Greetings,
The crime-ridden homeless campsites across America are a problem for the people in them and for cities they occupy as well. People are forced to exist somewhere even without shelter, and while cities can provide stop-gap remedies there’s not much they can do to actually solve the problem. What ‘solution’ is Portland considering? Rounding up people into certainly-not-concentration camps. What’s a real solution? Providing the infrastructure a Middle Class needs to survive and prosper. But for the last 40 years Americans have voted against their best interests, expecting vapid non-solutions like camps, deportations or jails as effective moves, all while State and Federal governments falter and the economy continues to crumble.
A short drive shows how desperate our homeless situation is and absolutely no one in Portland thinks it’s OK. Responding to increasing disgust from Portlanders and increasing danger to homeless people, Mayor Ted Wheeler floated the idea of a mass shelter using National Guard as security and social work students as management. Thankfully, the reaction hasn’t been positive. Commissioner Mingus Mapps politely called the proposal an “overcorrection” to the “current hands-off approach [that] has failed everyone”, adding “There are ethical and effective solutions between internment and anarchy.” For example, homeless service provider JOIN has “found success in ‘master leasing’ apartments to unhoused clients—a process in which an organization makes an agreement with a private landlord to cover rent costs for formerly unhoused tenants.” While “landlords are eager to sign on”, they say they’ve been told by City staff the idea is “too controversial”. Oh well.
But why do we have so much homelessness in the first place, and is it a city’s problem to solve? At the root, I don’t think so. There have always been homeless populations; but not with the logarithmic expansions seen now. The National Coalition for the Homeless cites primary causes including “poverty, eroding work opportunities, a lack of affordable housing, and a decline in public assistance”. Harbor Interfaith says it’s because of the “economy and the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill”. The Democrats correctly mention these issues in some of their complex, tepid plans, but the Republicans have convinced more people with the easy, showy, wrong answer… everyone has just gotten lazy. The Reps and Dems go through the motions of a battle, but I can’t help but think that if this isn’t intentional, it’s at least acceptable to our Ruling Class.
Democrats have always fought with Republicans, but we citizens could usually make out some kind of difference in substance. As the modern Republican party came to power with Reagan, though, substance lost to style to sell the ‘trickle down’ economics of Big Business greed. Now both parties are wholly owned by Corporate interests and the fight is an exhibition at best, like watching the Harlem Globetrotters play the Washington Generals. The Republicans have sharpened their moral panic and bogeyman issues until they’re as flashy as a Globetrotter’s no-net shot from half court, and they play just as well to the crowds in the stands. The Democrats, just like the Generals, haplessly hold to the rules and are beaten every time, but it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. They’re paid to lose. The Refs don’t call penalties because they know the show is working exactly as it’s supposed to. Most importantly, both teams are owned by the same company, and the exhibition game keeps the fans entertained while that company extracts the wealth. It isn’t real basketball; stunt plays only work in a fixed game and anyone looking for real basketball should go elsewhere.
The Middle Class is being crushed by an economic system that funnels their wealth and labor to the top 1% of the population while returning nothing to the society we live in. Wages, student debt, medical debt, and more are strangling us, while a broken justice system keeps us in line. A safety net would help people at the bottom of this pile, but America is not about eking out a bare existence on the margins. If we go by the “give a fish, teach to fish” parable, then we need the infrastructure to fish for ourselves. Single payer healthcare, an uncorrupted Justice System, and tax-paid education directly correspond to the “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” we aspire to in the Constitution. Anything else is a failure, either of capability, imagination, or representative government, and we can’t look to Cities or showmanship to bail us out.
Make a Great Day,
Digging Deeper
If you want to let Mayor Wheeler or the Council know how you feel on homelessness or any other issue, contact them here
Want to get involved in building a society that works for the middle class? May we suggest the Working Families Party?
As West Coast Leaders Pledge to Crack Down on Homelessness, a Mass Shelter Concept Copies Their Law-And-Order Approach in Portland, Sophie Peel in Willamette Week, Feb 2022
Hall Monitor: Why Homelessness Experts Have Rejected Mayor’s Shelter Plan, Alex Zielinski in Portland Mercury, Feb 2022
People for Portland homeless survey: ‘Status quo is failing’
Portland Homeless Statistics, City of Portland
The large homeless camp in Slabtown, famous for all the bikes, is tackled by city contractors after two years., Joseph Gallivan in Portland Tribune, Jan 2022
City of Portland Response to homelessness, City of Portland, Summer 2019
Federal analysis shows Oregon’s homeless population in decline prior to pandemic, Rebecca Ellis on OPB, Mar 2021
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-workforce-america-united-states-wages-stagnate
Productivity vs wages: How wages in America have stagnated, World Economic Forum, Nov 2020
US Wages Have Been Rising Faster Than Productivity For Decades, Tim Worstall in Forbes, Oct 2016
The Imf Confirms That ‘Trickle-Down’ Economics Is, Indeed, A Joke, Jared Keller in Pacific Standard, Jun 2017
