10 Things YOU Can Do After Joining People For Portland
10 Things YOU Can Do After Joining People For Portland
In just our first five days, we generated 55,000 emails to 36 elected officials! We need your help to keep up the momentum. We have the money to launch, but whether People for Portland continues depends on YOU – the people.
So, what else can you do? We have some suggestions:
- JOIN AND TAKE ACTION – Please don’t take action just once. Each time you click, you’ll generate messages to elected officials – and they DO notice. In addition to sending an email through our website, consider sending a personal hand-written note to members of the Portland City Council. Just five seconds of your time can ruin a scared politician’s day!
- FOLLOW AND SHARE – We need to show that we are the strong, vocal majority of Portland. Please, show your support by liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter and Instagram.
- DONATE – This is something everyone can do. Whether you have $10,000 or $10 with one zero behind it, your contribution allows us to spread the word and grow our advocacy base, make videos, buy Facebook ads, and make politicians listen. Your donation, no matter how big or small, helps make sure ALL our voices are heard.
- TELL YOUR STORY – You only need your cell phone and one minute of your time to upload a video to People for Portland. Tell leaders why Portland needs help!
- RECRUIT YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY – Facebook post about us, tweet about us,post on Reddit about us, e-mail your grandma about us; don’t let people do nothing. Get them to sign up on our website, peopleforportland.org, and follow us on our social media platforms.
- TELL US WHAT’S GOING ON IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD – The newspapers and television stations can’t cover everything, and we need to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Email us at [email protected] with anything you think we need to know – no matter how big or small.
- WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR – Tell them about your story and why they city needs the people of Portland to join People for Portland.
- CALL A LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIAL – Pick one at random, and then ask to speak to them personally. Tell them you’re a Person for Portland – and then tell them what you want to see happen.
- CALL YOUR MOM – She loves you and needs to hear from you and probably has no idea what’s going on on the internet ! Get her to join us!
- DON’T GIVE UP – Portland is worth the effort. It won’t happen on its own. If you’ve taken all nine steps above – start again at number one. And this time, bring a friend along.
Keep up the good work, Portland. Let’s hold our elected leaders accountable.
-People for Portland
All happening in Cleveland School and Sports Field Zones. Kids had to unsafely run in the street because sidewalk was full of garbage, human waste and what appeared to also include drug needles. The other sidewalk is blocked by a tent that has been there for months. This is not okay ANYWHERE, but especially not in A SCHOOL ZONE.
I called all info lines I knew of and since it was after 5pm there was nowhere to get help or immediate clean up. I also reported it online. Parents taped and blocked off the section of the sidewalk.
The humanitarian crisis and lack of leadership is making our city unliveable and unsafe.
Parent and resident in SE Portland.
We spent this winter in Palm Springs. There is a lovely park near us called Ruth Hardy Park. The park does not allow camping or loitering. The park is filled with families playing, dogs frolicking, couples walking hand in hand. The park is safe, clean and inviting for the community. This is how the parks in Portland used to be and should be…
Allowing camping everywhere & anywhere = garbage, trash & an inability to walk and bike safely in places. This needs to change. NE 33rd to Marine Drive would be a nice place to ride a bike and access the river except that it’s a scary garbage dump without a bike lane anymore
Allowing camping everywhere & anywhere = garbage, trash & an inability to walk and bike safely in places. This needs to change. NE 33rd to Marine Drive would be a nice place to ride a bike and access the river except that it’s a scary garbage dump without a bike lane anymore
I want to help!
I’ve worked and/or lived in Portland for over 30 years. A number of those years I worked downtown. It was safe, clean, vibrant and I was proud of our city. The past eight years or so, the city and surrounding area has taken a turn for the worst. The houseless, the trash, the vandalism and the crime is out of hand. Our elective officials are ineffective. I believe they are scared to do what is needed because of the backlash from a very vocal minority. The solutions may not be easy but they are straight forward: housing for the homeless (along with drug and mental health services), build/staff an accountable police force that protects our citizens and clean up the trash and graffiti.
This is so needed – as a mom with a little one, I want to see this city safe, and as a human who cares – there has to be a better way to care for our residents.
Let’s all work together to solve the challenges of PDX.
It’s about time somebody stood up and did something about the problems brewing in Portland. This city has been going downhill for a number of years and our elected officials don’t seem to be doing anything to fix it. I’m glad someone is and I will be happy to join the force to fix this city and put it back to it’s once beautiful state. One we can be proud to live in, because right now this city is an embarrassment.
Amazingly I feel a bit of hope for a better Portland.
I have lived in Portland since 1975, and until my recent retirement I practiced law downtown for over 42 years. In the last few years Portland has gone from being a gem of a city envied by most municipalities to become a depressing collection of boarded up businesses and homeless tents. It was once a city where businesses, from retail to offices to restaurants strove to locate downtown. Now, the question is not whether to locate there but whether to remain, and increasingly businesses of all sorts are choosing to either close or relocate. And, the problem is as bad in many parts of town. We all have compassion for the homeless and understand that the vast majority of them would rather not live such a lifestyle, but the fact remains that the few hundred camping downtown and nearby have virtually hijacked the city. A major reason for this is that we have an incredibly ineffectual city government. If this does not change, we might not see Portland recover for many years to come. If I knew what I could do to help in a meaningful way, I would do it, as would so many of my fellow Portlanders.
These issues aren’t rocket science. Case in point:
Once the City of Portland’s leaf and snow removal teams have completed their fall and winter duties and the fleet of shiny new taxpayer funded vehicles and equipment are returned to the north Portland yard, to once again sit idle, activate and assign these resources for targeted garbage, abandoned vehicle and RV removal sites.
What a great and free ad campaign for city leaders to prove to the City of Portland residents that in fact, this is:
Portland- The City That Works!
This wouldn’t even require rebranding the trucks and equipment, it’s already on each City owned vehicle.
Imagine 10 City Of Portland owned loaders and dump trucks pulling up en masse to a filthy neglected site to prove that we are in fact:
The City That Works.
Finally
Beautiful!
I have lived in Portland since 1955. I have always been proud to say I grew up in Portland and graduated from Grant High School and Portland State University. My kids and now my first grandchild have been born in Portland. I used to be proud to say I lived in Portland. Now whenever I have interaction with friends and relatives outside Portland, they always ask “what is going on with Portland anyway?”. I am completely embarrassed at this point.
I have been dealing with the impacts of homeless issues (read that drug and mental health issues) for the last 5 years as my daughter’s pre-school was housed in St. Mark’s Lutheran on SE 54th and Powell. We had everything from people camping on the property and leaving trash and drug paraphernalia surrounding the classroom, to break-ins after hours, to people refusing to move aside when my daughter went to open the school at 7:30 AM. I was continually called to the property for various security issues over the 5 years she housed the school there including a lockdown as a gunman was running loose in the neighborhood.
This summer we were finally able to move the pre-school outside the City and outside Multnomah County where these problems are not allowed to grow and take root in the community as community norms do not allow for it.
If you attend a neighborhood association meeting outside Portland and Multnomah County, with police advisers present, who are asked why is Portland and East County in this state, they answer simply that it is because it is accepted by the community. They indicate that they respond to their community concerns and thus these problems are not allowed to take root and fester in their community.
Therefore I wish to formally declare my support for People for Portland and suggest that all people of Portland and Multnomah County become involved as our City and County representatives appear to need this incentive to take action to do the right thing for these individuals impacted by drugs and mental illness and also for the normal everyday citizen in this City and County.
Thank you to People for Portland for initiating this venue to allow regular people to express their concerns as this situation has become the biggest threat to safety and security in Portland and Multnomah County and it needs to be effectively addressed!
Can P4P start a recall campaign against Mike Schmidt now? His term does not end until 1/2025. The city cannot tolerate his refusal to enforce law and order. The police won’t arrest people if they think the DA won’t bother to prosecute.
This crisis’s effects everyone in the Portland metro area but unfortunately the only people to get to vote on the city
commissioners are the people in Multnomah County.
We talk about getting people off the streets and into housing which is not addressing the problems in my opinion
this just moves the problem to a different area.
What I have seen is basically a cruel environment to humans we don’t even treat homeless animals this way.
I do not condone the people playing the system and I do not condone the enabling of people on the street this does
nothing to fix the problem.
These people all need to be vetted and separated you have people that are truly homeless from economic circumstances
That need to have a helping hand and some direction to get them back to being productive citizens again who will put the work
in to get there, for these people this is what the social services programs were meant for.
Then you have the people that have drug problems, alcohol problems, and mental problems or all three combined these
are the people that we are truly failing.
How scary would it be to be mentally impaired and be living on the street day after day night after night not knowing what
reality really was this to me is where the cruelty comes in.
These people need to be taken care of in a professional facility that we have abandoned throughout the years.
If this is your situation I believe that unfortunately you now cannot show the ability to take care of yourself
which makes you a ward of the court / state that is liable to take care of you for life or until you recover.
The people that are addicted is probably the biggest problem because each individual would have to want to help
themselves in order to overcome their problem.
This issue requires a completely different strategy with professional treatment from addiction specialists.
Some will make and some will not, and how you get them to go I don’t know but enabling them will never work.
In my opinion it is not just a homeless problem which I’m sure you all realize as well but until we begin to vet and separate
these people we will never know who we can help and who we cannot.
There is plenty of money in this state to take care of these issues it just needs to be directed and focused on the problem.
Thank you for your review and feedback
Todd
Portland just took to long to respond to all its people’s needs.
I hope we can began to respect the needs of all people and work toward making Portland beautiful for all Portlanders.
Police officers officers should live in our city. They are better at identifying with the people they engage with, when they have a stake in the overall well-being of their and our community. Thank you.
The homeless camps have become an embarassment to people who love Portland and Oregon. Garbage on the streets. Needles and feces in the gutters. Homeless people wandering the streets begging for money. Crime. Murder. Theft. Property damage. Need to reform the police to make them more effective not defund them and take them off the streets. Portlanders love their city, the one they had before antifa and others destroyed it. Mayor Wheeler, be a leader not a coward. Have courage and lead Portlanders out of this morass into a new brighter future.
First, we need more police in our city. Second, We need leadership change. They are not doing their job, all they do is talk and action. From the cleanness city to garbage/trash/drug/and gun violent.
Portland leaders do not have a clue as to fix the problems they created. Sanctuary, homelessness, riots, are at the top of the list.Let’s replace them with true leadership. It starts in Portland but the state is suffering. What happened to our clean and majestic Oregon.
Portlands problems stem from a lack of leadership and serious dysfunction within our institutions. We can absolutely clean up the city and still take care of our most vulnerable, these are not mutually exclusive. We can empower the police without turning a blind eye to abuse of that power. Trying to determine which side of the political spectrum you want to stand on is not any way to run this city.
Absolutely the truth, city of Portland should choose daily safety and security along its streets instead of supporting weak politically oriented leadership.
I live in Woodlawn on a mostly quiet street. The sounds of the screeching tires from street racing used to be a weekend thing. Now it’s a nightly occurrence. It’s dangerous! It’s annoying!
I guess it’s not as bad as a quiet evening being punctuated by gun shots which has been my fear for years.
We need real leaders to make our city safe for our families. We need stricter gun laws. We need actual solutions for the homeless.
#11 – Run for office
– Homelessness is a plague on the city. Round them up, put them in a single location, validate residency (care for ours and send others packing). Adopt a “get treatment or get OUT” philosophy on this.
– Prosecute violators of crimes
– If we cannot walk back the legalization of drugs and prostitution, then we need to make $ off of it. Build a red light district.
– move homeless camps to outside the homes of the city council members.
Portland must take action re: dual-diagnosed unhoused people who are so ubiquitous throughout our City. I would like my tax dollars to house unhoused people and supply wrap around services to address substance abuse along with trauma-informed mental health services.
I would too.