What do you when the Depression is deepening, unemployment is steadily creeping up, underemployment is becoming the norm, inflation is moving front-and-center, housing is sinking further still, the debt ceiling is crashed, the deficit is unsustainable, household wealth is sinking, and quantitative easing is on the verge of becoming an enduring operation? If you are the government, you continue to loot the productive class to create government jobs that will cater to the idle class. As an example, meet the $50M Homeless Hilton in Portland.
Straddling Portland’s Chinatown and the Pearl District, a neighborhood of reclaimed warehouse spaces, the eight-story Homeless Service Center cost $46.9 million in city, county and federal stimulus funds to construct. It will contain 130 studio apartment-style permanent residences, 90 shelter beds, and offices for 50 staff members. Complimentary GED classes, haircuts and art therapy will be on offer.
…It’s a noble mission. The trouble is there are no time limits for those living in the center’s studio apartment units. The job training, GED courses and writing classes that the center will offer will be entirely optional. The center’s taxpayer-funded yoga sessions and nutrition classes, meanwhile, will be available to anybody who shows up.
As usual, theft and waste on such a grand scale is referred to as “a noble mission” (the usual “good intentions” argument). Nonsense – it is a purposeful redistribution from the productive class to the government class to fund their pet social missions.
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The productive class of Portland, Oregon should begin trekking to the mountains, leave the valley. Portland has always catered to homelessness, fashionably and particularly the young homeless.
“What do you when the Depression is deepening, unemployment is steadily creeping up, underemployment is becoming the norm, inflation is moving front-and-center, housing is sinking further still, the debt ceiling is crashed, the deficit is unsustainable, household wealth is sinking, and quantitative easing is on the verge of becoming an enduring operation? If you are the government, you….” (and the brainless shills in the media) just continue to call it a recovery every time you are forced to report on the above.
Instead of a V shaped recovery, it is an L shaped “recovery”, LOL
Sugar, Portland has nothing on New York – both city and state. My favorite story is from Yonkers in the 80′s. See, back then middle class Nu Awkers would flee to Yonkers for “affordable” coop condos. There was a particular bunch of towers tightly grouped in one part of Yonkers. Crazy dogoodies decided that the overhwhelmingly white condo neighborhood needed some diversity. So, they buy some expensive land and build luxury one-story townhomes right smack in the middle of the neighboorhood. Each townhouse came with a yard, fully furnished and equipped. Residents were the usual 7th generation lowlifes. Imagine some middle class yoke waking up every morning in his cramped $400k coop-condo and looking out the window to see some welfare bum lounging in his spacious backyard behind his spacious single story townhouse – with, of course, no job to go to.
I had a friend/co-worker from this neighborhood quit his six figure job in Manhattan, sell his condo at a loss and move to Florida with his family, sans job or prospects. The final straw was finding out that the townhomes came with complimentary HOA type services, like flower bed and law maintenance – while he was paying some condo association $1,000/mo. for basically nothing. He came to work one day and fumed for hours about the bums living a lifestyle he and his wife would basically never be able to afford – while paying 50% of their income (or more) in taxes. Within a week or so he gave his two week notice.
The rush to the bottom continues. (Fyi, in FL he and wifey found great jobs, a great house and had more babies. Happy Ending.)
Funny!
What is the name of this condo group?
The heck if I can remember. It was in south Yonkers.
And then they named the whole thing after a pol that came up with the first 10-year plan to end homelessness in Portland–25 years ago.
Former Mayor Bud Clark, the namesake of the new building, will be honored for his work during and after his tenure as Mayor in addressing issues of poverty and homelessness in Portland. Clark, who served as Portland’s mayor from 1985 to 1992, developed the city’s first comprehensive plan on homelessness, in 1986. His work paved the way for Portland’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.
I’m speechless!
A perfect example of mush brained LIBERALISM in Portland on display. It should also be pointed out that Portland has the rare “distinction” of having more homeless bums per capita than any other city in the United States. And Oregon is second among states for people on Food Stamps. When you are welcoming to homeless scum and criminals they will come in droves.
Yeah, this is a perfect example of mush brains. But, a lot of those Oregon food stamp recipients are CONSERVATIVES living outside the Portland area. And let’s not forget CONSERVATIVE welfare favorites like war, police, and corporate welfare. Also, it’s interesting how you equate “homeless scum” with criminality as if employed property owners never commit crimes (again, war and corporate welfare) or as if Portland’s homeless are the ones who actually built this stupid facility.
Nice to see that nothing has changed at Mises.org, where libertarian thought with the best intentions go to die in comment threads.
I hate reading stories like this because I know these well-meaning programs are a total waste of time and money.
I can’t say I’ve been homeless, but years ago when I was stupid, younger, and totally lacking in direction, I decided to embark on an adventure. I moved to an city where I knew no one and had no connections. I had no job and lived in my car for about a month. In that time, I fed myself, found a job, and found a room to rent.
Of course, to get there, I engaged in all sorts of weird punk rock/bum/vagrant behavior. I took early morning “showers” in Starbucks bathrooms, lived on $2.00 a day by eating Taco Bell, hoarded napkins and free toiletry samples at the local mall, checked phone booths and vending machines for change, and used a computer store’s demo computer for internet access. Sometimes it sucked, but overall getting through it wasn’t that hard.
Now, I was lucky in the fact that I had a car and I had money saved ($700, enough for one months food and deposit/rent in a cheap place.) But even if I didn’t have a car or any money, I know I would still would’ve been fine. People there always hired out day laborers that got paid daily. On top of that most of the day laborers being poor themselves were always looking to cut their costs, they would’ve gladly offered a place to stay if it meant they got some money out of it.
What struck me about my little adventure was how easy it was for an average person to get out of being without real food, income, or shelter. I know there are some people that have genuinely fallen on hard times, but the majority of people out there are there because they want to be. I see homeless people that literally do nothing but sit and beg. They don’t want to work, don’t want to save, and don’t want to consider it.
I was largely non-political person then but I usually leaned social democrat. At the time, I believed government welfare programs were needed and should be expanded. After my experience, I wasn’t so sure. Nowadays, I know these programs mean well, but they will end up costing more and creating more dependents. The majority of the people they’re trying to help don’t want to do anything and this type of thing will just incentivize their lack of desire. I wonder what would’ve been created with that money had it not been wasted like this.
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