Multnomah County is experiencing a spike in chronic homelessness, according to figures presented to local elected officials Tuesday. As part of his annual presentation to commissioners from Portland and Multnomah County, Marc Jolin, the director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, warned that the number of people who report being homeless for more than a year has grown — even as the county’s overall homeless population continues to hover around 4,000. The most recent point in time count showed 1,770 people were chronically homeless, a 37% increase from two years ago. Half reported having a mental illness. Half reported a substance abuse disorder. A little less than one-third reported both. Jolin said the office already knows what the solution is. “The fact that we don’t have supporting housing is why we’re seeing a persistent increase in the chronically homeless over time,” he said.

In 1993, Portland was the first city in the US to create a climate action plan, yet we still don’t consistently report our results. This lack of basic accounting allows government agencies to control the progress narrative and doesn’t allow for the honest reckoning this issue demands. This lapse in basic accountability begs us to ask whether the city’s Bureau of Planning & Sustainability (BPS, who compiles the report) or the Mayor who oversees them, is either not competent enough to monitor the biggest crisis of our generation, is trying to spin the truth, or simply doesn’t care enough to prioritize it.

Legalizing apartments is not a panacea. But it is a precursor to other solutions. If there are no apartments, there are no homeless shelters, no student housing, no senior housing, and no Section 8. That’s why California’s zoning override bill, the More HOMES Act, was endorsed by Habitat for Humanity and the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, a coalition of 750 affordable-housing groups. More apartments would allow people to live closer to jobs, schools, and amenities, making transit more viable and reducing commute distances, which is good for the environment. Shorter, more-reliable commutes are also associated with greater economic mobility. Most importantly, by upzoning entire cities and states at a time, these efforts could help make sure that it isn’t only low-income neighborhoods of color—the places vulnerable to gentrification and displacement—that become hot spots for development in cities that need more housing. Whiter, richer neighborhoods that have aggressively opposed any attempts to build more housing will finally have to bear their share of the supply. […] In other words, that the burden of development is often borne by centrally located, formerly redlined communities of color is a product of the current system, in which social capital and political connections determine who gets to keep their neighborhood the same. Black, brown, and poor neighborhoods have emerged as the weakest links against enormous pent-up demand for housing, and planners (“a caretaker profession—reactive rather than proactive,” as the planner Thomas Campanella caustically put it) go with the flow. “It’s almost certainly true that more development happens in lower-income or minority communities because you can’t build any new housing—and certainly not apartments—in wealthy, white communities,” says Jenny Schuetz, a housing expert at the Brookings Institute. “Whether the rezoning changes that depends on how much opposition is straightforward zoning, and how much is the process of development.” In other words, city- and statewide rezoning might reverse the status quo, if governments succeed in stripping wealthy white neighborhoods of their powerful place in the local control system. But governments need to make sure the new rules don’t replicate the power imbalance that permeates development permitting now.

The city flag of Portland, Oregon, consists of a green field on which is placed a white four-pointed star (a truncated hypocycloid) from which radiate blue stripes, each bordered by L-shaped yellow elements. Narrow white fimbriations separate the blue and yellow elements from each other and from the green background. The official ordinance specifies a height of 3 feet and a length of 5 feet. City ordinance 176874, adopted September 4, 2002, designates the design and its symbolism. Green stands for "the forests and our green City"; yellow for "agriculture and commerce"; blue for "our rivers".

Portland spends millions to stop cars from killing people. It’s not working.

A new survey of nearly 5,300 tech workers by Portland Women in Technology points to one possible explanation for the enduring disparities: Most white people in the industry said their companies take diversity seriously and would recommend someone from an underrepresented group work at their company. But among people from other racial and ethnic groups, and transgender people, fewer than a third agree. [...] “I feel like people like to hire people they know and they get along with,” said Dawn Mott, 37, an African-American software developer in Portland. At a developer conference earlier this year, a panel discussion Mott attended had no women panelists. Afterwards, Mott said she asked two of the panelists why. She said they asserted here were no women leaders in development and doubted she was a developer.

People of color disproportionately experience homelessness on each Point in Time survey. That remains true this year -- and gets slightly worse. While people of color make up less than 30% of the county’s total population, nearly 40% of homeless people in 2019 are not white. Native American people remain the most disproportionately homeless group in Multnomah County. They also are the most likely to be chronically homeless, which is defined as experiencing homelessness for more than a year and having an addiction, mental health condition or physical disability that makes getting and staying in housing difficult. The entire chronically homeless population grew in 2019, though. The county found 1,769 who fit the definition -- 37% higher than in 2017.

Switchboard is the place where members of the Portland Startups community gather to share resources, advice, and help of all kinds. Join and post your own ASK or OFFER.

A 1948 flood washed away the WWII housing project Vanport—but its history still informs Portland's diversity.

Two changes could reduce the interactions police have with homeless people. The first is simple: Portlanders could call someone other than the cops. [...] Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who took office in January, is looking at a second fix. She wants to change who the city sends to talk with people living on Portland's streets.

Widening highways is bad for property values in the short term—indeed, the construction of I-5 through Portland in the 1960s kicked out homeowners, depressed home values, and helped set the neighborhood up for decades of disinvestment. Over the longer term, however, there’s evidence that highway caps, just like any other “adaptive reuse” project (think: High Line), can and do help property values rise. In the absence of intentional policies to preserve affordable housing and opportunity—something that Portland has long failed to offer, though that may be slowly changing—there’s really nothing to guarantee that the “restoration” of Albina’s grid will serve the people who have lived there, and suffered the disconnecting presence of I-5, the longest. And that’s on top of the environmental harm that more lanes and more cars are likely to bring. If Portland wants to reconnect neighborhood grids and provide transit and biking infrastructure, why not just do that? Rather than pour half a billion dollars (a cost that is all but sure to rise) into what is, at the end of the day, a wider freeway, the city and state might first try taming traffic with tolls or congestion fees, as New York City is again contemplating. That’s a solution that might help Portland live up to its ultra-progressive reputation. Finally.

When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west.

Since I’ve been doing the majority of my regular commuting by bike for over 20 years, I thought I’d put up a quick list of my tools for staying warm and dry.

As the city became more progressive and “weird,” full of artists and techies and bikers, it did not have a conversation about its racist past. It still tends not to, even as gentrification and displacement continue in Albina and other neighborhoods.

But the disparities are disconcerting. According to 2010 data, income for white Portlanders was about $62,000 per year. For Black Portlanders, it was $35,000—lower than the national average for Black Americans, which was $43,300. These statistics, sadly, are the story of America. It always has been and Oregon is no exception. But residents of color told me that a bigger problem is that far too many white Portlanders are knowledgeable about these discrepancies, but remain complacent, even dismissive.

How can you “engage” in transportation advocacy? You’re in the right place, since one of our missions here at BikePortland is to get you inspired and informed enough to have a valuable role in local policy and project decisions. But you need tools. Our activism editors Catie Gould and Emily Guise of BikeLoudPDX have put together a list tools they use to sharpen their activism skills. For every person who considers themselves a transportation advocate, there are ten more who are interested in learning more but don’t know where to start. Below you’ll find some of the best tips and resources we’ve come across or learned in our advocacy work.

To “advocate” is a verb. It requires you to occasionally stand up in front of other smart people and give voice to the politically unpopular topic that no one else wants to bring up. When you do that, people often try to talk you out of it. Here are some of the responses I’ve heard. After reading through them, I hereby grant you permission to let them roll right off you so you can get back to work.

It seems as though every year, the congregating crows catch people off guard.

A map and list of the Portland electronic music scene. Venues, labels, collectives, recurring performances, Facebook Groups, and live music listings.

A Google spreadsheet listing musicians.

Supporting urban and sub-urban gardeners in Portland, Gresham, Fairview & Lake Oswego as they enhance wildlife habitat in their own backyards. Plant roots, create a habitat, transform the world, one yard at a time.

Thousands of crows flock to Portland's park blocks each winter, darkening the sky at dusk and roosting overnight in the city's trees. Much about the crows' habits is unknown.

From Granger and Provorse’s perspective, the hazing is unwarranted: The crows’ droppings, they say, are barely noticeable, usually gone within a few days due to rain, and that hazing only shifts the location of the droppings to another part of the city. They also feel that the crows deserve to use the city to their advantage and that preventing them from roosting at their chosen sites may be detrimental to the health and survival of the crow population at large. But overall, they object to the hazing not “because we claim to have solid evidence that hazing the crows harms them,” Granger says, but “rather because there is no evidence at all in either direction.”

For almost a year, the sudden and unexplained closure of one of Portland's favorite burger joints has baffled the city's food scene. Last week, a freelance food writer claimed responsibility—saying he had "killed" Stanich's on Northeast Fremont Street by naming its cheeseburger the best in America on the website Thrillist. The confession went viral. But it wasn't the full story. In fact, court records show that owner Steve Stanich's personal life had been spiraling into chaos long before his restaurant landed on the national radar.

Central City in Motion is PBOT's effort to plan, prioritize, and implement transportation improvements in the city’s core. Eighteen projects are under consideration. They include new pedestrian crossings, bus lanes, and bikeways.

This story was written by Portland bike fun enthusiast and Shift volunteer, One Hwang. […] Members of the public could more easily organize their own Pedalpalooza ride if they had access to a bike ride equipment library, where they could borrow for free a flat bed trailer, sound system, disco ball, batteries, and radio transmitter. Furthermore, if they receive training on how to welcome women and other underrepresented groups, they could help create a more inclusive bike community and address factors that discourage these groups from participation.

The secret Nu Shooz cool test is, if they come up and sing the bassline, they're cool. If they sing the barking seal, they're less cool.

Our neighbor at San Da Roda.

Where we live in Portland.