‘Not safe anymore’: Portland confronts the limits of its support for homeless services

Paul Hunter has taken to sleeping on the roof of his RV, parked along a stretch of Northeast 33rd Drive in Portland, Ore. “There’s always somebody giving away free tents, sleeping bags, clothes, water, sandwiches, three meals a day — it’s all here.” Portland, like Los Angeles, Sacramento and much of the San Francisco Bay Area, has experienced a conspicuous rise in the number of people living in sprawls of tents and RVs, even as these communities have poured millions of tax dollars — billions, collectively — into supportive services. “This used to be the most beautiful, amazing city — now people’s houses and cars are getting broken into, and you can call 911, but no one is going to come,” said TJ Browning, who chairs the public safety committee for the Laurelhurst Neighborhood Assn. They include a dedicated effort to decriminalize low-level drug possession; a shift toward “harm reduction” programs that offer addicts shelter and medical care without coercing abstinence; and court rulings that make it difficult to clear homeless encampments if the city can’t offer beds to the people displaced. “It’s small, but meaningful.” Williams gives voice to another core constituency in Portland who say the city has a responsibility to ease the burden of living homeless, while also investing more energy and resources to address the affordable housing shortage he sees as the genesis of the problem.