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? A job can help those who doesn't have the addiction peoblem to live on their own, but how about the addictors? Why they can't get rid of drugs? Is that the peoblem of addiction treatment centre? Or they just want to escape from the real world? You can click the link below to search for more discussions.
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
[6]:https://apnews.com/article/homeless-deaths-portland-oregon-f68a73ce13718ffdca4b130dcdb7a0c8
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