In another example of well meaning but misguided homeless advocacy policies, Portland is seeing a dramatic increase in suffering and death – at much higher rates than the rest of the country that is seeing declines. A report from the Multnomah county medical examiner shows homeless deaths have been increasing at a dramatic rate year over year – despite some of the strongest implementation and policies that spending millions in free tents, permit free camping, wide distribution of free ‘harm reduction’ drug use kits, legalization of drug use, suspension of prosecution for drug crimes, and open door offers of free treatment.
It turns out that after a decade of homeless advocacy groups encouraging these policies, they are actually increasing deaths at an alarming and clear rate far higher rates than even imprisonment ever did. The death rates can be mapped almost 1-1 with policy implementation. The end result is dramatically more suffering and deaths.
Which should be no surprise. Activists and advocacy groups are not medical or scientific groups. They’re simply (at best) social workers with a particular agenda – many without any training or background in the causes they are behind. It’s probably time we started questioning the policies and money spent by activists and advocacy groups just like we do the proposed policies of politicians. If someone truly cares about the plight of homeless, it’s our duty to question and hold these groups accountable for the deaths the policies are causing.
All of this also in spite of a massive new homeless income tax – proving once again that it’s not a money or compassion problem – but a leadership problem.
Finders Keepers runs the yearlong hidden glass float events on the central Oregon coast and just released its 2025 schedule Tuesday, detailing its 16 special drops over the course of the year, in addition to its daily drops on Lincoln City beaches.
The best description I have heard of Portland when I got here in the late 90’s was that it was a city full of shipwrecks and refugees – where people wash up on it’s shores with few prospects and sketchy pasts. Portland is nothing if not a strange place. You’ll find odd things posted on poles all over town. Every now and again, someone will dig into one of these to find out what they’re about. The Willamette Valley Dream Survey is one of those. Long story short: the most recent branch of this that showed up in Utah revolves around a doomsday prediction on Sept 5th, 2020.
Nexpo did a little over-dramatic dig into the phenomenon by going so far to buy a burner phone and calling them. He also digs into a local 2600-like hacker group called Futel (he pronounces it wrong, it’s pronounce Few-tell – like ‘futile’ as a play on words about telephone monopolies and other alt-conspiracy type plays on words). that converts old payphones into free (likely VOIP) phones.
ADP, the payroll company, has shared the lowest and highest median salaries by state. They used the wages and salaries of almost 10 million employees over 12 months to collect their data.
The results? Oregon is 48th – essentially tied with Arkansas and below Nevada as having the worst pay in the country.
The housing shortage in Portland seems to be improving – until you look at why. It’s not because Portland (with some of the most housing unfriendly policies in the country) is building more houses (they are a little bit) but because people are leaving.
What is happening in San Francisco—and in Portland, to a lesser extent—is that the housing shortage is temporarily improving, not because of the construction of new housing but because people are moving away to cheaper places.
In a case study on San Francisco, the Up for Growth report noted an issue that a report from the Common Sense Institute Oregon highlighted earlier this week.
“Household formation in these areas significantly decreased. Driven in no small part by the high cost of housing, households that could have formed in these communities formed somewhere else instead
SantaCon – though now there are multiple competing groups and none are even remotely as interesting as the original Cacophony Society ones late 90’s early 2000’s.
Comical googly eyes have appeared on statues and murals around the city of Bend, Oregon in December. The city has asked residents to top adding them since it costs money to remove them safely without damaging the art, but one Facebook user responded with “It would cost $0 to leave them on”
In the ‘you can’t make this stuff up’ department, a stripper who was apparently having a mental health crisis at the local Casa Diablo vegan strip club stabbed the DJ 4 times in an apparent random attack – nearly killing him.
The DJ Duncan Allen was rushed to the hospital, underwent multiple hours-long surgeries, and is currently recovering at Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center.
Peyton Lathan, the stripper that stabbed him, was found by the police hiding in bushes alongside the road. During her arrest she said she is “pleading insanity”. She will be arraigned on her indictment Tuesday morning.
