A city out of control

As far as I can tell, Portland is out of control.   This is how Portland looks and feels these days.

All of the city departments are understaffed and can't keep up, including the police.  The city website often leads you in circles instead of helping you with your problem.  It used to be a great website.  Not anymore.

If you call about an issue, it takes six to seven phone calls (and a lot of time) to find anyone who might help you.  Every response I get from them talks about how over burdened they are, without the resources to respond.  This is pretty much the standard  response you get to any complaint (I got this one in email):

" Service Level Update:   Due to reduced resources, the Bureau may need to prioritize some  enforcement/complaint types in order to effectively process the more critical  cases with our limited resources.  While  cases are being setup to document all complaints received, not all cases are  being assigned for investigation and enforcement.   We apologize for this service level reduction and plan to respond to  more case types as additional resources become available."

What this means is that if you haven't been shot or stabbed, don't expect a timely response from the city.  If it's "just" a livability issue, don't expect any help.  And people are moving to Portland for its "livability"?   Boy are they gonna be surprised!

Camping along the Springwater Trail

The homeless situation gets worse and worse.  We now have the largest single homeless camp in the country with an estimated 500 to a thousand people living along the Springwater Corridor.  The situation there is very bad and unsafe.  There are shootings and other violence as well as heavy drug use and  fires.  It's supposed to be a bike/pedestrian trail but it's unsafe to be there.   People who live near the Springwater Corridor are very affected by the camps in close proximity to their homes.   The city has  decided to finally clear it out, which will force all those people into the neighborhoods.

This is a tent in Laurelhurst Park.  It has been there for weeks and weeks even though camping is prohibited in the parks.  The tent is very near their maintenance building.

I reported the illegal camping.  That tent is still there and now it has a neighbor.

It's pretty hard to get to the Hollywood neighborhood on foot without going down these stairs.  This guy called me Babe and asked for money.  When I refused, he was angry and called me names.

The construction  gets worse and worse.  The city does not respond in a timely manner to construction complaints.  It takes days for them to respond.   By the time they get there, that particular subcontractor has moved on to another project.  The construction people know they have the upper hand and are ignoring the laws.  This construction site has had the sidewalk blocked for about ten days although the law says they can't do that for longer than 2 hours.

Portland is changing and the changes are not good.  Portland has the slogan "the city that works".  I think we need a new slogan.  Maybe we can just put a Not in front as in "Not the city that works".

Still want to move to Portland?