I am ashamed to live in a city whose mayor and elected officials would recommend that the governor waste $18 million on a mass camp for unhoused people like the one proposed in the inner southeast, (Gov. Tina Kotek approves funding for mass shelter site in Portland,” April 17). The message could not be clearer. Our mayor and city officials consider people living on the street to be worthless.
It’s bad enough that the city has committed to mass camps when Portlanders without housing reject mass camps as unsafe, that the city is performing frequent sweeps without having any decent alternative for people, and that warming shelters often have not opened until temperatures fall well below freezing.
Worse, our city government is creating a mass camp in a horrible location, at 1490 SE Gideon Street. It’s squeezed between the railroad, Powell Blvd and a MAX station. The air quality and noise are dreadful, with traffic and trains running throughout the night and ear-splitting alarms the entire time a train is near the crossing.
What we really need is a much larger program of public investment in affordable housing and supportive services. Let’s start with the city-owned golf course properties, motels with kitchenettes and that $18 million.
Mary King, Portland
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