PDX Housing Emergency 2015

20 July 2015

An open letter on our housing crisis.

To the Portland City Council and Multnomah County Commission

Like many others, I’ve been troubling considerably over our obvious crisis of indigent homelessness, and the less obvious but much larger crisis of the low income struggling to stay off the streets. Our misuse of the police in the misguided attempt to mask the social consequences of what is clearly an economic problem troubles me the most. We are punishing the victims, for which we should be ashamed.

Our lack of indigent and low income housing is not a minor problem. It is big. We need on the order of 5,000 safe and legal places for those now on the streets, and more than 20,000 for low income residents.

Because of its magnitude, it is obvious that this crisis can’t be solved through normal public and private management processes. It is thus, by definition, an emergency.

If those living in the streets and couch surfing with friends and relatives had lost their homes to an earthquake or flood, we would  not be conflicted about declaring an emergency and calling upon the agencies who carry the mission of providing emergency housing. We should have no conflict about doing so now.

Politically, the victim blamers will go off the deep end in response to this. They have no alternatives to offer which aren’t massive human rights violations and guaranteed to fail. Declaring an emergency and creating emergency temporary housing is the humane and rational thing to do.

Please like and share.

MK (Katie) Bretsch
SE Portland