Simple daytime camp ban met with liberal fury

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Even uber-progressive Portland City Hall had the wisdom to pass a very simple ban on daytime camping in the City.   A very basic law that we imagine every other major city in America has in order to prevent a camping explosion.

For starters, some liberal activists began vandalizing the City with “Stop sweeps” messages in response (photo above).

Then The Oregonian Editorial Board harshly criticized this law.

OREGONIAN: “A camping ban that simply rousts thousands of people from tent sites each morning with insufficient support for where they will go will only add to the chaos…”

OUR RESPONSE: The fact that daytime camping has been tolerated is one reason, among many, why Portland attracts homeless.  Nationally, homeless increased only 0.3% in 2022 while Oregon saw a massive 23% increase.   You simply cannot build enough shelter beds to accommodate the thousands of homeless that keep coming from across the nation.  You first must turn off the spigot and remove the top causes.

OREGONIAN: “Appropriate police training should be non-negotiable.”

OUR RESPONSE: There is no end to the police training people want to load upon our officers.  Do 100 other cities without a homeless crisis have the same undefined homeless police training?  For liberals, there is always a reason to NOT do the right thing — just yet.

OREGONIAN:  “…it doesn’t specifically contemplate the financial impact to nonprofits offering services during the day where homeless campers will likely go.”

OUR RESPONSE:  Once again, if you don’t strike the problem at the cause, there will never be enough money for non-profits to fix them.    Portland had a $62 million budget surplus in 2021 and a $35 million surplus in 2022, where did that money go?   Portland saved some $30 million from defunding police over two years, where did that money go?  In 2020, METRO passed a 1% income tax on higher income people to pay for homeless programs.  Where did that money go?  In 2018, METRO passed a $600 million property tax that funds affordable housing.  Where is that money?

The other media, Portland Mercury weighed in as well.

PORTLAND MERCURY: “Others say the money spent on enforcement would be better spent on housing solutions.”

OUR RESPONSE: Nearly billions have been spent or allocated to housing solutions both by the City, State and Metro over the years. It is just another reason for liberals to delay doing what is reasonable and right.

Needless to say, the goal of the daytime camping ban is to give the City the power to remove encampments where they are the worst.   Let’s say one neighborhood has a high-drug incident encampment with just a few campers.  This is where the City needs the law on their side to go after it and clean it up and protect the neighborhood.  Other encampments maybe slowly escalating in size and soon to become a larger encampment.  Once again, the City needs the law on its side to intervene.   By giving the City the tools it needs, it can begin to focus on where the problems are the worst.

I swear, Portland keeps trying to reinvent reality and keeps trying every other solution but the very solution needed to fix the problem.   This was said best by Commissioner Rubio who said “I need to make sure this ordinance does not cause harm.”   There is no harm-free solution to a crisis where thousands of people are openly breaking the law.  Speaking of “harm” what about the “harm” caused by the lawbreakers who break the law in a dozen different ways  (trespassing, open air drug-use, noise ordinances, garbage dumping, impeding road traffic, impeding sidewalk traffic, open-air alcohol use, littering, assaulting pedestrians, theft, vandalism, etc.).

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