OPINION: The truth about Portland’s housing crisis
By Guest Writer Alana Hill ‘27
Tents like the one above are commonly found throughout Downtown Portland and many surrounding suburbs.
Photo by Alana Hill
Portland, ‘the place where young people came to retire’, or so the joke went. This city was once eccentric, charming, and full of life; even attracting the slogan ‘Keep Portland Weird’. However, in recent years, many problems have come to the forefront, the largest of those being homelessness.
This issue has flooded Portland and the West Coast, but there remains hope for the once-sought-after city.
Dave (last name excluded for anonymity), a new resident of Portland, was impressed by the city over 20 years ago, where he traveled for work.“It was a city ahead of its time. It was the place I had always wanted to retire,” he claimed.
Upon returning here in early August, Dave found the city to be unrecognizable. “Downtown seems deserted. There is litter scattered throughout, and there are many who seem to call those streets home,” he said.
Dave’s observations are accurate. Portland is struggling with a housing crisis, one which dates back half a century. Over these years, the problem has grown and now, the city lies in a 140,000 piece housing deficit.
What's worse? With a growing population and the highest rate of youth homelessness in the country, by 2040, this shortage will have quadrupled.
Many have blamed city officials who allowed tents, Oregonians who voted to decriminalize hard drugs, the Occupy movement of 2011, or the city’s self-acquired status as a home for transplants from across the country. The fact of the matter is that a severe underproduction of housing in conjunction with sky-high rents is at the heart of the issue.
“Portland is a really expensive city to live in, compared to others across the U.S.” claimed Franklin Spurbeck from Portland State University’s (PSU) Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative. According to Spurbeck, the greatest factor contributing to the problem is an underproduction of housing, coupled with an extremely high rent.
Beyond Portland, homelessness is an issue throughout the U.S. As Spurbeck said, “For cities across the U.S., it’s not drug usage that makes a city have more homelessness, because that is pretty much the same across the country. It’s not mental illness, again that is pretty similar across the country… The only thing that can predict the rate of homelessness in a city is median rent and vacancy rates.”
Portland happens to have just the right ingredients for a homeless epidemic: a combination of severe underproduction, high rents, low housing vacancies, and a limiting geography.
Needless to say, the spiraling problem has affected the lives of many Portlanders, but the issue has gotten so out of hand that it is even challenging what many call ‘the heart and soul’ of the city: its progressive identity. Portland has long welcomed transplants from across the country with open arms and is renowned as a liberal paradise.
Despite the urgency that this problem brings, the city's approach to tackling homelessness has had little impact. According to Jacen Greene, also from PSU’s team, “Portland is taking a regressive approach that rejects evidence-based best practices and research in favor of criminalizing homelessness... This approach will undoubtedly lead to worse outcomes for people experiencing homelessness and probably an increase in homelessness overall if we refuse to address underlying causes.”
And by underlying causes, Greene is talking about the factors that cause homelessness, namely housing, rather than those that increase the risk, such as substance abuse and personal circumstances.
On this topic, Greene and Spurbeck both agree that: homelessness stems from societal issues, but personal factors increase the individual risk.
A very telling example that Greene used was the disproportionate rates of homelessness for members of the BIPOC and LGBTQ community. This is rooted in the discrimination they often face in education, healthcare, employment, criminal justice, housing, and other sectors that ultimately affect their ability to afford and access housing.
Yet, our society is dominated by stereotypes, namely that the reason homeless people are in such situations is of personal fault, and that the reason they stay there is a personal choice.
Homelessness, in every form, is brutal and can have long-term psychological and physical effects. It evokes tremendous stress, and constantly being in such a highly reactive state causes the amygdala to become overactive and the prefrontal cortex to dull. This slows critical thinking and emotion, which essentially shuts off the cognitive part of the brain and this, coupled with low access to healthcare and support, cause daily tasks to become almost impossible.
While there may be a small population of people who are indifferent to being homeless, most “just want things to go back to normal”, but don’t know how to get there.
As a society, this housing shortage is recognized, but few regard it as the preeminent cause of homelessness. Spurbeck mentioned that cities with high poverty rates have some of the lowest homelessness rates in the country, while wealthier cities have some of the highest. At the same time, many states with very high drug usages also have some of the smallest homeless populations in the country.
Given this, and the lack of housing that Portland faces, the root of homelessness in this city is indisputable; homelessness is a housing problem.
Fixing this issue is complicated. In our current society, there are not enough resources to support the homeless population, and for most Portlanders, supplying such resources, like houses and apartments, simply isn’t within their capabilities. Given this, the focus must shift to improving the current situation, with the resources that we do have.
Bettering the lives of homeless people in Portland, and across the country, starts with the way that people in the situation are regarded. Being acknowledged, not abhorred, can go a long way. This comes through education and creating an understanding of the current situation and what actions may mitigate it. Education around homelessness and its causes refutes the unjust stereotypes that society continues to cast.
While changing the narrative through research, education, and kindness is very important, it ultimately will not fund shelters or build housing. On this front, voting, protesting, and writing in support of evidence-based responses to homelessness is most effective.
But these still aren’t a guarantee of more housing. To give shelter to those who need it, the citizens of Portland will have to act. So, while a spare bedroom freed for a house share, or an opening of affordable housing is ideal, a donation of a tent, an umbrella, or even just a blanket is a small step in the right direction.
At the end of the day, homelessness is a housing problem and while the clearest path to Portland with housing for everyone has yet to be uncovered, there are positive steps to take, whatever that means for you.