I picked up the Oregonian and read the front page February headline: “Wheeler Aide Proposes Mass Shelters Staffed by National Guard.”
Then I read the first paragraph: “A top member of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler's team has pitched creating as many as three massive, temporary homeless shelters staffed by Oregon National Guard members and others in an attempt to end unsanctioned camping citywide...”
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed from the couch. I had just returned from my morning walk that took me through the neighborhood encampment. Someone had towed one of the trailers away but left behind at least five or six dumpsters full of trash and a smashed pickup marooned on blocks with its engine missing.
I read the entire article and exclaimed“Holy shit”again.
The mayor wanted the Governor to call up the Guard and force homeless people into “giant group shelters, which would operate for three years...”
I called to my father and asked if he'd read the article. He had not. I summarized the Mayor's plan and he said, raising his voice, “It's about goddamn time! It should have been done year ago.”
I asked if really wanted to involve the military into rounding up citizen, loading them into trucks, and taking them what amounted to a refugee camp or the type officials erect after natural disasters, or in this case unnatural disasters.
“Yes,” my father said. “It's a state of emergence and no one is acting like it.”
“Ohhh the El Duce of Sellwood!” I roared and stood up and gave him the Mussolini salute.
“Well, I'm a liberal and I've had it with this shit.”
One suspects that is being said a lot in Portland.
I imagined troops trying to round up the homeless camped in the willows along the rivers and creeks and in the wetlands. Hello, Vietnam War! It would become a national media sensation. Fox News would trumpet its success. So would Trump!
The homeless advocates naturally went berserk after hearing the news. One of their leaders said, “Super-mass congregate shelters would fly in the face of trauma informed, client-centered practices which are necessary to assist people experiencing homelessness...introducing a militarized security force that has already proven to not be effective for many vulnerable populations would only compound the challenges faced by people with disabilities, people disproportionately targeted by law enforcement, and people escaping violence...”
Blah blah blah.
Can we as a compassionate society allow obviously distressed and destroyed people to live in dangerous squalor under bridges, on sidewalks, in culverts, or in the shoulders of Interstate Highway off ramps?
No.
Is bringing in the Oregon National Guard the answer?
No.
Would it actually work?
I don't know.
Would it make it worse?
No.
Would it make it better?
I don't know. It would be different.
May I offer another interpretation of this plan, which was quite obliviously leaked to the media, perhaps by the Mayor's office: a massive political power play to deflect responsibility, assign or reassign leadership, kick members of the homeless industrial complex in the ass to get off their ass. Same with Portland and county officials tasked with solving the crisis. It's a kind of a shot across the bow. But in this case, to get the ship moving in a different direction, not to stop.
As I write this piece, “All Along the Watchtower,” Dylan's original version, is playing. It's got that one line...the hour is getting late.
Your comments are well taken most notably Sam's memo was to "...kick members of the homeless industrial complex in the ass to get off their ass. Same with Portland and county officials tasked with solving the crisis. It's a kind of a shot across the bow. But in this case, to get the ship moving in a different direction, not to stop."
And I disagree to some extent about use of the National Guard. While it is a slippery slope, the NG has worked well to assist in medical settings and wildfire during the last few years. The intent is not to have these shelters involuntarily house the houseless, just provide an option where they would be off the street. Perhaps some version of this model will work if it's brainstormed.
With the amount of funds available to Portland the Tri-County area to work on providing solutions through the bond and the Metro measure, there is no excuse for inaction. And based on your experience and compassion, you should be part of that solution.