If they put half the effort of this protest into working for a living I bet they could afford rent.

Wow, the weather was beautiful today. Most of these campers could have cut a few lawns instead of wasting time at City Hall.

Unless, of course, they're too good to do the work of lowly Mexicans.

Wow, D. I bet they hadn't thought of that. Why don't you go down there and enlighten them? Be sure to direct your comments to any disabled vets and those with mental illness---the slackers!

I think the Street Roots letter nailed it on the head.

Nice sign! When I was in 5th grade, Unconstitution Al gave a talk at my school about gun rights. I had no idea he was still alive.

Why do non-homeless people seem to hate homeless people so much?

Let's list a couple of advantages that "you" may have had that remove any entitling reason you have to complain about the homeless:
* You went to college
* You come from a non-abusive family
* You do not have a physical disability
* You do not have a mental disability
* You had a home to live at for free till you were 18 (i.e. you were never a runaway/kick out of your parents house)

Oh yes go ahead and proclaim "It's nice weather go find a job" - but be honest to your self. Being the type of person you are to say that would you hire someone who is "smelly" and "dirty"?

I'd probably take that sign a little more seriously if someone could figure out how to use a fucking tape measure to space out letters properly.

I have personally interviewed quite a few urban campers and asked them if they wanted to work in landscape maintenance for minimum wage. Most of the time, the jobs have been refused because it doesn't pay enough. I have done these interview in PDX, Palo Alto and Santa Cruz. This is not hypothetical and I am not the Mercury with an agenda to fulfill but simply like to find out truth. Working as a line cook at a kitchen for the "homeless" in South SF made me wonder so I started asking real questions. Most of the people on the streets here are fully capable of working but refuse to do and I have seen no evidence to prove otherwise. This is most likely because in senselessly liberal Portland, it is very easy to find somebody willing to enable and further their so called misery in the name of helping.

When "this reporter" at the Mercury starts asking real questions and not just ones that further his own need to feel useful and accepted, perhaps I'll have enough information to begin questioning my own opinions. But I'm already way ahead in the facts department so he's got quite a bit of catching up to do.

Thanks, El Seven, for being a voice of reason.

I really wonder what percentage of the homeless here really are mentally/physically handicapped and truly unable to work. I'd bet it's not all that large.

But then, we'll never really know because no one in the media here really seems interested in asking.

Also, if the homeless are so up in arms about sit/lie, why don't they hike their asses across the hawthorne bridge, hoof it to the springwater corridor, and find a nice spot? Seems a bit nicer than piss-reeking streets in old town, not to mention far less likely to be harassed by the cops.

*scrambles to make up silly facts to match the set given by "Seven"*
when I worked at Tasty Freeze, Kewpie Cone and KFC I spoke to 20 homeless a day for ten years. in that time the vast majority said that El Seven should blow goats because he was making s*&t up to cover his bias and classism...
could people work that dont have jobs? for sure. are there many reasons to not have a job? f(*k yes! carrying a back pack, smelling of three day old BO and having no reliable phone makes it pretty f45king hard to get a job. kind of like when you go in to work with Old English breath El Seven...

Yeah, no shit. I spent 2 years living in the "caves" under McLoughlin Blvd or around southeast and I got woken up by po-po hardly ever. If your sleeping under a bridge you damn well better expect to get messed with. That's just part of living on the streets and it's common knowledge. I had no intention of working while I was out on the street and neither did anybody I knew in those days. We got hooked up with free food, free doctor visits, free clothing, and all the free time in the world. Yeah a lot of us came from bad homes and have some mental problems (I'm no exception!) but there's no denying it: we're pretty fuckin lazy. I see these Mexican guys down on MLK at 5 AM every day competing like hell for a chance to make $20. These guys have more pride than anybody I ever met - no way they're sleeping under a damn bridge somewhere! Ever notice that just about everybody in that protest is white? Those guys could work day labor if they chose to but why should they when everything is handed to them for free? Us white people are the laziest race on earth no doubt about it.

El Seven, continue investigating, but this time don't just talk to the functional and approachable folks on the street.

Having lived on the street for a while, I was staggered by the amount of mental illness I encountered -- something which you omit from your commentary.

There's more going on with the homeless population than functional, lazy people who "don't want to work." These may be out there, but they sure as $hit aren't the majority, not even close by my experience.

Your sampling is biased, correct that and your argument will hold more weight.

About time Potter showed a backbone and told these losers to shove it!

Spring,
first, Portland is the whitest major city in America... I have been down there on a number of occasions and it did not feel any more or less white than the rest of the city.
secondly, the caves were caged off a year or so back.
thirdly, I must say that when I was homeless I busted butt looking for a job for the first few months, after which it became apparent I needed a new strategy. as Elle mentions above, carrying a back pack, being smelly and having no access to phone make it hard to get a job. even most day labor sites I went to frowned on the pack and smell thing. (and you have a choice, clean clothes and a shower or going to find work)
fourth, my research and experience at the "work corner" (where people line up in the AM) says that 20 dollars would leave me feeling cheated.
thanks
Patrick

lets say i lost my job due to the slowing economy. now lets assume that for some reason, i was unable to find a job in the month or so that i had to make rent, thus being evicted. assume there was no space at my friends to stay at, or a family to fall back on. where would i be? wait, i'd be homeless too!! i'd be out there too! springwater cooridor? i would be raped in 5 minutes. i don't even go there by myself, let alone sleep in the fucking woods there. damn straight i would sleep in the middle of the city. where i would at least feel mariginally safe. where there was the only access to food and shelter. leave your write offs for taxes and post some rewards around town for your lost hearts.

I don't like homeless people. They're usually too chewy. I prefer the organically-grown, free-range variety.

Also, I think the people protesting the sit/lie laws are fighting the wrong battle. If you have people sleeping in the streets, you have a problem. Society has failed these people. There's no reason why anybody should have to curl up under a bridge to sleep. Clearly, the situation needs to change.

And yet you're fighting for the right to do just that? To sleep in the streets? It's like a battered woman fighting for the right for her drunk husband to have access to thicker belts and more PBR.

Those organizing this protest should focus on getting people OFF the streets, not in making it legal to sleep there. Put the energy into getting those needing physical/mental medical help the care that they need. Try to get more shelters/permanent housing/job assistance programs, etc.

But don't turn off the people you're trying to win over by setting up what, from the outside, looks like a silly half-assed protest* over a silly, half-assed law**. Let the city have this one, then focus on the "now what the hell are we going to do about all these people" aspect.

If nothing else, start getting them some massages. I hear that's what they do to make that Kobe beef so succulent...

*I INSIST on the full-ass variety if I'm going to support a cause.

**Seriously, Portland? You're going to cite people for sleeping outside? Give tickets to people you know can't pay them? Golly, that makes sense.

Such is the way the cookie crumbles. I still say all homeless support facilities need to be moved out of downtown to Swan Island or some industrial area. It's a whole workforce just waiting to be tapped. Inconsistent, dirty, mentally-ill and drug-addled for sure, but they could sort bottles or something simple. Hell, they do that every week in my front yard! Homeless? You shall work and exist in this warehouse where you can be observed and dealt with. Refuse and panhandle downtown? Straight to jail...it's a kind of home, right?

Human Sucklefish.

JustinS makes some very sensible comments.

Also, I think all of this "it is not their fault because..." comments are flat out wrong (excepting the mentally ill, of course). At some point, people need to be accountable. If they cannot exercise good judgment about what to do with themselves, unfortunately at some point they are putting themselves in a position where somebody else may have to tell them what to do. That somebody is the government, a reflection of the collective will of the people.

So, homeless folks, you cannot live outside our city hall.

I don't think the city is enforcing the camping ban considering there is a small community growing daily underneath the Morrison bridge that I drive past every day. I wave at them now because they recognize me.

Those homeless guys that sit under my window and drink all day...I'd prefer the cops I called to haul their asses into jail...I've only called 7 times in the last month about the same guys.

@15: "fourth, my research and experience at the "work corner" (where people line up in the AM) says that 20 dollars would leave me feeling cheated."

You've just made the "anti-homeless" crowd's point for them, Patrick. You'd feel cheated to work for that amount of money because you now have some sense of entitlement because of all the free services available to you. Get real.

"Liberal" Portland.

@13, yes, it's true. I'm sure I avoided people who were obviously disturbed. But consider how many mentally healthy homeless people there are on certain city streets, I felt that it was enough to ask them. Which still proves my point (as did Patrick's explanation above concerning the scourge of low salaries offered to jobless people ) is that there are many, many people that will suck an overly generous system for all it's worth.

@22, believe me, if we were anything but liberal here, those campers would have had their sleeping bags set on fire in the middle of the night long ago. I think the citizens here are showing quite a bit of typical liberal tolerance.

You got to remember, Matt, your paper's main demographic is out-of-city-hipster-dooshbags.

Burris,

What, as opposed to you? Too fucking funny.

At least learn to spell douchebag before you become mayor, douchebag!

"demonjuice",
actually, it would leave me feeling cheated because its usually about ten bucks an hour that is paid there... that said,I dont see what the problem is? there are many people in our city who can not afford permanent housing, and many others who although they can afford it can not get it due to background issues. in my oppinion its not a question of a lot of people being unwilling to work (60% have some sort of job or other income according to Sisters Of The Road's database, and the book we just put out) its a question of not being paid enough or not being able to save enough for housing.
thanks
Patrick

Ryan photos reynolds

Ryan photos reynolds