Low-income housing is an issue in the city of Portland due to a lack of availability, but there is another contributing factor and that is criminal records. It has become widely known that minorities are disproportionally incarcerated and that may just be one of the contributing factors to minorities also being disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness.
Nick Turner works with the Vera Institute of Justice. He sat down for a TED Salon interview. Nick explains to us how the system is set up in a way that hurts people, not helps them. One thing that really stood out to me is that from their research, 10.5 million people are arrested in the United States each year. That equates out to 1 person every 3 second, with 80 percent of those people being arrested for crimes associated to poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and substance use. He goes on to explain what defunding policing would look like and how to meet people where they are at when he faces opposition to this idea.
What do you think, could this be one of the roots of the homelessness crisis we see in the city of Portland and other cities around the country?
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