Mayor Pulliam on Homelessness #GovernorGoals
There is a point at which well-intended compassion devolves into simply enabling dangerous behavior. We are well past it, and it needs to stop.
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There is a point at which well-intended compassion devolves into simply enabling dangerous behavior. We are well past it, and it needs to stop.
I’d like to focus my comments on the most visible population of the homeless – those camping in cars and tents in groups. This segment is less likely to just be down on their luck as many of them are choosing to live that way for nefarious purposes.
There are dozens of nonprofit shelters catering to victims of domestic abuse, veterans, children, and women which should continue to be supported and expanded. Some of these programs and resources are being offered by the Salvation Army, New Avenues for Youth, Portland Rescue Mission, and the like, but I would like to address another side of homelessness.
I’m referring to people camping in public right-of-ways, parks, sidewalks, and environmentally sensitive areas. These are not largely people who have found themselves in a tough spot. I will say what few will: They are mostly criminals. The anti-enforcement attitude of locally elected leaders and decriminalization of hard drugs has led to pods of felonious enterprises that feed off permissive public policy.
Up and down Marine Drive near the airport, Foster Road East of 205, Burnside and elsewhere, criminals gather to strip and dump stolen cars, use heroin and meth, and fence stolen goods. They pile trash like trophies, leak fluids from chopped cars and bodily excrement into waterways. It’s time to stop categorizing these people along with families who are priced out of the housing market.
Mental health is an enormous factor here, but it doesn’t mean we need to tolerate reckless, criminal behavior. There is no dignity or compassion in allowing human beings to live this way.
The scale of this problem is relatively new, but the issue is not. I spoke with a former state representative who told me that a decade ago, while on a ride along with Portland Police in Southeast, he witnessed homes with three or four small campers in their backyards with extension cords running to the house.
The officer explained that these were typically inhabited by sex offenders who couldn’t find housing elsewhere, paying a couple of hundred dollars a month for rent as Portland’s lax code enforcement allowed it to happen. It’s also about the time that RVs started showing up in suburban neighborhoods.
A decade later, local elected leaders have doubled down on terrible public policy that has turned a problem into a full-blown crisis.
Make no mistake, these are solely Democratic policies. And it will take a Republican to fix them.
If the Right to Rest Bill (HB 3115) passed this year can supersede good local ordinances, then we need another bill to supersede bad ones.
I propose we pass statewide legislation that allows the Oregon State Police to relocate homeless encampments when they create chemical or biological pollution to environmentally fragile areas, trespass on public right-of-way, or have created a public nuisance by being the site of any felony. The Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Transportation should have resources dedicated to directing the Oregon State Police to enforce these relocations. The Port of Portland should be directed to maintain a facility in Portland with a paved pad with campsite boundaries and restroom facilities.
The Port of Portland currently maintains its own police force. Anyone who has been relocated to the Port campsite will be subject to arrest for all crimes committed while there. With time, this will deter the enormous number of individuals coming to Oregon to live outdoors and commit crimes.
We will need to expand the state police and Port resources. But it will work.
Local measures have directed millions to address homelessness, but nothing has addressed the most open and notorious part of the problem – those who intentionally live this way because it facilitates a lifestyle of lawlessness.
There needs to be an adult in the room. Oregonians are sick of government ignoring the problem and doubling down on policies that have only made things worse. In a perfect Oregon, elected officials would simply enforce the law and not tie the hands of those sworn to uphold it. But if that isn’t happening, Oregonians need a leader with the fortitude to do what needs to be done.
Author Bio
Stan Pulliam is the Mayor of his hometown of Sandy. He’s been called a Rising Star after receiving local and national headlines and is running for Oregon Governor. He’s married to his wife MacKensey and has 2 daughters.
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photo credit: "File:Northeast Portland homeless camp tents.jpg" by Graywalls is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
There is a point at which political demagoguery needs to be recognized for what it is: a gathering of uninformed, reasonably well-off citizens' sympathy for their alleged plight in order to blame the victims of failed public measures with no positive proposals beyond the righteous-sounding "enforce the law harshly, and deterrence will achieve a good end." Since Mayor Pulliam places the blame for "Homelessness" on one political party's failure to eradicate the problem, I must point out that the other political party's response for the past decade (at least) is to oppose the first party's suggestions without offering any practical alternatives. This opposition must stop. Republicans must take responsibility even when they're the loyal opposition. Sure, oppose suggestions that are unlikely to work, but then propose other suggestions, positive ones.
Even if we locked up the criminals among the homeless, the roots of our problem would remain. Our society has used deterrence to lower the incidence of criminal behavior for centuries, and we've seen that deterrence does not work. We need to figure out what does.
If the phrase "mental health" means more than "get them off the streets," we have to realize that helping emotionally and psychologically suffering people is going to cost us. We need to renovate the whole social-support network: more social workers and well-educated mental health professionals, more education of police about how to recognize emotional distress, more publicly financed safe places for homeless people to live, and far less stigma and blame.
As for the need to keep adult(s) in the room, oh, yes! but "adult" is not synonymous with "parent." Assuming the role of one who has the right and duty to tell others what to do and not do insults them; it's a powerful stimulus for the others to resist, to resent, to disobey, to behave just as naughty children do.
People who want more law and more police as a solution to homelessness are guilty of ignoring the cost as much as social warriors do.
First we must come up with a law that will stand up constitutionality that allows us to legally impose mandatory substance abuse treatment. So far the the legal community has failed at that, no treatment facility can hold anyone against their will. They must be convicted of a felony and go into treatment in lieu of prison. They can still walk away once they get there.
Let's start adding up costs. Say we only have 1,500 homeless drug addicts and alcoholics in Portland. Under this policy that requires 1,500 investigations, arrests, bookings,incarcerations, preliminary hearings, trials, sentencings, and commitment.
How long, how much, how possible.