Portland, RIP

There must be a reason why some people still live in Portland, but I don’t know what it is. The city has become a hellhole, devastated by crime and overrun by homeless drug addicts. Antifa is rampant, and the city’s political leaders are–if this is possible–even more ineffectual than the leaders of San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis.

The Daily Mail takes note, in a story titled “‘I’m done with Portland’: Homeless people are forcing ‘terrified’ residents to sell their homes.” Sometimes you have to go to the U.K. press to get the straight story on events in the U.S. The Mail article is profusely illustrated with photographs and deserves to be read in its entirety. Here are some excerpts:

The Democratic city has one of the most deserted downtowns in the United States as soaring crime rates and homelessness are scaring away both locals and tourists. But now the crisis has spread beyond the downtown area and into the quiet suburbs, forcing many to leave.

These homeless camps are now becoming a permanent fixture in the suburbs, with the city being forced to conduct sweeps on a regular basis.

In Portland, homeless people, largely drug addicts, pitch tents on the boulevards of expensive homes:

The stories are harrowing:

Nathan Lamb, another resident who also lives on Rhine Street – just three doors down from the Philips, told KGW8 that his six-year-old son, who has a disability, can’t always safely access his school bus because of the camps.

‘At 8 in the morning there are folks that are smoking meth, they’re shooting up, there’s domestic violence,’ Lamb said. ‘It’s absolutely absurd.’

Lamb described having to maneuver around slumped over addicts just to get his son to the bus.

‘A couple of times we had to come out with slumped over individuals and say, “Hey! My son’s handicap bus is coming in about five minutes, can you please move along?'”

Lamb added that residents have been complaining to the city about the camps, but nothing was being done and he felt the homeless community had more rights than they did.

You can imagine what the crime/homelessness crisis is doing to property values:

Local realtor George Patterson told DailyMail.com that the homeless encampments encroaching on residents’ front lawns is a topic that comes up with his clients ‘every day’, and that deals are falling through homes for sale in the area.

In one case, an early offer for a three-bedroom home asking close to $700,000 near a sanctioned homeless encampment, called Multnomah Village.

‘We had early offer on a home, but it fell through and there was some concern there with the Multnomah village site,’ Patterson said.

‘I can say [homeless encampments] are definitely affecting the property values.’

Portland, like San Francisco, has spent a great deal of money to make homelessness less painful, and has approved a number of sites where the homeless can camp. As in San Francisco, the result is that the city has attracted a lot more homeless people, and they have spilled out across the metro area rather than being confined to approved camps.

So far, there doesn’t seem to be any sign that Portland’s municipal government has the will to address the crisis that is making the city unlivable. The Daily Mail notes that crime is up this year by 21.7% over 2021’s record-smashing pace.

Dozens of photos at the link. Portland, RIP.