News

I said this in another thread about this article: They're just flatly dividing the 1.3 billion total budget that was allocated over the years by the 6,300 number of homeless counted in 2023.

This budget likely includes programs serving homeless populations as a whole and its staffing, administration, etc. Given the time period this likely includes program funding that started, and then ended, with special funding local health juridictions recieved during covid.

Source: worked in the region in question in a local health juridiction through covid. Cutting programs and keeping police sweeps didn't help the homeless but it tended to satiate the local businesses and residences impactes.

So the bit of the article quoted doesnt cover the salient points its making. It reads as if its saying "spending more on the homeless is bad" when actually its saying "bad policy can cost more and make things worse".

The death rate went up because Portland started aggressive anti-honeless techniques of sweeps to clear homeless encampments and a reduction of longer term stable housing in favour of short term shelters.

What the article is saying is Portland enacted bad and expensive policies that have made the situation worse not better.

This article was produced with reporting done by Street Roots. Street Roots continues to be the most important local outlet for the Portland homeless and houseless community. They feature regular articles about state and local policy effecting their live and highlight artistic voices within the community.

Show them some love and visit the site.

Terrible policy had a terrible outcome, what a surprise. Of course spending more money on harassing the homeless caused more deaths, especially with the winter they just had.

We could have spent 1.3 billion building affordable homes. That also, by definition, makes them not homeless.

I wonder how much socialized medicine $1.3 billion could create?

City leaders began moving homeless people out of public view by removing tents at a rate far surpassing those of its West Coast peers. Since 2021, it carried out 19,000 sweeps, and it dismantled over 20 encampments per day in 2024, according to city records.

We are very puzzled why spending more money on harassing homeless people increased the death rate?

Homeless residents in Multnomah County die, on average, more than 30 years earlier than the average U.S. life expectancy of 78

WTF?! That's a life expectancy for homeless people of only 48 years!!

Another example of how American society is sociopathic. According to the numbers of the article, the death rate was an insane 8% !!!
USA is not a civilized country.

These deaths came during the same period that Portland began a two-pronged response to public pressure over homelessness. City leaders began moving homeless people out of public view by removing tents at a rate far surpassing those of its West Coast peers. Since 2021, it carried out 19,000 sweeps, and it dismantled over 20 encampments per day in 2024, according to city records.

At the same time, the city reduced money for stable permanent housing while dramatically increasing its investment in temporary shelters. The city spent $19.4 million to house formerly homeless Portlanders in 2019, according to the city budget. By 2024, the city budgeted $4.3 million, which housed 391 people.

They got what they paid for

but the dream of the 90s...