What privilege means in Portland

This homeless situation is so big and so difficult.  I've talked before about the huge camping problem on the Spingwater Corridor which now has at least 500 campers, some say a 1000 campers.  And now the city says they are closing it down.  The campers want the city to allow camping in all neighborhoods, including Eastmoreland where the mayor lives.  This is a quote from their meeting:

"That's where the decision makers for our whole city live," Schultz said, "but they get to have their kids run around and not be confronted with [homelessness]. So they don't have the dinner-time conversation of, 'yeah, I saw a guy [urinating] in front of me or screamed a bunch of profanity at me or there were needles littered around.' They don't have to deal with that. It's a manifestation of their privilege."

So, now we know what privilege means.  It seems to me that the homeless are demanding privileges that the rest of us don't have.  They want all their needs met while they do whatever they want which includes using drugs in public, leaving trash everywhere, pooping and peeing anywhere, acting out, setting fires, taking what they want, destroying public and private property.

The Springwater trail homeless have a list of demands.

* Extend the Aug. 1 deadline to shut down the trail to overnight camping

* Provide additional time to people with disabilities, children or the elderly in the event of relocation

* Relocate homeless people, not displace them.

* Refrain from seizing anyone's possessions

* Cease the criminalization of the homeless community

* Meet directly with the trail's homeless campers

* Levy a tax on real estate projects to benefit social services

* Allow interested homeowners to open their backyards for long-term camping

* Deploy storage units for campers' belongings a week before the Aug. 1 cleanup

Source: Vahid Brown, discussion leader from July 23, 2016 Springwater Corridor meeting