Seems "Gentleman" Chris Cone- Executive Producer of Portland Fashion Week, is everyone's friend!

And with his laudable efforts such as this(actually 1 among many), is it any reason why?

Proud to call you a friend C.C.!
Blessings!

-t

A dreamer without life experience is like masterbation, you locate and assign the metaphor.

We need to stop coddling the bums and send them on their way. They will take what you got and alway ask for more.

We as a city have been sent to the poor house by these users of worlds. It is time to do what works best. Shoo them away and put the money back in your wallet.

Look back into our history with a unbiased eye and tell me we did good for these takers. In other words when did (it) ever work?

You need to live a little bit longer before you devote anymore time to a lost cause.

At one point I considered a feasibility of a for-profit bum removal and productivization business. I felt (and still feel) it would be a major win-win-win-win solution for everyone. The bums get valuable work skills in exchange for room and board at a rural labor facility, the Portland businesses can have a phone number 24/7 to call to remove streetbums from their premises, and local economy will benefit from this cheap labor force. After all, Central City Concern already can remove drunk bums, kidnap them and forcibly commit them to the Harper Center Prison while they detoxicate. Oregon permits private businesses such as Oregon Humane Society and Union Pacific Railroad to own their own police force, so it would boil down to asking the Governor to commission our employees to become police special agents. Yet, I have yet to find investors for this business sure to revolutionize the homeless industry. It is all about possible liability if bums sue the business for false imprisonment, indentured servitude, substandard labor conditions, etc.

So meanwhile the City of Portland is financing the Homeless Daycare Facility at the Julia West at over half a million dollars a year, just so that they (called Day Watch-it's really a Bum Watch) will watch the bums for us so we won't have to. Our tax dollars at work! Out of their watchful eyes, bums are out of our sight, indeed. But what are they really doing to instill hope and give them genuine opportunities for advancement? So many charities and relief agencies do great works in the third-world nations, projects that would genuinely lift people out of poverty. Yet there at the Bum Watch they just sit and watch bums loiter, spend all day demoralized and in drunken, half-asleep stupor. They cannot complain if they are accused of "enabling" bums.

One thing I really would like to see is to combine this proposed day labor center with a new homeless center, then name it after Cesar Chavez, so businesses would rather hire English-speaking American homeless with U.S. citizenship, rather than Mexicans migrants. Why hasn't Tom POTTER (Portland Office of Temporary Transient Emergency Response) thought of that?!

Wow... intellectualized hatred... speaking of history...

When did it ever work? It worked for me.

When did giving people a genuine opportunity become a hatred? It's a galaxy different from just letting the streetbums sit around and expect nothing from them other than to stand in bumlines every day from one charity to another, looking forward to yet another bumfeed.

We as society don't believe in bums and instead think of them as nuisance and safety hazards. No wonder why all this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when they are not given any opportunity other than dependency on charities.

Once upon a time what is now known as McMenamins Edgefield was a concentration camp for bums to be worked to death. This way the bums paid their debt to society, and supported themselves through hard agricultural work. There were many, many such places called County Poorhouse, County Poorfarm, or County Workhouse, all across America and in the United Kingdom. Will McMenamins donate Edgefield back to Multnomah County to respond to today's homeless crisis?

OMG! I personally know Chris would even give a hand up to you vitriolic self loathing rejects who have posted negatively to the above and though he would consider it a Pyrrhic victory, he would wear that medal with pride.

maggie.....far too many homeless are homeless due to MENTAL ILLNESS! and since MENTAL ILLNESS is NOT a life choice (such as hate and anger and prejudice)it is a noble cause to which he contributes. 'drunken stupors' are obvioulsy a way of self medicating in a society who puts value of BRINGING SOMEONE DOWN (see any good britny sories lately) RATHER THAN TRYING TO HELP THEM UP!

....and to 'friends of meatpuppet' (i dont even want to know the semantics of that name)
"get off yer sejant thrown and realize those u despise so are NOT the only recipients of this good gesture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! women with children and disable vets and also being helped"

nice to see you are both 'keeping portland weird'.

If only there were a way to separate the homeless from the homeless by choice crowd and the unemployed from the bums. After that, there's the mentally disabled versus the over-stressed celebrities and other forms of attention whores of all ages.

It's a difficult task when you add it up, all of these sorts needing. Maybe Maggie is on to something; work does tend to separate those that are trying from those that are straight up bums. The mental illness thing might need a professional though, but they can be bought for better or worse.

I'll be keeping my change in my pocket until I can tell the difference, and just give at the office. Really folks, this is SupPortland.