Like so many cities run by woke, faux-compassionate mayors, Portland, Ore., has routinely put its citizens in danger by allowing desperate addicts to pitch tents just about anywhere — roads, sidewalks, yards, and public parks.
Multnomah County has provided more than 33,500 tents and tarps with the flowing river of COVID relief money to give to people who would rather smoke their rent and live in a tent.
Cities that replace good governance with 'good intentions' achieve neither and subject good people to the addicted slaves willing to do anything to get their next fix – including hurting you. pic.twitter.com/TIUoW5DPrc
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room (@VictoriaTaft) October 22, 2022
“I strongly suspect that the County has been passing out new tents only to have the City sweep them,” lead attorney John DiLorenzo told The Portland Tribune. “This totally incoherent and uncoordinated response is akin to trying to walk up a down escalator. You get nowhere and are left exhausted.”
But it’s worse than that. Those tents have been used to interfere with the rights of law-abiding disabled citizens.
DiLorenzo has brought a federal lawsuit that has forced a collision at the intersectionality of “well-intentioned” woke leaders and the citizens who rely on a well-functioning government to get around.
The federal class action lawsuit claims that Portland prioritized and enabled drugged-out “campers” to pitch tents with impunity over the needs of the disabled who need clear sidewalks and are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The lawsuit was brought by ten people, most of whom are disabled. One caretaker has signed on as a plaintiff as well.
The legal action highlights what should be glaring by now: “equity” is not the same as equal, as in the case of equal access to the streets and sidewalks of Portland. More importantly, however, the lawsuit provides a roadmap for people to fight back against municipalities whose leaders prefer to act as life coaches instead of people whose job is to enforce the law equally and secure public safety. Cities have given carte blanche to people who want to camp out after the insane 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Martin v. City of Boise that codifies camping unless governments have offered shelter.
The lawsuit alleges the city failed “to provide full and equal access to its sidewalks to Plaintiffs and similarly situated persons with mobility disabilities.” They allege that Portland has utterly failed to “maintain its sidewalks clear of debris and tent encampments, which is necessary to make its sidewalks readily accessible to people with mobility disabilities. Indeed, a substantial number of the City’s sidewalks—particularly those in the City’s busiest business corridors—do not comply with applicable federal statutes and regulations because they are blocked by tent encampments and attendant debris, rendering the sidewalks inaccessible, dangerous, and unsanitary for people with mobility disabilities.”
The lawsuit comes with pictures.
Those are tents literally blocking a handicapped parking spot.
The City cleaned that one up fast, but only after its attention was drawn to it.
The tents proliferate.
And proliferate.
Isn’t it weird how those tents and tarps bear a near-uniform appearance?
The lawsuit states what most people feel when navigating the cities on what we call the West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Seattle, L.A., San Francisco, San Diego, and plenty of others.
“[Plaintiff] Mr. Martin no longer feels safe in the Cultural District. Mr. Martin has been yelled at and harassed by residents of tent encampments for doing nothing more than operating his scooter in proximity to the tent encampments,” reads the suit. Keith Martin had a stroke which left him wheelchair-bound. Now he wonders if the scores of tents filled with addicts with bad attitudes will be the end of him. The tent-living folks scare him to the extent that Martin won’t ride the streetcar anymore because “he feels vulnerable while waiting on the platform with no means of escape. Mr. Martin has even taken to carrying mace for self-defense.”
Related: Portland’s Walk of Shame
Martin’s plight isn’t only a problem for the disabled; it’s a problem for everyone.
I used to be able to walk to a schoolyard that is now riddled with drug-addicted campers, through a park that is also filled with drug-addicted campers. Now, I not only wouldn’t be able to enjoy that stroll, I probably wouldn’t be safe, either.
And neither are the many children who want to run down the hills and train for high school cross country in the park designed after New York’s Central Park, where hippies used to toke up in the 1960s and 1970s and listen to some guy with a guitar and a bad amp.
Another homeless camp fire in Portland, this time at NE Halsey and Sandy. pic.twitter.com/uwF8elgaJT
— Wesleigh Ogle KATU (@WesleighOgle) October 19, 2022
Now, Portlanders take their lives in their hands when they go there. They may want to strap up just in case, even as Oregon Democrats move to strangle gun rights even further this election year.
“Baseball bat v steak knife fight at a homeless camp by Hollywood Trader Joe’s ends w/ man dead. Witness shoots up meth before giving interview to a reporter at the scene. At least 12 of PDX’s 82 homicides this year—15% — have been ppl living on streets,” writes a local reporter on Twitter.
Baseball bat v steak knife fight at a homeless camp by Hollywood Trader Joe's ends w/ man dead.
Witness shoots up meth before giving interview to a reporter at the scene.
At least 12 of PDX's 82 homicides this year—15% — have been ppl living on streets.https://t.co/4Vy8kYL0JY
— Shane D. Kavanaugh (@shanedkavanaugh) October 18, 2022
The lawsuit has awakened the mayor’s office, to the extent that Ted Wheeler can wake up. He’s announced the placement of tent cities and a vow not to allow campers on the sidewalks and streets anymore, a move suggested by DiLorenzo and the plaintiffs.
Related: Joe Biden’s West Coast, Messed Coast™ Magical Perplexity Tour Filled With Bad Moms and Cop Haters
DiLorenzo and the ten plaintiffs have also sent a subpoena to Multnomah County to find out how many tents they’ve given away. They’ve demanded to see all communications with the local government and the non-government organizations (NGOs) they use to carry out the governmental decisions. Now that should be interesting reading.
Some non-addicts populate the tents on Portland byways, but they’re the exception, not the rule. Settlements made of government tents mock government’s efforts to contain the problem. The problem is not “houselessness” — this week’s new word for hobos — it’s drug addiction. But all of these cities, like Portland, are sanctuaries for illegal aliens and “personal use” drug dens, and their leaders expect everyone else to salute their insanity.
If these were real leaders, they would be howling to the Biden Administration to close the borders to keep out the fentanyl and meth destroying these people. They’d be contriving a way to get people help with drug addiction, and they’d require people living in these soon-to-come tent cities to accept that help or be denied access. Drug addiction treatment has got to be cheaper than building houses for drug addicts, which is the next step. Real leaders would also be considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of the Boise decision on behalf of all citizens who want free access and security in public spaces.
Leaders who replace good governance with good intentions achieve neither and subject their citizens to the violent whims of people who are slaves to addiction and who will do anything to get their next fix, including hurting you.
The least they could do is protect all of their citizens.
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