Portland Mayor Charlie Hales has taken action on the homeless crisis in the Portland and Gresham community in August. He spoke up about the increase in the homeless population and concluded with a 30 day notice for the homeless to move out among the Springwater Trail. This all due to the large amounts of complaints over months around the trail from citizens of the community.
Talk of the increase began as less and less people spent time on the paved trail, used for biking, running, and walking. People stopped feeling safe traveling on the trail due to this increase.
As a member of the Gresham community, I have grown up around the idea that homeless have always lived on this trail. I was not allowed to go on it by myself and I was not allowed to be on it around dark. Period. This trail once made for the community to enjoy, turned into a hazardous place that not many people choose to travel on.
An estimated 500 of the homeless population found shelter on the Springwater trail, stretching over the 14 miles that it includes. Meaning you run into multiple shelters at least every mile, making the area look less clean than it used to be.
Citizens who live in the community around the trail hope to stay civil with the homeless and make this about cleaning up rather than getting rid of the people.
Homeowners said they're concerned about what will happen on Sept. 1.
“I want a nice quiet neighborhood," Johnson said. "I have grandchildren living with me. I don't need f-bombs being dropped all the time. It's just not pleasant anymore." states kgw.com source.
With the Portland Mayor's actions, the homeless population should go down drastically.
While it is wonderful that the actions done will clean up the community, the homeless are still not responsible for their personal belongings or all the trash they have left on public land.
Portland Police, City Rangers, Work Crews and more will be responsible to be scattered amongst those 14 miles to pick up all of the homeless literal and figurative crap they leave behind.
Yes I said it, other people will be responsible for the homeless populations' shit. Not only do the homeless population typically not care where they live, they do not care how they treat the area they live.
Although many cannot imagine the pain and hardship one person could go through being homeless, the least they could do is take their home with them when they leave.
The crews have dumpsters located everywhere for clean up, while some more personal items will be held in storage until November 1.
It is not as though the mayor is a monster and just kicking the homeless to the curb to another location, but many homeless are actually being referred to help centers and places where they can regain a sense of familiarity, while some centers should soon open so many will have to wait before this happens.
To keep the homeless from coming back, rangers soon will be patrolling the trail to ensure everybody's safety and to keep the trail clean.
Conflict arises within the community though, with members stating that the homeless could just as easy camp somewhere even more public and get away with it.
So if they get kicked out of Springwater, where will they end up now? Could it be neighborhoods and other parks?
Time will be the only way to tell how this action will effect the Gresham/Portland community, hopefully creating more shelters and access to better living than just camping in public.
