Thanks for the update, Kevin. It's always a bittersweet pleasure when you share your experiences and observations. The proposals you express seem so obvious on one level and so impossible the way things are currently set up.
I often think of childhood education in general when I read you. We all agree that education is important but we're jealous of spending the resources required and the staggering resources that we already devote are not being measured in terms of outcomes.
Dealing with other people is challenging under the best of circumstances. When the other people have "problems" it can seem nearly impossible. It's so much easier to wish you could just make them go away rather than addressing the reality of where people are at.
I don't have any new answers but I appreciate deeply your efforts and observations.
Thanks for keeping us posted. Keep up the good work. Keep poking.
Our schools have to stop engaging in social engineering and ideological indoctrination and get back to teaching. The challenge is that so many kids come from dysfunctional homes and may themselves have learning disabilities.
That is another equally depressing problem. The PPS System has been broken for decades now and the public is being harmed by the undereducated children it is pushing out into the world. People need to get angry, very angry at every person who is a current School Board member. We have given them more money, followed by more money, followed by hundreds of millions in school bonds, and all we get back are excuses and continually declining performance.
They have over and over again hired the very best Superintendents in the Country. Individuals who have performed miracles in the School Districts they previously served.
Then within a very few years they disappear in the dark of night, leaving thousands of poorly equipped students in their wake, and opening the door for the next Savior to follow
.
My battle cry is “Blow Up the PPS”! Shut down the entire system and make the assets available to a new breed of Charter Schools. New Schools who will be free to hire the most competent and talented teachers and administrators without inheriting the poor performers now protected by completely unfair (to the families and students) Union contracts and practices. With private sector efficiencies the new schools will have far more budget dollars to attract and retain the highest level of educators from around the country. Teachers who, after a required number of hours teaching the basics, will have one or two hours a day for special education and programs chosen by the students and their families. There is no reason that various religious schools should not be included along with schools for the arts, sciences, and work related training like computer chip assembly.
The NEW Portland Schools will have strict codes of conduct, with contracts signed by both students and their parents. Contracts that will be a personalized education plan for each student with monthly written reviews of the student’s progress, and an opportunity to change the plans for the benefit of each student.
Oh, Kevin, how I wish you could clone yourself and be editor of The Oregonian, the Multnomah County Chair, the head of JOHS (or whatever bureaucratic Frankenstein might replace it), Multnomah County DA and the City and County Auditor. Did I miss any other chokepoints who are keeping the homelessness crisis alive?
Your recommendations are spot-on, but how do we get there from here? Simply prying open and fixing the nonprofit component of the County's homelessness response program would be an extremely challenging undertaking. At a minimum it would require a reformist majority on the County Commission and ending the County Chair's stranglehold over the Commission's agenda. Alternatively, a truly comprehensive audit of the nonprofits and the County's dealings with them might be sufficiently explosive to create an opening for reforms.
When I think about the City and County's intractable and interrelated crises of homelessness, addiction and crime, I can't help wondering what role bureaucrats' ideological beliefs play in prolonging them. Anyone who has been following local legacy and social media (including this Substack) closely since about 2020 will have become aware that there's a school of thought that the homeless, addicts and criminals are victims of (capitalist) society; that it is society's obligation to support them to the fullest possible extent while expecting nothing from them in return; and that the moral thing to do is respect their autonomy and refrain from second-guessing their decisions and choices.
Are people who hold these views making or executing City or County policy? Are they designing and implementing City and County programs? Are there enough of them to present a real obstacle to ending the crises? If so, how can they be sidelined?
In earlier times, when religious orders still played a major role in providing social services, their members would have made ideal outreach workers. They would have a dedication to service, to helping people and to doing good works without expecting material rewards. Better still, they might not be adherents to the leftist ideology of the moment, at least not the way college-age students and recent graduates are. If I could make anything happen, maybe I'd bring underemployed members of foreign religious orders to Portland to be the outreach workers the city so badly needs.
My, now rather seasoned, experience jibes with what you described. Worse yet, despite outright federal, state and county regulations, these "nonprofit" agencies, even municipal departments, simply don't have a valid or any Complaint/Grievance process for participants that are used to, reneged, misled, strung along, used, and left in worse clinches. I've been working on a case for several years now. The bureaucratic dodging, dishonesty and unscrupulous behavior is remarkable. These ought to be called out, audited, held accountable and penalized. This case also involved a CEO of one of the largest agencies, who personally harmed a homeless disabled senior, while coercing him to do things to the benefit of her and her agency.
Fascinating that three of our lame duck city councilors want to cut ties with the Joint Office of Homelessness (or whatever they call themselves these days). So--what do they propose to succeed it? And why bother when the Daffy Dozen of Council newbies will be ensconced in January?
It's the usual lip-flap and grandstanding; meanwhile the unionized (and can't-be-fired)m ranks of Homelesness Inc. grow daily. This is a symbiotic relationship and will never be resolved. (For which Lake Oswego thanks Portland!)
Money without measurable outcome markers is money wasted. The government and those feeding at the taxpayer trough (non-profits) only care about more money and your post is spot on about that.
I agree with what seems to be the thesis statement of your post; "Additional spending on homelessness reduction programs does not reduce homelessness." But I disagree with the idea that the root cause of homelessness could be anything other than not having enough money for a home.
While drug addiction or lack of motivation can certainly make someone at-risk for homelessness more likely to end up on the street, they aren't the deepest core.
There are plenty of rich people who are addicted to drugs, and there are plenty of rich people who are lazy. There just aren't any rich people among the homeless.
That's why the real problem I find with the homelessness industrial complex is that it raises the cost of housing. Affordable housing mandates, land banking, rent vouchers, publicly-funded eviction defense, etc. are all programs that make it more expensive to live here.
It doesn't seem coincidental that the states with the lowest rates of homelessness (Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana) are also all in the top 10 most affordable places to live (#2, #3, and #10).
It is unlikely that there is a single root cause of homelessness. The inability to earn a living due to mental illness or addiction can also land a person on the streets.
I agree; drugs and mental illness are huge contributors to whether or not an individual in poverty will ultimately end up homeless. If they were root causes for homelessless overall, however, we could expect that the rates of homelessness would be highest in regions with the highest rates of drug use and overdose deaths.
But we don't see that. While West Virginia, for example, has the highest rate of overdose deaths, it's rate of homelessness is quite low, and so is its cost of living.
If you would like to join any of us “in the trenches”, I think you may have a different idea after working with the individuals who are now homeless. The reality is that these folks need a great deal more than just money for rent. They need love and support first and foremost to begin their journey towards a permanent home. 😊🙏🏻
Absolutely. Love and support are necessary for every human being, and certainly a first step for getting people off the street once they're there. I don't think that the homeless in Portland are fundamentally different than the homeless in other places though. If you have love and support and $1000 a month in income in Mississippi, you're a lot more likely to get off and stay off the streets vs. having love and support and $1000 a month income in Portland.
I shared with our new Portland City Mayor. I don't know if it will ever get to him because using his formal city email address you now get the form email. So he now has his gatekeepers. I hope he reads this article and contacts you directly. He needs to understand what is really happening on the street and take action accordingly. These NGO are just prolonging the suffering by not actually helping but just enabling. Our VP is so fed up with seeing truck loads of goods dropped off at these campsites but no other services offered. 😥
Thanks for the update, Kevin. It's always a bittersweet pleasure when you share your experiences and observations. The proposals you express seem so obvious on one level and so impossible the way things are currently set up.
I often think of childhood education in general when I read you. We all agree that education is important but we're jealous of spending the resources required and the staggering resources that we already devote are not being measured in terms of outcomes.
Dealing with other people is challenging under the best of circumstances. When the other people have "problems" it can seem nearly impossible. It's so much easier to wish you could just make them go away rather than addressing the reality of where people are at.
I don't have any new answers but I appreciate deeply your efforts and observations.
Thanks for keeping us posted. Keep up the good work. Keep poking.
Totally agree we need to focus more on childhood education. If we can reach these individuals early, they won’t end up on the streets.
Our schools have to stop engaging in social engineering and ideological indoctrination and get back to teaching. The challenge is that so many kids come from dysfunctional homes and may themselves have learning disabilities.
That is another equally depressing problem. The PPS System has been broken for decades now and the public is being harmed by the undereducated children it is pushing out into the world. People need to get angry, very angry at every person who is a current School Board member. We have given them more money, followed by more money, followed by hundreds of millions in school bonds, and all we get back are excuses and continually declining performance.
They have over and over again hired the very best Superintendents in the Country. Individuals who have performed miracles in the School Districts they previously served.
Then within a very few years they disappear in the dark of night, leaving thousands of poorly equipped students in their wake, and opening the door for the next Savior to follow
.
My battle cry is “Blow Up the PPS”! Shut down the entire system and make the assets available to a new breed of Charter Schools. New Schools who will be free to hire the most competent and talented teachers and administrators without inheriting the poor performers now protected by completely unfair (to the families and students) Union contracts and practices. With private sector efficiencies the new schools will have far more budget dollars to attract and retain the highest level of educators from around the country. Teachers who, after a required number of hours teaching the basics, will have one or two hours a day for special education and programs chosen by the students and their families. There is no reason that various religious schools should not be included along with schools for the arts, sciences, and work related training like computer chip assembly.
The NEW Portland Schools will have strict codes of conduct, with contracts signed by both students and their parents. Contracts that will be a personalized education plan for each student with monthly written reviews of the student’s progress, and an opportunity to change the plans for the benefit of each student.
Simple huh?
Tim
Oh, Kevin, how I wish you could clone yourself and be editor of The Oregonian, the Multnomah County Chair, the head of JOHS (or whatever bureaucratic Frankenstein might replace it), Multnomah County DA and the City and County Auditor. Did I miss any other chokepoints who are keeping the homelessness crisis alive?
Your recommendations are spot-on, but how do we get there from here? Simply prying open and fixing the nonprofit component of the County's homelessness response program would be an extremely challenging undertaking. At a minimum it would require a reformist majority on the County Commission and ending the County Chair's stranglehold over the Commission's agenda. Alternatively, a truly comprehensive audit of the nonprofits and the County's dealings with them might be sufficiently explosive to create an opening for reforms.
When I think about the City and County's intractable and interrelated crises of homelessness, addiction and crime, I can't help wondering what role bureaucrats' ideological beliefs play in prolonging them. Anyone who has been following local legacy and social media (including this Substack) closely since about 2020 will have become aware that there's a school of thought that the homeless, addicts and criminals are victims of (capitalist) society; that it is society's obligation to support them to the fullest possible extent while expecting nothing from them in return; and that the moral thing to do is respect their autonomy and refrain from second-guessing their decisions and choices.
Are people who hold these views making or executing City or County policy? Are they designing and implementing City and County programs? Are there enough of them to present a real obstacle to ending the crises? If so, how can they be sidelined?
In earlier times, when religious orders still played a major role in providing social services, their members would have made ideal outreach workers. They would have a dedication to service, to helping people and to doing good works without expecting material rewards. Better still, they might not be adherents to the leftist ideology of the moment, at least not the way college-age students and recent graduates are. If I could make anything happen, maybe I'd bring underemployed members of foreign religious orders to Portland to be the outreach workers the city so badly needs.
Well said Ollie!
Fantastic post. Thank you!
My, now rather seasoned, experience jibes with what you described. Worse yet, despite outright federal, state and county regulations, these "nonprofit" agencies, even municipal departments, simply don't have a valid or any Complaint/Grievance process for participants that are used to, reneged, misled, strung along, used, and left in worse clinches. I've been working on a case for several years now. The bureaucratic dodging, dishonesty and unscrupulous behavior is remarkable. These ought to be called out, audited, held accountable and penalized. This case also involved a CEO of one of the largest agencies, who personally harmed a homeless disabled senior, while coercing him to do things to the benefit of her and her agency.
Fascinating that three of our lame duck city councilors want to cut ties with the Joint Office of Homelessness (or whatever they call themselves these days). So--what do they propose to succeed it? And why bother when the Daffy Dozen of Council newbies will be ensconced in January?
It's the usual lip-flap and grandstanding; meanwhile the unionized (and can't-be-fired)m ranks of Homelesness Inc. grow daily. This is a symbiotic relationship and will never be resolved. (For which Lake Oswego thanks Portland!)
Money without measurable outcome markers is money wasted. The government and those feeding at the taxpayer trough (non-profits) only care about more money and your post is spot on about that.
I agree with what seems to be the thesis statement of your post; "Additional spending on homelessness reduction programs does not reduce homelessness." But I disagree with the idea that the root cause of homelessness could be anything other than not having enough money for a home.
While drug addiction or lack of motivation can certainly make someone at-risk for homelessness more likely to end up on the street, they aren't the deepest core.
There are plenty of rich people who are addicted to drugs, and there are plenty of rich people who are lazy. There just aren't any rich people among the homeless.
That's why the real problem I find with the homelessness industrial complex is that it raises the cost of housing. Affordable housing mandates, land banking, rent vouchers, publicly-funded eviction defense, etc. are all programs that make it more expensive to live here.
It doesn't seem coincidental that the states with the lowest rates of homelessness (Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana) are also all in the top 10 most affordable places to live (#2, #3, and #10).
It is unlikely that there is a single root cause of homelessness. The inability to earn a living due to mental illness or addiction can also land a person on the streets.
I agree; drugs and mental illness are huge contributors to whether or not an individual in poverty will ultimately end up homeless. If they were root causes for homelessless overall, however, we could expect that the rates of homelessness would be highest in regions with the highest rates of drug use and overdose deaths.
But we don't see that. While West Virginia, for example, has the highest rate of overdose deaths, it's rate of homelessness is quite low, and so is its cost of living.
If you would like to join any of us “in the trenches”, I think you may have a different idea after working with the individuals who are now homeless. The reality is that these folks need a great deal more than just money for rent. They need love and support first and foremost to begin their journey towards a permanent home. 😊🙏🏻
Absolutely. Love and support are necessary for every human being, and certainly a first step for getting people off the street once they're there. I don't think that the homeless in Portland are fundamentally different than the homeless in other places though. If you have love and support and $1000 a month in income in Mississippi, you're a lot more likely to get off and stay off the streets vs. having love and support and $1000 a month income in Portland.
I shared with our new Portland City Mayor. I don't know if it will ever get to him because using his formal city email address you now get the form email. So he now has his gatekeepers. I hope he reads this article and contacts you directly. He needs to understand what is really happening on the street and take action accordingly. These NGO are just prolonging the suffering by not actually helping but just enabling. Our VP is so fed up with seeing truck loads of goods dropped off at these campsites but no other services offered. 😥
Be sure to check out Kevin’s viral video….over 8 MILLION views: https://twitter.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1609300954112987137