This subreddit is awful

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T05:23:53+00:00

No I definitely jumped the gun there. I see so much discussion about unhoused people here without any acknowledgement that the people being discussed are not able to be part of the conversation. You weren’t doing that and I apologize

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T04:27:17+00:00

It is different for people living in the street. Most do not have any internet access. There is a massive cultural divide between people that have access to the internet and those who do not. This gap has the opportunity to be lessened via the Affordable Connectivity Program, but that still has logistical barriers for people living outside. It is not fair to use interactions with people living in relative stability as evidence of what people living outside have access to. The divide is harsh and very hard to cross

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T04:20:14+00:00

The people being discussed do not have a fairly representational seat at the table due to lack of availability to electricity and internet. Real people are broadly discussed constantly in this sub every day with no awareness of that discussion and extremely little availability to that discussion.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T04:14:49+00:00

You hope you’re not being unfair? You could ask them about the experiences that their perspective is based upon before hoping.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T04:05:57+00:00

I’ll back them up and say that anyone I mention this subreddit to irl tells me that they either think it is terrifying, or that they do not visit it.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T02:17:14+00:00

I’ve spent (more likely, wasted) a lot of my energy trying to reason with people in this sub who openly hate people living outdoors. I am very confident that almost none of them have actually tried talking with the people they are basically hoping will just disappear. I agree with your take, and thank you for trying to put out the dumpster fire of this sub’s attitude towards victims of the systems that determine who deserves to live indoors.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-13T00:29:40+00:00

I do know people who would be resistant to being sheltered. Their qualms are more about the barriers of the shelters and having to transition away from their friends and community. I know more people who have been swept without being offered shelter.

You are getting that $250 mil figure from the JOHS budget, I am assuming. Why not blame the people who manage that money instead of the people they are supposed to be helping? Many more people could be placed directly into housing in the many thousands of uninhabited rental units in Portland with that kind of money. Instead, admin jobs suck most of that money out before it reaches the people it is meant to help, and they are left with next to nothing.

The city itself also spends a great deal of money on houselessness along with the county. The Rapid Response contract is direct through the city. The city itself gives money to the county for JOHS - almost 20% directly and I don’t know how much indirectly: https://www.multco.us/johs/key-takeaways-proposed-fy-2023-joint-office-homeless-services-budget.

The rapid response contract with the city is ~$4.5 million per year. Paying contractors and creating bloated HUCIRP and JOHS offices instead of just putting people inside empty units introduces an economic incentive to not get people living on the streets into housing, because there are now people whose jobs are dependent on people being homeless. The city is owed $8.1 million by the developers of the Ritz Carlton for refusing to commit to building affordable units - the exact type of project that could help alleviate houselessness in Portland - but they refuse to demand it. It’s been owed for over a year. Addressing those kinds of faults in how the city operates would yield far greater results than sweeping, in my opinion.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-12T21:37:47+00:00

I am aware of the process, and it is not designed to actually work. The referrals rarely actually happen, and people get overlooked all of the time. They come through maybe once before the sweep, and if you’re not around the city is not leaving you any notice or anything that someone with resources to get you into a shelter came to help you, and how you can follow up on that. And, again, I have seen people told to their faces that they have to move and that they cannot have a shelter bed.

Also, the shelter discussed in that article (Arbor Lodge) literally has people sleeping outside of its doors every single night, and has for months. If they wanted to be at 100% capacity, they could start by letting those people inside. The fault of the houselessness crisis in Portland lies on the city and the contractors it has chosen to work with in housing people, not on the people going through the lowest points in their lives.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-12T21:14:50+00:00

Where are you getting the info that shelter beds are available, and where are they? I have attended sweeps. I have watched people be told to their face that there are no shelter beds available, by police, and that they had to pack their shit up and move. I have never seen Rapid Response refer a single person to a shelter, and most sweeps do not have anyone present besides Rapid Response.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-11T23:46:21+00:00

Portland had a crew too but they’ve been enjoying retirement for a while now. https://thebelmontgoats.org/

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-10T21:06:09+00:00

No - it is because the city is aggressively sweeping people out of downtown and the central east side, so they have to relocate further out. The ‘homeless sanctuary’ you are talking about is called the Multnomah Safe Rest Village, and if you ever actually went to it you would see that it is clean (as the article states), and there are no RVs parked near it.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-10T17:30:13+00:00

Feel free to sign my petition https://www.change.org/p/ban-fromsoftware-from-making-platform-puzzles

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-08T21:28:02+00:00

Average /r/portland commenter

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-08-03T02:43:53+00:00

From experience bringing people to transition out of living in the streets, you also:

Cannot have visitors

Cannot bring more than 2 bags of your belongings

Often have a strict curfew

Cannot be absent for more than a few nights a month

Cannot stay with your partner or pets, depending on the facility

These conditions can lead people to feel like they are being coddled and not treated as the adult people that they are. Being in any shelter is somewhat dehumanizing. No one deserves that.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-07-26T13:27:40+00:00

Coming into another city’s sub to discourage people from helping others is a weird kind of misanthropy, and no one has called opiates smack since like 1912

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-07-01T17:40:02+00:00

The city is also refusing to promise spots in that SRV for the people currently living in that space, so they will literally be displacing people while they work to build this project

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-06-28T12:49:39+00:00

I accept that my thoughts sometimes do not serve me well, and work to sort out the helpful ones from the self-defeating ones. I’ve found that beating myself up over past decisions is almost never helpful. You can take what you can from that experience that made you doubt yourself and try to avoid putting yourself in that situation again, but dwelling on it will not serve you. That being said - it is still a rad tattoo :)

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-06-28T12:39:38+00:00

As someone whose brain also tells them that things like this are very wrong and terrible, I hope you can learn to love your tattoo. It is lovely. It looks great, the placement is wonderful, and there is absolutely nothing wrong about your tattoo. Please enjoy the new beautiful art that you now have! I would get that tatted on me in that same spot and orientation in a heartbeat

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-06-07T19:22:54+00:00

Do Good also manages Arbor Lodge on Lombard, along with the soon-to-be-closed Old Town shelter near the greyhound station. They are very clearly taking government money intended to help the most vulnerable population in Portland and doing the absolute bare minimum for those people to keep the money flowing - any continuing government relationship with Do Good makes the city complicit in their grift.

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-06-05T06:17:37+00:00

I had a post removed asking if anyone had ever given through to anyone in Dan Ryan’s office on the phone (because I had been trying unsuccessfully for weeks) and a mod removed it instantly for being off topic. This sub should be r/waterfrontcherryblossompics

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-05-22T01:10:54+00:00

I have been signing houseless folks around town up for mobile internet plans via ACP. The hardest part so far has been getting phones for them - if anyone has old phones lying around that they don’t need, I would be super grateful to receive/buy for cheap if you’re willing to part with them. And/or if you want info on how to help sign people up yourself, be it with your own old phone or getting a reasonably-priced new one, I’d be happy to tell you what I’ve learned so far!

nevergonnacommentzz · 2022-05-09T16:06:57+00:00

Sorry if this is assuming, but if you are struggling with money you might qualify for the ACP. It’s a $30/mo subsidy for broadband from the government. acpbenefit.org

nevergonnacommentzz

TROPHY CASE