Is your household income LESS than $49,560 ($56,640 for 2, $63,720 for 3, etc)? You could get a free air conditioner from Portland. There are apparently other programs if you have wood burning heat to get free furnaces and conversions – all paid for by local tax payers.
https://www.portland.gov/bps/cleanenergy/cooling-portland/apply-cooling-unit
In another sign of Portland’s declining situation, the metro area lost nearly 7,500 jobs in May 2025 and employment is down about 14,000 in the past year according to a new report from the Oregon Employment Department.
Statewide, the unemployment rate was 4.8% in May 2025 – up from 4.1% in May 2024. The U.S. rate was 4.2% in both months.
Conveniently delayed until after the passage of a massive $1.8 billion bond measure, the 2023-4 PPS audit report was released with 23 improvement areas identified. In what is a continued trend of leadership failures and overruns, it called out PPS’s significant project delays and major cost overruns.
Links:
Looking for a specific fruits, berries, or vegetables to pick yourself (as well as other farm produce such as milk or meat)? The Pick Your Own website maintains and updated lists of what items local farms all over your state are currently allowing for picking. It’s very extensive and seems to be updated all the time. Someone is doing a lot of work to help save you a lot of time digging around on your own.
Oregon fairs and festivals: https://www.oregonlive.com/events/2025/05/summer-events-guide-2025-more-than-55-fairs-festivals-rodeos-other-top-events.html
List of Portland city sponsored events – movies in the park, music, festivals, and other special events: https://www.portland.gov/parks/arts-culture/summer-free-all/cultural-events
Other event lists (concerts and plays): https://www.portland-theater.com/dates
In many states (such as California, New York, Oregon, and Illinois) Democrats control all the levers of power from governor, to house of representatives/senate, and even city government. They run the government. They write the laws. Yet, in key areas, many blue states are actually doing worse than red states.
Oregon is one of those states. Despite one of the highest funding rates per student in the country, Portland Public Schools are nearly dead last – much worse than southern red states on all metrics of student achievement. Despite record spending on homelessness, Portland has some of the worst homelessness in the country. Oregon has some of the worst mental health systems in the country. Many blue states are some of the least affordable despite decades of rent programs and development restrictions. The list goes on. What’s going wrong?
New York Times dives in to find out why.
Norwegian Xplorer has some great videos of driving around the extreme portions of Norway in winter. In this video, he travels through a polar vortex storm as he drives between Vadso and the extreme northeastern city of Vardø. He braves closed roads along the artic ocean. It’s pretty amazing.
Ground Score puts homeless to work cleaning up downtown. They are ‘association of informal recyclers, waste pickers, canners, dumpster divers, and other environmental workers who create and fill low-barrier waste management jobs in Portland, Oregon.’
No word on how to hire them if your business or living complex has been trashed by homeless camps – they only seem to take donations on their website. I sure hope they are helping the city and these folks connect to their communities through solid work – and not part of the growing homeless-industrial complex of Portland.
In the recently published ‘Financial State of the Cities 2025’, Portland is ranked in the bottom five “Sinkhole Cities” along with Honolulu, New Orleans, Portland, Chicago and New York. Not surprising when you know Portland has the highest commercial vacancy rate in the country and has had a declining population for 3 years running.
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-cities-2025
From a planner who is now recognizing many blue state policies are regressive and a big part of the reason there isn’t enough affordable housing in western blue states (which like Oregon are shrinking) while many red states have lots of attractive affordable housing (and are growing).