Lars Larson: Homeless helpers just as problematic as homeless

By Lars Larson,
NW and national radio host

Homeless Helpers Cause Nearly As Many Problems As Homeless

Thousands of homeless drug addicts call the streets of Portland home.

So taxpayers fund tens of millions for The Multnomah County Behavioral Health Resource center.

Sounds pretty fancy, doesn’t it?

Not quite what it actually does: a place to shower up, use the toilet, get some “peer counseling” and, as it turns out…overdose.

Last month alone, the center had to call police two dozen times…about equally split between drug overdoses and what they charitably call “suffering an acute mental health crisis”.

A few weeks ago, this 26 million dollar center, that only serves 25 people at a time, shut down for what the county called “building improvements and staff training”.

Only, that was a lie.

Turns out some of the contract staff of this center for addicts were using cocaine and pot themselves.

Oh, and having what the county called “inappropriate relations”…and because the county says it was all “consensual”, I’m guessing it wasn’t just misgendering.

With that in mind, consider the news that the city of Portland just handed a five year, fifty million dollar contract for tent cities to an outfit called “Urban Alchemy”.

5 million a year of that to run a 150 person tent city.

The company arrives with a sketchy reputation for its work in San Francisco and Los Angeles…oh, and the company brags that it focuses on hiring convicted criminals to do much of the work.

What could possibly go wrong?