Homeless and Misunderstood:

 Come dive into a world that deals with the mental health issues of the homeless population.

By: Judi Damiani

Sunday, May 4th, 2025

• The homeless population has gotten a bad rap over the years, where people think they are lazy, uneducated, unwilling to work. Yet often, I have seen walking the streets of Portland and Gresham Oregon, the pain they have endured to fight the harsh conditions of living outside. There is fear in their eyes of finding enough to eat or not understanding what is happening to them. Thousands of people are homeless with mental health problems becoming one of the leading problems to them getting into this situation. Not only in Oregon or nationally, but as the statistic below demonstrates, Los Angeles, California is having a crisis in the homeless population regarding mental health as well. 

(Los Angeles, 2019 data)

• Both of these data sets are more than five years old, but they do represent an ongoing issue that has not been resolved even now in 2025. According to Mayor Wilson reported from Portland.gov, there are 5,398 homeless people unsheltered as of Jan. 27th, 2025 that are residing in Portland Oregon. Services are being offered to combat the factors that contribute to homelessness, but unless the structures of economic, mental health, and housing issues that continue to persist change, then people who are homeless specifically with mental health disorders in high numbers will always exist. 

• What can be done on our readers’ end about these growing issues? Please find out more about these factors and what being homeless is in reality because it can happen to anyone especially in 2025. These are institutional problems that will reoccur unless wonderful people step up and raise awareness through their own research and volunteer efforts/donations to stop homelessness and the untreated nature of mental health problems including the lack of access to medications, therapy and healthcare. What if it was your family member living on the streets?

Further Resources:

Portland Street Medicine- Looking into the issues surrounding homelessness "The Problem"

OPB- Oregon+California on the issues of Homelessness and Mental Health among other factors

Prise raising or drug abuse-------------What kind of liberty they need?

 author: Leandro Li

As the weather gets warmer, we can see a significant increase in the number of homeless people on the streets of Portland. The issue of homeless people has always been a concern for both the government and the public. Since I came to Portland from an area with very few homeless people, I have been paying attention to the issue of homeless people. homeless people have caused many problems in public security management. From my perspective, I think the problem of homeless people is, to some extent, the cause of rising prices, insufficient shelters and inadequate supervision of drugs.

According to Numbeo's Cost of living index data in Portland over the past five years, the cost of living index has risen by 43.3%[1], and the cost of living has significantly increased. Regarding the issue of egg prices that has recently been discussed on various social media platforms, at the safeway grocery next to Portland State University, the cheapest white eggs, The price of 12 eggs is $5.49, while in 2020, the price of 12 eggs was around $2.5, increasing by 120% year-on-year. Although individual cases cannot represent the whole, they can still reflect the increase in prices. Meanwhile, Housing costs are also constantly rising. According to payscale, the housing cost in Portland is 49% higher than the national average. From the data of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, we know that The housing price index rose from 326.53 in the first quarter of 2020 to 444.63 in the fourth quarter of 2024, representing a year-on-year growth of 36.17%.[3]

According to the data from BEA, during the same period, the cumulative growth rate of per capita income was 28%, increasing from $58,550 per year to $74,992 per year [4], which was far lower than the rate of price increase. In addition, with the economic downturn in recent years, the tense global situation and the impact of the epidemic, many enterprises have started to lay off workers, resulting in changes in job positions. The originally on-the-job employees were replaced by those with more experience but similar salaries, resulting in the unemployment of these employees who originally had little savings. The decline in income caused by unemployment significantly reduced their living standards to the extent that they ended up on the streets. It can be seen from this that although the government has provided a certain degree of living assistance to the poor, the increase in living costs has still made the lives of the poor increasingly difficult. Many poor people have no choice but to end up on the streets. However, such people only account for a small portion of the homeless people. More people become homeless due to diseases, drug abuse and mental problems. Although there is no data on the reasons why homeless people lost their homes, it was seen in the apnews news that 40% of homeless people died due to drug problems. This is sufficient to show that the majority of homeless people have lost their residences due to the drug problem. [6]

 

Then I begin to study on the drug withdrawal service, the most effective way to withdraw the drugs is to send these drug addicts to the detoxification center, however, the detoxification center is full of patients all year long. There are approximately 105 drug rehabilitation beds in the Portland area, which is far more lower than the actual number we need. This is an obvious data shows what we can do to help those people. But we don’t have a force way to let them in the detoxification center, we can only help those who wants to be helped. Honestly, as an international student, sometimes the policies to the drug can be hard for me to understand, in my country, if people can’t get rid of the drugs on their own or with the help of family, the police have the authority to send them to a drug rehabilitation center for compulsory detoxification as using drug illegally is kind of crime. Although we need to take the liberty into consideration, I don’t think we should accept the abusion of the drugs. I can’t tell which policy is better, but I believe there must be something we can do.

The problem of the homeless people has become a thorn in people's hearts but we still have lots of methods to try and deal with this problem. To the shulters, we could build more shelters parks for them to have a place to live. To the drug abuse, we could write letter to the government and appeal them to strengthen the monitor on the drug to reduce the possibility of exposure to drugs abuse. 

However, the core issue is whether these drug addicts really want to quit their drug addiction and get rid of their current way of life. What exactly do they need - the freedom to take drugs or the freedom to live normally?

 

 

 

Reference:

[1] :https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city-history/in/Portland

[2] :https://www.payscale.com/cost-of-living-calculator/Oregon-Portland

[3] :https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ATNHPIUS38900Q

[4] :https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PORT941PCPI

[5]:https://www.portland.gov/auditor/audit-services/news/2024/4/17/audit-report-joint-office-homeless-services-sustained-focus

[6]:https://apnews.com/article/homeless-deaths-portland-oregon-f68a73ce13718ffdca4b130dcdb7a0c8

Giving Back: Veteran Homelessness

 

    Veterans represent approximately 6% of our countries population and make up about 7% of all homeless adults in the country. While these numbers appear to be very close, it also shows that veterans are overrepresented in homelessness, meaning that veterans are more likely to be displaced from their homes. As of 2023, an average of around 20,000 veterans nationwide were living in shelters, and over 15,000 were living without any shelter at all. And the problem is even more drastic in the Pacific Northwest, with Oregon, California and Washington having some of the highest veteran homeless rates in the nation.

    The problem of veteran homelessness is a complex issue. Due to disabilities and trauma related to their service, veterans are more likely to become reliant on medication, both prescribed and otherwise, and any resulting drug use disorder ends up making them twice as likely to become homeless. Additionally, transitioning from active duty to civilian life is often difficult, with more than two-thirds of veterans considering finding a job to be the most significant challenge when transitioning to civilian life.

    Thankfully, until relatively recently, veteran homelessness was consistently falling. Due to rising awareness and the combined effort of many programs seeking to help homeless veterans, the amount of homeless veterans in the country was consistently dropping. From 2010 to 2022, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness decreased over 50 percent, an incredibly significant change.

    However, just because major changes have been made, doesn’t mean that the problem is over. In fact, it would seem that the issue has made a significant resurgence from our complacency. From 2022 to 2023, the number of homeless veterans rose over 7 percent, and the number of unsheltered homeless veterans rose 14 percent in the same time frame.

    These men and women fought for our nation and on our behalf, they’ve sacrificed much for our benefit and are integral to our freedom. Individually and as a country, we owe it to veterans provide the help they need to transition to a civilian life and job, without the risk of becoming homeless. They’ve worked long hours and lost sleep to provide us safety. It is only right we do the same.

To learn more:

https://missionrollcall.org/veteran-voices/articles/the-state-of-veteran-homelessness-2024/

https://www.casebook.net/blog/data-driven-insights-into-veteran-homelessness-statistics-and-facts/

To help provide support:

https://nchv.org/ways-to-give/

https://mylegion.org/PersonifyEbusiness/Donate

https://missionrollcall.org/get-involved/