Overcoming Homelessness

When someone talks about homelessness, what do you imagine. Littered sidewalks, blue and brown tarps and tents, and all they own laying on the ground? Across the nation, half a million people were homeless on any given night (National Alliance to End Homelessness). While you may not have noticed, there has been an increase in homelessness across the city. Homelessness is all around the world, with a total of over 100 million globally, and has been recorded all the way back to the 1640’s. With the rise of homelessness, Portland is becoming a hub for homeless people. The mayor, Charlie Hales and local groups like Right 2 Dream Too, are hard at work to solve it.
To understand why our community is putting in so much energy to solve homelessness, one must
Many of the perspectives are shaping the homeless community. In the article “My View: Help homeless now,” Stuart Emmons a Portland architect and candidate for City Council Position 4 writes, “I do understand. I’ve done affordable housing. I’ve done housing projects with the City. I’ve done the math. I’ve seen the tarps. What I don’t understand is why our city took so long to finally call a housing emergency last September with 1,800 people sleeping on our streets”. He also says, “Our goal should be helping the people who need our help by getting them off the streets and into safe, warm, and dry housing with appropriate services. Our goal should be maximizing our impact. It is happening in other cities. Buffalo is making good headway. Salt Lake City is making good headway. Portland can do it too”. He’s saying that we need to stop spending all our time trying to fix the housing crisis, and to get the homeless families off the street and onto homes. Stuart Emmons states, “Portland, a city known for innovation and progressive ideas, needs to solve its homeless crisis now”. Perspectives like this will be the change for