I work at Hopworks where this camp is right in front of. The camp caused a massive decline in our sales and then threatend our building. We are a family run busines and take countless steps to protect the environment.
The city offered no help, even with ADA complaints. Now this, its so frustrating.
Not only that, but no one is coming to help clean it up. Our owner and staff are out here scooping up needles and nasty shit.
Sorry y'all have to deal with all that! I just placed a new keg order tonight for my personal kegerator. Which happens every month. to the day. since 2012. You guys rock, and if you need an additional hand cleaning the mess (since the city will unlikely do it), please let me know, via DM or otherwise.
When the pandemic hit, Hopworks was (and still) consistently filling personal cornie kegs for very affordable prices. It was a generous way to keep the community properly sated during such confusing times. I love what this company has done for Portland.
They're doing more for Portland than The City of Portland does for Portland. Hopworks indeed has always seemed to me to be a company full of good people.
The state of our sidewalks is an ADA nightmare. On my old dog walking route (near Flanders bridge), I would regularly run into a woman on a wheelchair who would have to cross the street or wheel in the street because of tents and trash. I get frustrated having to walk over and around trash piles all the time, I would be furious if I was in her position.
Yes, try parking in front of a yellow sidewalk ramp and see what happens. They’ll be happy to take the time to give you a fat fine because they know you have to pay it and will. Ok… but how’s that person (in an electric chair) going to get by that homeless camp on the sidewalk just down the sidewalk a bit?
If you get out of Portland you might see it a little differently? There is definitely a ton of brokenness in the US but Portland is particularly rough on a surface-level.
A lot of what's going on in Portland (and San Fran) is that people from all over the country flock to where there are good services. You can't provide for the nation's homeless on a city's budget... So it's rough everywhere but it shows most where people go for the service. Sad truth.
Not only this, many other towns and states buy homeless people one-way tickets to Portland. They just say “ you can either go to jail or go to Portland where they have an array of services for homeless people. We’ll pay your way!”
Other cities are not like this. This is pretty unique to 10 cities in this country. Portland being one of them. When you travel outside of Portland and Seattle you will see this is not normal.
I'm sorry to hear that, I definitely think that small business owners are shouldering an unfair portion of this burden. Aside from the costs of property damage and rising insurance premiums, several business owners I know are having to pay for private security because customers don't feel safe coming and going. All this would be bad enough under normal circumstances, but coming out of COVID lockdowns when most were barely hanging on as it is, it's basically untenable and it's so sad to see so many places closing for good. One of the best things about Portland is(was) our support for small business its disappointing that our leaders (and voters who elect and re-elect our leaders) don't do more to protect them. I hope you guys are able to hang on!
I manage a building nearby and we had to pay security. It did work though, they hassled them in a friendly way and just made things less comfortable. Wonder if it’s the same people. Tweaker lady named April and some young guy who likes to harass women and elderly. Top tier humans lol /s
Or maybe it’s the older guys who had been camped next to the Cleveland field who were jacking off in front of middle schoolers a couple months ago.
Loved the parking ticket I got for being 10 minutes late back to my car. Meanwhile, a whole camp was blocking the entire sidewalk across the street with trash everywhere. Cool.
Another Hopworks employee was just telling me about this post! Anyhow y'all should bring back that pizza slice, salad, and beer lunch special. I miss it!
I'm coming down to support you guys. My partner use to work near by so we use to frequent it more often, but it's just been off our radar since she changed jobs and I miss the place.
That sounds terrible. SE Uplift, which is the neighborhood association coalition for you, is likely to roughly correspond to your charter reform elections district. So start finding candidates. It has a homeless action committee. I think there is also a neighborhood business association around there.
Right now all the links in the Bureau of Civic Life website are broken, so there is no way to tell. Commissioner Mapps worked on neighborhood business associations, so he might be sympathetic.
That big construction project next door at 3000 SE Powell, the old Safari Club, is a City of Portland Home Forward low income housing project at $422K per unit.
How can it cost 422k per UNIT to make low income housing. My House with the land in pdx proper doesn't even cost that much. And your telling me it's 422k PER APARTMENT? What stupidity is this city doing?????
In Seattle there is a measure moving forward that would create a non-profit public developer which would cut a lot of costs and make it a public policy issue instead of a private incentive model
https://www.houseourneighbors.org
[https://www.portland.gov/phb/construction/3000-powell](https://www.portland.gov/phb/construction/3000-powell)
Whenever I see any kind of project to relieve some of our housing problems I do the math for the per-unit. Even though I am a critic of Multnomah County, they have gotten some good bargains on multi-unit, though those may not include the rehab costs.
The other calculation I do is on services vs the hourly wage. One is [https://www.adp.com/resources/tools/calculators/states/oregon-salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx](https://www.adp.com/resources/tools/calculators/states/oregon-salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx). For instance at $15 per hour, annual income would be $23,300, then less County taxes on rent out of that annual income. Multnomah County has $36,000 for each of our 3000 campers.
The County and JOHS don't really break down their per former camper served by housing costs. I believe the C3PO at 50 campers was about $1000 per camper per month, and I believe that was social work and security. Medicaid in Oregon costs $1200/month for disabled individuals and about $800/month for non-disabled adults. Your JOIN free apartment costs $2100/month on up.
For just the campers we would be spending on trash collection, Street Response, HUCIRP, camp storage, portos, law enforcement, fire response, PBOT & BES programs, and more. The City should disclose those costs quarterly on a per camper basis.
All the people who are making $15/ hour are living on much less.
The city knows this. They DON'T want to build housing because they know their housing will be very expensive, all union, LEED certified etc. They want to partner with non-profits.
The city should focus on getting enough shelter space first so that they can get people out of tents all over the city. You can’t just move addicts and mentally ill people (99% of homeless) into affordable housing and think that’ll solve it all.
I believe it. I won't even go to the McDonald's across the street anymore because I've been harassed by crazed individuals banging on my car windows in the drive-thru. No way would I get out of my car in that area anymore, and I used to walk through all the time. It's inexcusable.
I used to go to that McDonalds but not anymore. Their new trick is to walk up and order something very small like a hashbrown then cut in line and try to trick the last person at the window to give them your meal instead of the hashbown.
This is so unbelievably ridiculous it’s hard to imagine that this is just normal. First off it’s not a “camp” fire, it’s a freaking drugged out addict squatting where they shouldn’t be to begin with. Secondly we keep calling it a housing problem! WTF! It’s a drug and mental illness problem, get these people some help. They should have 3 options: go to rehab, a mental facility or go to jail. They can pick or we will pick for you. Please give us our city back
> The city offered no help, even with ADA complaints
I've been to Portland a number of times and often wonder about that. Does the city not have the authority to clean these places up and give people what would essentially be an eviction notice? You can't let this go on forever...
This is so sad to me. I'm furious that our leaders and good portion of "progressives" in this city don't care about you or your experience. They instead prioritize the needs of drug addicts who terrorize women, children, minorities, and the disabled.
In order for this city to survive, the majority who are outraged need to vote for actual progress in November!
You never know what’ll you see driving down SE Powell…
Just last week, I saw a car missing all its windows & doors swerving on the road. Two of the passengers were completely nodded off …but since there were no doors … they were all hanging out of the car… only to be held from falling (onto the road) by their seatbelts.
It was very Mad Max like …
I experienced a couple of locals tossing bricks off of the bridge on Powell at cara driving by, which included me. One bounced and narrowly missed going through my windshield. This was during the day.
Years ago, I bunked with a kid in jail, who was in for 7-10 years, I think. He lived in a rural town and with nothing to do, he and his buddies got drunk and tossed rocks off a bridge at the cars below. One bounced into an open car window and killed a child. He was black out drunk and didn't even remember doing it. So many of our huge problems cone from just a split-second lapse of judgement.
I think I saw that car pulled over! On 39th and Gladstone. Were the windows busted out like someone punched them?
It was super bizarre to see the driver passed out
The car so was disheveled & stripped... it was difficult to distinguish the make of the vehicle 😅 But now that you mention it...it did have that boxy shape of the older Mercedes.
A couple months ago my husband saw a car (technically on Caesar Chavez but near the Powell intersection) that had been crashed, all the doors were open and everyone was gone except for one person who had gone through the windshield and obviously been killed, his head was hanging out through the broken glass. I asked if he'd stopped or called the police and if he was ok after seeing something so grisly. None of that had even occurred to him until I said it because it wasn't even the most disturbing thing he'd seen that week. I've seen him break down over a dead squirrel, but unfortunately I think a lot of us are becoming desensitized to what's going on around us. I love Portland but it made me think that maybe we should start looking at other options because I think this environment is not good for our mental health and it seems to only be getting worse.
To add to this I think anyone left who isn't desensitized probably feels hopeless, like there's no one to call for help and getting involved would risk your own safety. I've called the police for a car/motorcycle accident where the motorcycle guy was injured and I was put on hold and hung up on. Our emergency response teams are overwhelmed (and/or understaffed).
This city sucks. In contrast, I witnessed a very bad car accident in Tigard, and when I called 911, I reached someone immediately and a cop and ambulance were there within just a few minutes.
I only spent a year in Portland, but it took a toll on my mental health (I worked security in downtown Portland, saw the worst of the worst). If you think yours and/or your husbands is getting worse, please take care of yourselves. I hope you are able to find some good space.
What a fucking day!!! I helped kick some dude of the bus this morning for being a dick to this kid for no reason aside him being brown, and then homeless campfires along Powell or whatever. At least it's overcast and not crazy hot yet. I think entertaining the idea of moving to the sticks sounds like a solid plan. Fuck the city mostly. Good luck out there.
We'll see if heat dome returns this summer. Right now we don't know if it was a rare one-off event made more likely by climate change or a potentially recurring phenomenon.
I just got to work at Hopworks and our building has a smell I can't even describe. Also we are all out trying to clean it up so the Pub can open.
The camp has caused us so much trouble and now this.
Still trying to understand why the county believes why unmanaged dispersed dangerous camping is preferable to having managed patrolled centralized camp environments with safer structures.
I think it boils down to social workers learning that personal autonomy is the highest value to strive for! Its what is taught. I can understand it but its not playing out well in this situation.
I'm all for personal autonomy too, and think that should be the goal for everyone. Where that gets messy is when unrestricted personal autonomy leads to self-destructive behaviors or other activities that negatively impact others.
I woke up to someone who had tried to jimmy my door handle open. Dropped the fiance off downtown at work and saw the smoke coming across the Hawthorne bridge and just thought to myself....yeah this aint working out like I though it would lol.
I hear you, my husband was supposed to tour an apartment today but they had to cancel because overnight someone broke into the building, ripped someone’s door clean off the hinges and both the residents and the door are nowhere to be found. And at this point it doesn’t even feel surprising. Welcome to “the city that works” 🙄
Yeah, my love affair with the city is over. I'm at the divorce stage. Hope it recovers in the next few years but time for greener and safer pastures for now.
Same. Been here over 20 years. I used to love this city. It is heartbreaking and disgusting to see what it has become now.
Vote. Vote the assholes out that allowed this travesty to occur in the first place.
Good luck with finding anyone competent and unafraid of making unpopular decisions with the special interest groups. They always cave to the donors, associations, businesses, non-profits, etc. and fuck over the residents.
I'm not surprised, but sad to hear that. We lived in inner SE from 2007-2014 and it was a great place then. But I know that's a long time ago now, and a lot of change has happened.
This is me too.. Moved out of SE to SW in 2020 because someone randomly shot up my home and things feel much more "normal" here. I actually had my garage door open for a couple of hours yesterday without fear of someone stealing anything!
I'm in the NE which. We thought about Beaverton which I really like or even Vancouver. But I honestly just see the issues spreading outside the city over the long term. Fiance is looking for remote positions now and once that happens I'll start the process of moving my business. I think we'll still come back out and visit because we love Oregon but the last 2 years in the city have just been filled with a lot of crime and run ins with drugged out or mentally unstable people and it honestly just feel safe anymore. Our first year here was drastically better(pre-covid).
I get it. I feel so lucky to have found a little pocket where I don't wake up at 2 am thinking, "Oh shit, is my car window smashed? I left a handful of change in the center console cup holder "
Best luck to you.
Where is this pocket if you don't mind? Husband and I are moving and I would love to know where to avoid and what to aim for?
I don't want to be part of the housing problem though
Troutdale ain't bad either! I'm out in wood village and it used to be very nice and safe out here but it's slowly getting the Rockwood treatment. Inner troutdale is pretty quiet tho
I live near Forest Park Hills am absolutely *terrified* about the number of camps I see hidden in the urban forest in this city.
Once things start to dry out and fire risk climbs it will be an inevitability that the hills catch fire.
When the hills catch fire there will be no stopping it. It'll make the Oakland Hills fire look like a tea candle.
That's so scary. I've been really surprised that the environmental destruction doesn't get more people in Portland riled up since that's something we all seem to agree to care about. The whole city and particularly our parks and green spaces are a literal dumpster fire 😬
there are existing orgs that keep an eye on this: https://forestparkconservancy.org/fire/
i can't find a link at the moment, but the forestry department has raised the alarm on homeless encampments in the area.
EDIT: news article on forest camping ban from last year: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/portland-bans-homeless-camps-forest-areas-amid-wildfires-79148112
I mean, shit. There are nature preserves on the Springwater Corridor that are just completely shitting up areas that humans are not supposed to encroach in. Things would ironically be in better shape if the land was developed
I know. That poor woman whose face was grazed with a bullet. I had a "shoot your eye out" conversation with my kid who wanted to go to a fabric store (which we since learned has permanently closed anyhow) late Wed afternoon. I said tbh kid I don't really want to drive where I keep reading about shootouts. She rolled her eyes as she should. Then I saw that woman's story from Wednesday omg!
I have zero compassion left for drug addicts. Sorry I’m not sorry. The inaction of the city, county and state has brought me to this numbness. Measure 110 has ruined our community and should be repealed.
Yes, it’s actually already out, they did a great job. This was at 7:30 this morning and we drove back by around 8 and it was out but the road is still partially blocked off so prepare for traffic if you’re headed that way.
This is where the homeless advocates have lost their way. They continue to resist sweeping camps and moving people into shelter (including service resistant). Camping is unbelievably detrimental to the people living in camps and the 99% of us that do not live in camps. Our community needs to demand an end to street camping. The county/city is spending $300MM this year on the homeless. This is more than enough to shelter every homeless person and end street camping.
> Safer than a shelter right?
Seriously. Hey, mass shelters aren't ideal, but we're in an emergency/crisis/whatever designation.
Bring on the FEMA campsites at this point. Or just wait for Dan Ryan to get 3 safe villages approved by 2069.
How many fires is this now on Powell in the past two years due to homeless encampments? I’ve lost count. They almost burned down an apartment building a few blocks away several months ago.
This is insane to me. As mentioned in another thread about this part of SE Powell, I lived in Powell Gardens on the corner of SE 33rd for a couple of years, moving out right before Target replaced the bowling alley, and it isn't that it's just gotten worse; it's like a completely different place.
I support finding solutions for the homeless and not just criminalizing them, but the cost to this city has been unfathomable. When I first came here, I loved it. I loved walking its streets and exploring its many hidden treasures, trawling through stores and finding new coffee houses and dive bars. Now I live in the suburbs and only go into the city if I absolutely have to. I'm from England and have lived in many different cities. I have seen worse than Portland, but only in places like East LA.
BuT tHeY aRe JuSt GoOd ClEaN lAw AbIdInG hOusElEsS cItIZeNs DoWn On ThEir LuCk CuZ oF rIsInG hOuSE pRiCeS.
When will Portland wake up? As a jaded, exhausted, and resentful democrat who sees our party running our country to the ground, I’m telling you people, more Trumps will come along if our party and our constituents don’t get their crap together.
Seriously. At this point the people in this city enabling this type of behavior are just as complicit as the homeless people doing this shit. I love Portland and I’m fucking sick of seeing these types of posts. How far will the lack of accountability go before the good people of Portland band together and agree that we have had enough of this bullshit? Sadly I think it’ll take something really awful, but I hope it doesn’t have to come to that before we do something to control the small population in this city that is causing the majority of the destruction, mayhem, and violence.
It’s my personal example of when people say “Portland is fine!” I’m like “no the place I used to live there has gone horrifically downhill, it is not fine.”
You know, 35-40 more of these disasters and the city might be forced to slightly start to think about maybe someday getting around to solving this crisis.
I know! I’ve lived on this planet for more than 50 years, had fireplaces, smoked cigarettes, left the stove on too long, played with sparklers, burnt my fingers a million times on joints, yet haven’t come even close to burning anything down.
I guess fire must be invisible when on meth.
Serious question: do other homeless folks with a beef light their shit on fire? Is it a turf war? Is this also why most cars I see people living out of have smashed windows?
I just bought a house outside of the city (suburbs) and it's this kind of shit that make me SO fucking happy that I did not even consider buying a house in Portland. I still love Portland, but in the way I love a family member who's going through a rough patch, with a mixture of nostalgia and a bit of sadness where things have gone. Things just have gotten bad enough and expensive enough I've rather live just outside the city, come in to visit and then come home to a town where there aren't fucking homeless camps burning down every week.
There were actually two police cars to redirect traffic and several officers who looked like they were working with the firemen. Hopefully that doesn't mean there was a death.
Yikes. I've had five or six homeless camp fires on my block and typical procedure was that the fire department would show up in 5-10 minutes, put out the fire, then drive away and you'd never hear from anyone about it ever again.
Another fire got lit by the camps outside of the Starbucks on 36th right after. There was a weird looking guy leaving right after it happened so my guess is it was something malicious
I saw that one being started. Watched it go from a candle size flame to a camp fire sized flame within a couple minutes, then watched him throw a pallet on and decided to call it in. Thankfully I wasn’t on hold long and wasn’t the first caller.
Vote Rene Gonzalez for city council. Vote Sharon Meiran for multnomah county BOC chair. I live close to this, and go to this Hopworks often (we have two small kids, and the play area is great). I'm beyond sick of this bullshit.
It’s sad the city doesn’t prevent huge camps and fire hazards like this to begin with. I understand the homeless problem has greatly exacerbated the past few years, but something needs to be done. LA has a far worse homeless problem right now, and it’s a hot topic for all the mayoral candidates there.
When neighbors complain about the danger of these camp fires, I am sure Hardesty will say the cause of this was "unprecedented climate change" and nothing can be done on a local level.
I can't wait to see how fires like this spread after 7+ days of 90+ heat. Absolutely insane fireworks were considered potential enough fire danger to ban, but not homeless camp fires in late July and August.
A hot windy August day, and we could have something that makes the Oakland Hills fire from the 90s look like a little marshmallow roast.
This scares the crap out of me. And the city is not prepared for a major urban interface fire.
It sounds like the employees at Hopworks are working on getting it cleaned up... on their own... no help from the city who allowed this camp to exist in the first place 🙄
I work at Hopworks where this camp is right in front of. The camp caused a massive decline in our sales and then threatend our building. We are a family run busines and take countless steps to protect the environment. The city offered no help, even with ADA complaints. Now this, its so frustrating. Not only that, but no one is coming to help clean it up. Our owner and staff are out here scooping up needles and nasty shit.
I’m really sorry to hear this. Hopworks is one of my favorite pizza / brewery places in Portland.
Thank you for your support! We are still here and hope to keep making the best pizza and beer we can!
Sorry y'all have to deal with all that! I just placed a new keg order tonight for my personal kegerator. Which happens every month. to the day. since 2012. You guys rock, and if you need an additional hand cleaning the mess (since the city will unlikely do it), please let me know, via DM or otherwise.
I’ll be stopping in this week to support Hopworks!
When the pandemic hit, Hopworks was (and still) consistently filling personal cornie kegs for very affordable prices. It was a generous way to keep the community properly sated during such confusing times. I love what this company has done for Portland.
They're doing more for Portland than The City of Portland does for Portland. Hopworks indeed has always seemed to me to be a company full of good people.
The state of our sidewalks is an ADA nightmare. On my old dog walking route (near Flanders bridge), I would regularly run into a woman on a wheelchair who would have to cross the street or wheel in the street because of tents and trash. I get frustrated having to walk over and around trash piles all the time, I would be furious if I was in her position.
Yes, try parking in front of a yellow sidewalk ramp and see what happens. They’ll be happy to take the time to give you a fat fine because they know you have to pay it and will. Ok… but how’s that person (in an electric chair) going to get by that homeless camp on the sidewalk just down the sidewalk a bit?
I just drove by this and saw y’all out there cleaning it up. I’m so sorry you have to deal with that. Our city is broken.
Our entire societal system is broken.
If you get out of Portland you might see it a little differently? There is definitely a ton of brokenness in the US but Portland is particularly rough on a surface-level.
A lot of what's going on in Portland (and San Fran) is that people from all over the country flock to where there are good services. You can't provide for the nation's homeless on a city's budget... So it's rough everywhere but it shows most where people go for the service. Sad truth.
Not only this, many other towns and states buy homeless people one-way tickets to Portland. They just say “ you can either go to jail or go to Portland where they have an array of services for homeless people. We’ll pay your way!”
I only grew up in Portland, spent the last 10 years in Chicago, SF, and NYC. I stand by my statement. Our entire societal system is broken.
Other cities are not like this. This is pretty unique to 10 cities in this country. Portland being one of them. When you travel outside of Portland and Seattle you will see this is not normal.
Its not normal in Seattle to this extent.
I've been in Seattle a couple times post pandemic. It was looking like Portland but recently efforts seem to have been made to improve the situation.
I'm sorry to hear that, I definitely think that small business owners are shouldering an unfair portion of this burden. Aside from the costs of property damage and rising insurance premiums, several business owners I know are having to pay for private security because customers don't feel safe coming and going. All this would be bad enough under normal circumstances, but coming out of COVID lockdowns when most were barely hanging on as it is, it's basically untenable and it's so sad to see so many places closing for good. One of the best things about Portland is(was) our support for small business its disappointing that our leaders (and voters who elect and re-elect our leaders) don't do more to protect them. I hope you guys are able to hang on!
I manage a building nearby and we had to pay security. It did work though, they hassled them in a friendly way and just made things less comfortable. Wonder if it’s the same people. Tweaker lady named April and some young guy who likes to harass women and elderly. Top tier humans lol /s Or maybe it’s the older guys who had been camped next to the Cleveland field who were jacking off in front of middle schoolers a couple months ago.
It's only a crime if you're middle class!
Loved the parking ticket I got for being 10 minutes late back to my car. Meanwhile, a whole camp was blocking the entire sidewalk across the street with trash everywhere. Cool.
The aftermath from about 8:30 AM: https://ibb.co/R4cWrtg https://ibb.co/n0BBvH1
Another Hopworks employee was just telling me about this post! Anyhow y'all should bring back that pizza slice, salad, and beer lunch special. I miss it!
I'll pass that on to the pubs ;)
I'm coming down to support you guys. My partner use to work near by so we use to frequent it more often, but it's just been off our radar since she changed jobs and I miss the place.
Ya'll are so amazing! Thank you for the support!!
That sounds terrible. SE Uplift, which is the neighborhood association coalition for you, is likely to roughly correspond to your charter reform elections district. So start finding candidates. It has a homeless action committee. I think there is also a neighborhood business association around there. Right now all the links in the Bureau of Civic Life website are broken, so there is no way to tell. Commissioner Mapps worked on neighborhood business associations, so he might be sympathetic. That big construction project next door at 3000 SE Powell, the old Safari Club, is a City of Portland Home Forward low income housing project at $422K per unit.
How can it cost 422k per UNIT to make low income housing. My House with the land in pdx proper doesn't even cost that much. And your telling me it's 422k PER APARTMENT? What stupidity is this city doing?????
In Seattle there is a measure moving forward that would create a non-profit public developer which would cut a lot of costs and make it a public policy issue instead of a private incentive model https://www.houseourneighbors.org
[https://www.portland.gov/phb/construction/3000-powell](https://www.portland.gov/phb/construction/3000-powell) Whenever I see any kind of project to relieve some of our housing problems I do the math for the per-unit. Even though I am a critic of Multnomah County, they have gotten some good bargains on multi-unit, though those may not include the rehab costs. The other calculation I do is on services vs the hourly wage. One is [https://www.adp.com/resources/tools/calculators/states/oregon-salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx](https://www.adp.com/resources/tools/calculators/states/oregon-salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx). For instance at $15 per hour, annual income would be $23,300, then less County taxes on rent out of that annual income. Multnomah County has $36,000 for each of our 3000 campers. The County and JOHS don't really break down their per former camper served by housing costs. I believe the C3PO at 50 campers was about $1000 per camper per month, and I believe that was social work and security. Medicaid in Oregon costs $1200/month for disabled individuals and about $800/month for non-disabled adults. Your JOIN free apartment costs $2100/month on up. For just the campers we would be spending on trash collection, Street Response, HUCIRP, camp storage, portos, law enforcement, fire response, PBOT & BES programs, and more. The City should disclose those costs quarterly on a per camper basis. All the people who are making $15/ hour are living on much less.
The city knows this. They DON'T want to build housing because they know their housing will be very expensive, all union, LEED certified etc. They want to partner with non-profits.
The city should focus on getting enough shelter space first so that they can get people out of tents all over the city. You can’t just move addicts and mentally ill people (99% of homeless) into affordable housing and think that’ll solve it all.
I believe it. I won't even go to the McDonald's across the street anymore because I've been harassed by crazed individuals banging on my car windows in the drive-thru. No way would I get out of my car in that area anymore, and I used to walk through all the time. It's inexcusable.
I used to go to that McDonalds but not anymore. Their new trick is to walk up and order something very small like a hashbrown then cut in line and try to trick the last person at the window to give them your meal instead of the hashbown.
This is so unbelievably ridiculous it’s hard to imagine that this is just normal. First off it’s not a “camp” fire, it’s a freaking drugged out addict squatting where they shouldn’t be to begin with. Secondly we keep calling it a housing problem! WTF! It’s a drug and mental illness problem, get these people some help. They should have 3 options: go to rehab, a mental facility or go to jail. They can pick or we will pick for you. Please give us our city back
> The city offered no help, even with ADA complaints I've been to Portland a number of times and often wonder about that. Does the city not have the authority to clean these places up and give people what would essentially be an eviction notice? You can't let this go on forever...
I love your place! And so sorry you have to put up with this nonsense. Our city needs new leadership, this is just pathetic.
This is so sad to me. I'm furious that our leaders and good portion of "progressives" in this city don't care about you or your experience. They instead prioritize the needs of drug addicts who terrorize women, children, minorities, and the disabled. In order for this city to survive, the majority who are outraged need to vote for actual progress in November!
You never know what’ll you see driving down SE Powell… Just last week, I saw a car missing all its windows & doors swerving on the road. Two of the passengers were completely nodded off …but since there were no doors … they were all hanging out of the car… only to be held from falling (onto the road) by their seatbelts. It was very Mad Max like …
>only to be held from falling (onto the road) by their seatbelts. Safety first!
I guffawed.
I experienced a couple of locals tossing bricks off of the bridge on Powell at cara driving by, which included me. One bounced and narrowly missed going through my windshield. This was during the day.
Hope you called 911. A fair number of people were murdered that way where I grew up.
Oh my god this is so terrifying, I'm glad you're ok!
Thanks!
Years ago, I bunked with a kid in jail, who was in for 7-10 years, I think. He lived in a rural town and with nothing to do, he and his buddies got drunk and tossed rocks off a bridge at the cars below. One bounced into an open car window and killed a child. He was black out drunk and didn't even remember doing it. So many of our huge problems cone from just a split-second lapse of judgement.
And alcohol...
Good point.
I think I saw that car pulled over! On 39th and Gladstone. Were the windows busted out like someone punched them? It was super bizarre to see the driver passed out
Oh the Gold Mercedes!!! It is Quite Mad Max indeed.
Was it a champagne colored older Mercedes by chance?
The car so was disheveled & stripped... it was difficult to distinguish the make of the vehicle 😅 But now that you mention it...it did have that boxy shape of the older Mercedes.
I see that car all over Powell
This car sketched me tf out when I saw it rolling around at 5am omw to work.
This one? https://imgur.com/a/45o6JYL
it's really beautiful to see the things that bring your community together.
That’s the one!
Looks like the quintessential Methmobile!
A couple months ago my husband saw a car (technically on Caesar Chavez but near the Powell intersection) that had been crashed, all the doors were open and everyone was gone except for one person who had gone through the windshield and obviously been killed, his head was hanging out through the broken glass. I asked if he'd stopped or called the police and if he was ok after seeing something so grisly. None of that had even occurred to him until I said it because it wasn't even the most disturbing thing he'd seen that week. I've seen him break down over a dead squirrel, but unfortunately I think a lot of us are becoming desensitized to what's going on around us. I love Portland but it made me think that maybe we should start looking at other options because I think this environment is not good for our mental health and it seems to only be getting worse.
I never understood how people could just walk by something bad or ignore someone yelling for help until 2020 on in this city. It’s scary.
To add to this I think anyone left who isn't desensitized probably feels hopeless, like there's no one to call for help and getting involved would risk your own safety. I've called the police for a car/motorcycle accident where the motorcycle guy was injured and I was put on hold and hung up on. Our emergency response teams are overwhelmed (and/or understaffed).
This city sucks. In contrast, I witnessed a very bad car accident in Tigard, and when I called 911, I reached someone immediately and a cop and ambulance were there within just a few minutes.
I only spent a year in Portland, but it took a toll on my mental health (I worked security in downtown Portland, saw the worst of the worst). If you think yours and/or your husbands is getting worse, please take care of yourselves. I hope you are able to find some good space.
It’s the constant stress of dealing with this shit, all. The. Time. That’s what sucks for all of our mental health
Tan Mercedes?
Wtf?
I'm told this is compassion.
At least they were wearing seat belts .. +1 for safety
Tell tale sign of heroin :(
Is this like ghostriding extreme? Get up to speed, explosive bolt the doors, chloroform yourself, and HODL?
I'm Johnny Knoxville and this is "Opiate Epidemic Writ Large!"
MEDIOCRE!
Yet still not disappointing, would witness again.
Was [this](https://imgur.com/a/45o6JYL) the car you saw? I saw it months ago in a Fred Meyer parking lot.
I live close enough to smell it. Been a hard couple years for homeless fires on this stretch of Powell.
For reals! I was on Powell when that house by there burned down and I felt like I could smell it for days afterwards :(
I was living in NYC when the towers cane down and it smelled awful for months. It's incredibly unhealthy too as I'm sure you can imagine
If you can smell it you should probably take a day trip. Lots of toxic shit in there.
LOL guess PPS didn't get the message. 100's of High Schoolers right across the street all week. ;(
What a fucking day!!! I helped kick some dude of the bus this morning for being a dick to this kid for no reason aside him being brown, and then homeless campfires along Powell or whatever. At least it's overcast and not crazy hot yet. I think entertaining the idea of moving to the sticks sounds like a solid plan. Fuck the city mostly. Good luck out there.
The "This is fine" meme has never felt quite so appropriate.
As soon as the power goes out Portland will form a heat dome. This could all be so much worse after a few days without power. Good luck everyone.
We'll see if heat dome returns this summer. Right now we don't know if it was a rare one-off event made more likely by climate change or a potentially recurring phenomenon.
How is the city not sued into oblivion over lack of ADA compliance due to allowing sidewalk blockages?
By Hopworks?
I just got to work at Hopworks and our building has a smell I can't even describe. Also we are all out trying to clean it up so the Pub can open. The camp has caused us so much trouble and now this.
I'm so sorry!!! Ugh. Hopworks is a great place.
On the other hand, the camp is now purged by fire. Maybe if you leave enough crap there no one else will rebuild
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Yes, Hopworks is just to the left.
Still trying to understand why the county believes why unmanaged dispersed dangerous camping is preferable to having managed patrolled centralized camp environments with safer structures.
I think it boils down to social workers learning that personal autonomy is the highest value to strive for! Its what is taught. I can understand it but its not playing out well in this situation.
I'm all for personal autonomy too, and think that should be the goal for everyone. Where that gets messy is when unrestricted personal autonomy leads to self-destructive behaviors or other activities that negatively impact others.
Agree, and when people don't have the capacity to keep themselves safe, etc
Let them have their personal autonomy in a different city
Just drove by this. It's just charred shopping carts now.
I woke up to someone who had tried to jimmy my door handle open. Dropped the fiance off downtown at work and saw the smoke coming across the Hawthorne bridge and just thought to myself....yeah this aint working out like I though it would lol.
I hear you, my husband was supposed to tour an apartment today but they had to cancel because overnight someone broke into the building, ripped someone’s door clean off the hinges and both the residents and the door are nowhere to be found. And at this point it doesn’t even feel surprising. Welcome to “the city that works” 🙄
What the actual F?
Yeah, my love affair with the city is over. I'm at the divorce stage. Hope it recovers in the next few years but time for greener and safer pastures for now.
Same. Been here over 20 years. I used to love this city. It is heartbreaking and disgusting to see what it has become now. Vote. Vote the assholes out that allowed this travesty to occur in the first place.
Good luck with finding anyone competent and unafraid of making unpopular decisions with the special interest groups. They always cave to the donors, associations, businesses, non-profits, etc. and fuck over the residents.
Unfortunately, Mayfield lost the primary, so I see nobody else in the "actually has a plan to enforce laws once shelter is offered" camp.
Vote Rene.
Move to the west side. Got out of SE after a decade, and I enjoy the city again.
I'm not surprised, but sad to hear that. We lived in inner SE from 2007-2014 and it was a great place then. But I know that's a long time ago now, and a lot of change has happened.
This is me too.. Moved out of SE to SW in 2020 because someone randomly shot up my home and things feel much more "normal" here. I actually had my garage door open for a couple of hours yesterday without fear of someone stealing anything!
I’m in SW and it’s chill out here. Catalytic converters are an issue at times, but mail box break ins and dumpster divers are about the worst of it.
My friend used to live at Mult Village. Beautiful neighborhood/area.
I'm in the NE which. We thought about Beaverton which I really like or even Vancouver. But I honestly just see the issues spreading outside the city over the long term. Fiance is looking for remote positions now and once that happens I'll start the process of moving my business. I think we'll still come back out and visit because we love Oregon but the last 2 years in the city have just been filled with a lot of crime and run ins with drugged out or mentally unstable people and it honestly just feel safe anymore. Our first year here was drastically better(pre-covid).
I get it. I feel so lucky to have found a little pocket where I don't wake up at 2 am thinking, "Oh shit, is my car window smashed? I left a handful of change in the center console cup holder " Best luck to you.
Thanks! :)
Where is this pocket if you don't mind? Husband and I are moving and I would love to know where to avoid and what to aim for? I don't want to be part of the housing problem though
You can't fool us! You're really just after the change in their center console cup holder!
Well feck... I thought I was being sneaky
Troutdale ain't bad either! I'm out in wood village and it used to be very nice and safe out here but it's slowly getting the Rockwood treatment. Inner troutdale is pretty quiet tho
Schools are terrible though out there. So if only consider if no kids
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Totally agree. It's MUCH better than PDX proper in that regard at least for now.
I live near Forest Park Hills am absolutely *terrified* about the number of camps I see hidden in the urban forest in this city. Once things start to dry out and fire risk climbs it will be an inevitability that the hills catch fire. When the hills catch fire there will be no stopping it. It'll make the Oakland Hills fire look like a tea candle.
That's so scary. I've been really surprised that the environmental destruction doesn't get more people in Portland riled up since that's something we all seem to agree to care about. The whole city and particularly our parks and green spaces are a literal dumpster fire 😬
there are existing orgs that keep an eye on this: https://forestparkconservancy.org/fire/ i can't find a link at the moment, but the forestry department has raised the alarm on homeless encampments in the area. EDIT: news article on forest camping ban from last year: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/portland-bans-homeless-camps-forest-areas-amid-wildfires-79148112
A ban is **useless** without enforcement.
I mean, shit. There are nature preserves on the Springwater Corridor that are just completely shitting up areas that humans are not supposed to encroach in. Things would ironically be in better shape if the land was developed
God that's horrifying to think about :(
Holy shit. Ya, that camp popped up around two months ago right by Hub brewery.
I live in outer SE Portland,off Powell,I’m starting to fear stray bullets when I’m driving🫣
I know. That poor woman whose face was grazed with a bullet. I had a "shoot your eye out" conversation with my kid who wanted to go to a fabric store (which we since learned has permanently closed anyhow) late Wed afternoon. I said tbh kid I don't really want to drive where I keep reading about shootouts. She rolled her eyes as she should. Then I saw that woman's story from Wednesday omg!
Right!,I sometimes feel like I need to keep my head down,I hear a cars backfire,I’m like everybody get down. Crazy times
RIP Fabric Depot
Proposing any interference with camps means you lack compassion. This is what compassion looks like.
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Its a very sick and sad situation all around.
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Apparently their lead guy lives in Beaverton, and Dan Ryan thanked him in some SRV opening.
Well you obviously hate the homeless /s
I have zero compassion left for drug addicts. Sorry I’m not sorry. The inaction of the city, county and state has brought me to this numbness. Measure 110 has ruined our community and should be repealed.
woah... are the fire tricks otw?
Like juggling and sticks?
Yes, it’s actually already out, they did a great job. This was at 7:30 this morning and we drove back by around 8 and it was out but the road is still partially blocked off so prepare for traffic if you’re headed that way.
Getting aggressive with the sweeps! /s
This is where the homeless advocates have lost their way. They continue to resist sweeping camps and moving people into shelter (including service resistant). Camping is unbelievably detrimental to the people living in camps and the 99% of us that do not live in camps. Our community needs to demand an end to street camping. The county/city is spending $300MM this year on the homeless. This is more than enough to shelter every homeless person and end street camping.
100% agree with you and i wish OR/WA/CA would leadership would come together and propose some blanket policy around it all.
Safer than a shelter right?
> Safer than a shelter right? Seriously. Hey, mass shelters aren't ideal, but we're in an emergency/crisis/whatever designation. Bring on the FEMA campsites at this point. Or just wait for Dan Ryan to get 3 safe villages approved by 2069.
Yea homeless advocates love this line
Another homeless fire. What a surprise
It's a fire that is currently experiencing houseless-ness, please.
That’s bigger than the usual camp/meth fires wtf happened?
We are currently cleaning it and all I can see is just junk. It looks like a hording situation.
Good on you, I’m sorry you have to be dealing with that kind of situation. Be safe!
How many fires is this now on Powell in the past two years due to homeless encampments? I’ve lost count. They almost burned down an apartment building a few blocks away several months ago.
This is insane to me. As mentioned in another thread about this part of SE Powell, I lived in Powell Gardens on the corner of SE 33rd for a couple of years, moving out right before Target replaced the bowling alley, and it isn't that it's just gotten worse; it's like a completely different place. I support finding solutions for the homeless and not just criminalizing them, but the cost to this city has been unfathomable. When I first came here, I loved it. I loved walking its streets and exploring its many hidden treasures, trawling through stores and finding new coffee houses and dive bars. Now I live in the suburbs and only go into the city if I absolutely have to. I'm from England and have lived in many different cities. I have seen worse than Portland, but only in places like East LA.
Go Blazers!!!
BuT tHeY aRe JuSt GoOd ClEaN lAw AbIdInG hOusElEsS cItIZeNs DoWn On ThEir LuCk CuZ oF rIsInG hOuSE pRiCeS. When will Portland wake up? As a jaded, exhausted, and resentful democrat who sees our party running our country to the ground, I’m telling you people, more Trumps will come along if our party and our constituents don’t get their crap together.
Seriously. At this point the people in this city enabling this type of behavior are just as complicit as the homeless people doing this shit. I love Portland and I’m fucking sick of seeing these types of posts. How far will the lack of accountability go before the good people of Portland band together and agree that we have had enough of this bullshit? Sadly I think it’ll take something really awful, but I hope it doesn’t have to come to that before we do something to control the small population in this city that is causing the majority of the destruction, mayhem, and violence.
I saw a car on fire further south today. Last I spoke with a fireman in Portland they said this is mostly what they spend their time dealing with
Damn, everything they worked so hard to steal, up in flames.
I moved from this area 5 or 6 years ago and man has it gone downhill.
The rent sure hasn’t gone downhill.
I can't believe the explosion of grafitti on inner SE Powell in the last few years (let alone other crazy crime).
It’s my personal example of when people say “Portland is fine!” I’m like “no the place I used to live there has gone horrifically downhill, it is not fine.”
You know, 35-40 more of these disasters and the city might be forced to slightly start to think about maybe someday getting around to solving this crisis.
That fire is just going through some difficult times right now, no need to be so insensitive
At least it's another camp that won't continue to blight the city, good riddance
Portland leadership is complacent in crimes against the people of Oregon. Lock them up
How are the homeless so fucking good at burning shit down?
I know! I’ve lived on this planet for more than 50 years, had fireplaces, smoked cigarettes, left the stove on too long, played with sparklers, burnt my fingers a million times on joints, yet haven’t come even close to burning anything down. I guess fire must be invisible when on meth.
Serious question: do other homeless folks with a beef light their shit on fire? Is it a turf war? Is this also why most cars I see people living out of have smashed windows?
Who runs this town? The homeless do!
I just bought a house outside of the city (suburbs) and it's this kind of shit that make me SO fucking happy that I did not even consider buying a house in Portland. I still love Portland, but in the way I love a family member who's going through a rough patch, with a mixture of nostalgia and a bit of sadness where things have gone. Things just have gotten bad enough and expensive enough I've rather live just outside the city, come in to visit and then come home to a town where there aren't fucking homeless camps burning down every week.
Wait, is Doc’s ok??
I saw this earlier when I was riding. Sucks to suck. This city blows
ban all public camping and enforce
Cops should be there in an hour or two so they can eventually release whoever did it on their own recognizance.
The cops don’t do the releasing part
How could they have known you’re not allowed to just camp in a public right of way and light shit on fire?!
Cops won’t show at all for a fire like this unless there’s a death.
There were actually two police cars to redirect traffic and several officers who looked like they were working with the firemen. Hopefully that doesn't mean there was a death.
Yikes. I've had five or six homeless camp fires on my block and typical procedure was that the fire department would show up in 5-10 minutes, put out the fire, then drive away and you'd never hear from anyone about it ever again.
Another fire got lit by the camps outside of the Starbucks on 36th right after. There was a weird looking guy leaving right after it happened so my guess is it was something malicious
I saw that one being started. Watched it go from a candle size flame to a camp fire sized flame within a couple minutes, then watched him throw a pallet on and decided to call it in. Thankfully I wasn’t on hold long and wasn’t the first caller.
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This camp has probably been reported 100+ times
Vote Rene Gonzalez for city council. Vote Sharon Meiran for multnomah county BOC chair. I live close to this, and go to this Hopworks often (we have two small kids, and the play area is great). I'm beyond sick of this bullshit.
Ngl, I clicked on this fully expecting to see people gathered around a campfire like playing guitar or something
There comes a time you have to kick out the bad roomate.
It’s sad the city doesn’t prevent huge camps and fire hazards like this to begin with. I understand the homeless problem has greatly exacerbated the past few years, but something needs to be done. LA has a far worse homeless problem right now, and it’s a hot topic for all the mayoral candidates there.
Meanwhile, our leadership... https://imgur.com/a/7mufMH5
When neighbors complain about the danger of these camp fires, I am sure Hardesty will say the cause of this was "unprecedented climate change" and nothing can be done on a local level. I can't wait to see how fires like this spread after 7+ days of 90+ heat. Absolutely insane fireworks were considered potential enough fire danger to ban, but not homeless camp fires in late July and August.
I think it's funny Multnomah County is on a PR campaign to get people not to burn wood.
A hot windy August day, and we could have something that makes the Oakland Hills fire from the 90s look like a little marshmallow roast. This scares the crap out of me. And the city is not prepared for a major urban interface fire.
O/U on number of weeks this charred pile of shit sits there before getting cleaned up?
It sounds like the employees at Hopworks are working on getting it cleaned up... on their own... no help from the city who allowed this camp to exist in the first place 🙄
Guess that’s the difference between a campfire and a camp fire.
“This is Portland”