cross hairs of some harsh weather or a disaster then you need to go do it now. Stop reading and go get it done, if you feel that you need to there is no reason to push it off. Disasters are going to make life miserable and do not expect for the state or your insurance to move quickly but it is still important to go and gather the resources now.

Done? Good, this is more of a post that is useful for anyone in a situation they may need to move from so this could be us in Oregon at this time, the gulf coast every hurricane season and a litany of anything else.

You may not have a place to go but it will be easier to go from a car then if you have no way to get out. Take it day by day and remember to take something to relieve stress, a favorite book or something because it will be the difference fro ma breakdown and staying strong, small things add up quickly in such situations.

In any case sorry about the time where no posts came up but, I am working on a couple things and between everything things got pushed further and further down the ladder.

Stay Strong.