Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced on Friday a plan to ban unsanctioned homeless encampments in his Oregon city as homelessness has skyrocketed 50 percent since 2019.
“The magnitude and the depth of the homelessness crisis in our city is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe” and “Collectively, this is a vortex of misery for all involved,” Wheeler said, according to Fox News.
Earlier in October during a city council meeting, Portlander Gillian Rose called on Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler to take the homeless issue seriously, however he simply laughed off her concerns that the encampments posed a safety risk.
Under Wheeler’s mayoralty, more than 700 homeless encampments have flourished within roughly 146 square miles and there are over 3,000 homeless people throughout Portland.
Wheeler’s plan would create “designated alternative camping sites with services” where the homeless could receive counseling for drug and mental health related issues.
The Portland mayor also said he plans to build 20,000 units of affordable housing over the next ten years and said it is a “foundational solution” to the problem.
In September a woman found a random homeless woman sleeping on her son’s bed after the vagabond walked into the home.
According to the Daily Mail, Portland residents are considering “abandoning” Democrat leadership, who have governed for 40 years, in the wake of the homeless and crime problems.
Wheeler asked Oregon Governor Kate Brown to immediately enact “a statewide emergency order” to deal with the homeless.
The topic of homelessness is one of many animating voters in the upcoming gubernatorial election between Democrat Tina Kotek, Independent but liberal Betsy Johnson, and Republican Christine Drazan.
In September, a group of Portlanders with disabilities sued the city for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming the city had not done enough to keep sidewalks clear of homeless encampments which have been allowed to proliferate across the city. The ADA bars discrimination based on disability and requires sidewalks to be accessible to everyone.
© Copyright 2022 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
If you are thrown out of your homeless encampment. Take a trip to the Rio Grande our southern border.
Cross the river then turn around and come back as an illegal immigrant, don’t forget to change your name and request asylum.
Then this treasonous Democrat Party’s Biden cartel cabal will welcome you, put you up in a motel, provide food, money, medical and transportation all at the unapproved taxpayers expense. 🙁 🙁 🙁
Banning them is one thing, how does he intend to enforce it? Since he’s diminished the police there probably isn’t enough of them they are afraid they won’t have support. How about social workers and those liberals who were all for the non-enforcement of law to begin with.
AND even if there are enough cops. ARE THEY WILLING TO DO ANYTHING about it?
I’ll bring popcorn. Wheeler is useless and I’m surprised he got the guts to even say ban.
Homelessness is growing, not diminishing. It’s a lifestyle now. Just last week the cops were called to remove a homeless camp (1 carload) from a residential park in a middle class neighborhood here in town. They set up a tent, with cooking facilities and were settled in but thankfully not for long.
You Portland suckers get what you vote for! Can’t bring yourself to vote Republican, then wonder why these clowns are pitching tents on sidewalks, in the parks, etc. A mayor with some backbone would have run them outta town on a rail. Instead, this clown want to build more project housing. Nice!