homeless in portland

How do we fix it.

Politically, Portland is in a place of trying to keep up with appearances. It has been that way for the longest time and because of it mistakes are being made. Going more in depth no one needs to state that politically the past few election cycles have been painful. While there may not be a complete list of answers in my crystal ball there are enough that, I think, will explain how keeping up with the Joneses has made Portland fall from where it once was, as a city with so much to offer, to a warning.

For those who do not know, or may be seeing this in another country ‘ keeping up with the joneses ‘ is an saying that often describes an entity, in this case a city, keeping up with neighbors like it for the sake of not losing status. Portland may have been feeling it, because for those who do not know Oregon is on the west cast and the major cities of California, Oregon, and Washington have been the guiding force for the state as a whole, which as angered a fair number of people as the Greater Idaho project will show.

Portlandia, the fake corporate image of quirkiness for story line sake had been something that should not have been so strictly adhered to. Poetic, though that in trying to be we completely stole a line from Austin, Texas. Keep Portland weird, should have been ‘Keep Portland Honest’. Nothing is wrong with a little bit of nuance provided it is honest and it is not becoming a toxic trait. Make beer, smoke weed, be safe about it, and no problems will be heard from me. Unfortunate that many of the moments since then to try and keep the ‘quirky vibe’ had been something that has hurt us overall. The biggest backing issue of that is the homeless situation, We did not want to appear like we were mean, because the idea of Portlandia had been ingrained where people are nice, and that is not nice.

Continuing with this keeping up, I would like to make a note that San Francisco and Seattle are both very liberal, and have been that way for quite a while All three of them are aligned politically and all three of them have issues, but unlike Seattle we don’t have the sports trades and the rare streak of sense to save us. San Francisco has the money, but that does not save them, meanwhile Portland has neither. When it makes mistakes that money can help cushion the blow, it cannot do it so much as the other two, and when all three cities started allowing homeless sent to them. When the George Floyd riots were prolonged by all three because politically the riots and they aligned, and that can be verified by all three cutting money to police, rescuing rioters who had committed damage against the cities, and often times even go protest with them. Back in the Portland resistance Ted Wheeler thought it would be a good idea to join the protests with Antifa and BLM. One of those has been a group filled with pedo’s and now a group who has had one hundred million dollars over the past few years to go in reverse.

“Wheeler was protesting against the feds, then, it does not count.”

Yes, yugioh memes. However those who voice said opinion just did. The buildings in question were being damaged by the riots and were targeted and the city did not do anything to help, standing in unity against those with beliefs different from them who currently held the white house. So, because Portland looked to the other two of the three stooge cities and saw what they did, and wanted to do it too they did some stupid whose purity has to be higher then what we have seen before. Jesse and Heisenberg would need to rewrite the laws of science for meth this pure and Portland is creating condensed idiocy because the cool kids are.

It has been that way for a while, and now we need to fix it and stop the stupid lab. This is not something that can be done in months, this will have to be fixed in years and it will need to be done quick. So in no major order some ways to fix it.

First, arrest the county commissioner on all the charges he has allowed to happen because he actively let those with his political beliefs have a free walk or a slap on the wrist for charges others would get years for. Charge him as associate in all those crimes, I doubt he would get charged on one, but that means he would not be able to handle his office fairly and would need to be removed. He may even get charges, some would cheer for that.

Second, you actually clear homeless encampments and if there are drug issues you arrest them and tell them if found again it is going to be years. We have been so soft now that we have to push everything back quickly, and it will seem mean. Deal with it. Keep 110 ( the measure to have small amounts of every drug legal), but if you are found with quantities of hard drugs for dealing its minimum 5 years no deals to go lower, no more bargains.

Third, figure out whether you back the police or not, but do not waffle because either way there will be those hurt. No police, means people handle business themselves and when enough people figure that out, that means if you try to steal a candy bar and get a chest of birdshot, that’s on you. If you let people sleep on your property and the light it on fire, blame rests on your shoulders.

Fourth, remove the homeless camps and rework the mini home parks for veterans needing them and students in the city and the surrounding areas studying to better themselves. They are the ones that can live in those should free up more resources down the line for homeless families trying to get things back together, and if people want to live in their car then they need to do it in a respectful manner at least, which shouldn’t be much of a problem. A lot of people working ot survive, and living out of their car are the people you usually want to help.

Fifth, have homeless who just had a bad turn of luck be easily found and make sure the resources to help them specifically are known and used. Make sure the money is going to the right places and make sure you cheer for the success stories, because that gets other people looking at them, if they had just gotten a degree, or was able to juggle a certificate with their own family caretaker duties and I see that? I may just want them on my team when I have an opening, and can use their services.

Sixth, Cut all the political keeping up with the joneses and remove everyone who has not shown to be responsible in their job positions, and those who are not need to be fined for dereliction to their duty to the state, the city, and its people. If there are any political position where someone has been underhanded or taken money or items for reasons they should not have. It should be an instant, loss of job, loss of benefits and investigation for charges, and if evidence is found then enforce the laws and commit to possible punishment.

Seventh, figure out what this city wants to be, and what the businesses and the people want to be and realize there will always be hardship, but we can strive past it. Not shy away and cry when things don’t go our way.

Stay Strong In Any Case

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Never Ask the Stupid Question

You ever just get into a thing where you do and keep doing until you get to the point you are exhausted and on autopilot and look back to wonder what you were doing to that point. That is EXACTLY how the past two weeks has been for me. Running for chair of the school senate committee on Government operations and finance, homework, nerve attacks, passing out, taping myself back together. Sometimes though, things work out in a way where you are just happy to have.

Despite being exhausted that running for the chair, well it is something more then that now. The problem is that a lot of things going on I am finding needs more then someone to help good ideas, they need someone willing to take the field as well. Always something to be done, and despite it my body is not the font of energy it once was and sometimes, especially since my nerve damage there are limits that have to be respected physically or there will be more problems then whatever good is done in those few moments.

The fraility of existence unfortunately is not something that can be mentally broken sometimes. It must be dealt with, in that dealing though new answers arise. Moments of thought sometime occur here, I like to call them sigma moments, not because of things like sigma grind set, but because it would be something Sigma the character (overwatch) would most likely think of.

So ya, a lot of things are happening here, which is why I went radio silence, things have gotten so hectic I have to actually use a calendar like a responsible adult. You know what I hadn’t looked at what has been happening in Portland since trying to help the students I represent. Hopefully it was a slow news week….

Ever ask yourself why you should ever ask a question that seems to be the start to disaster?

We are starting off with the Willamette Week, who did some interesting journalism this time. Some progress in some areas, but this article is about the value of money.

I am just going to save some pain and just go to the numbers. 82 units, refurbishing a building from 1911 and the refurbishment will cost 36.15 million dollars. Which is about 480,000 per unit or just about 13,00 per sq foot for units that have no bathroom or kitchens. I do not know about you, but this so expensive that anyone tries to explain this as a good value needs their head examined because the only reason this money is of some value is if it’s in someone savingsd account because you aren ot getting that value or even half of it on the work.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/02/01/the-fairfield-apartments-will-cost-1300-per-square-foot-when-renovated/

I would fire the people who okay-ed it, the people who accepted the contract, the company, anyone who thought this was a good idea. There would be mass firings of the failure that allowed this to stand. Why would all this be important, why would the value of things be needed especially now?

https://katu.com/news/local/portland-public-schools-announces-hiring-freeze-amid-budget-issues-education-school-academic-standardized-testing-teachers-teaching-enrollment#

Portland Public Schools and …

https://www.koin.com/news/portland/memo-portland-fire-and-rescue-to-freeze-spending-hiring/

Portland fire and rescue have to freeze spending both of them are within the range of the project or even could be heavily aided by the half that could be cut by the building if someone with a calculator worked in Portland politics.

Get some progress done, bask in the bright light if this stupidity and then try to make your day a little better

Stay Strong

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Portland Death Spiral

This blog was initially built on the idea that is going from homeless to a semi-productive member of society, there would be some things I can see that others would miss. One could even say that because of my intelligence and my experience, there are bits and details that politicians do not have or would only use in the political batoning for their own political side. Those who have read this know my politics are rather centered and may pull from both sides depending on what may be needed for specific problems to be removed or handled.

That being said, this is not against a side or a party.

Portland is spiraling into something not a lot of people want to be associated with. Stolen cars are being broken down in broad daylight. Homeless people all over, and laws that made it so there would be no problem carrying all kinds of drugs without a problem. The city commissioners went through protest after protest. Then, there was no movement when they had to rebuild from the ashes. All people who are against them have been deemed from the opposing party when they have made error after error, and the city right now is hurting to the point where no one wants to live there. Nobody wants to open a business there, and there are more taxes than in the surrounding areas.

There are so many problems that when you look at what is going on, you have to ask, where do you start? From that, I do not have an answer, and there is something that seems to be missing every day. Like the city had finally died, it feels passed on. While moments had been good, looking almost normal for small snippets, it is about what the normal is, and the normal in the city is a far shadow from what it once was. There are not enough good things coming, and a lot of the bad has been left to fester, meaning there is even more that needs to get done to bring it back. Again, it looks terrible, and there is not a lot that can be done right now without people enforcing laws and punishing those guilty. None of this is new, and if it is, look in the back posts; trust me, there is plenty to get mad about.

I haven’t written about my home city because unless it is more people not doing their jobs or people trying politically smack people only to get a riptide in the wrong direction, there just isn’t much to say. People in charge in Portland must be the most extensive collection of abject failures in politics. If any of them can look from this time and say they did a good job, I would love to hear their side because it looked like they just sat and played Genshin Impact all term.

Who knows, when things change, I will write about it, and if something is horrible, I will do that too, but right now, I really do not want to. May do some cheap and fun foods to make for later. With the cost of everything, we can all use a couple extra pennies for groceries. We shall see, though.

Keep your head up and stay strong.

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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.

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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.

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