Author Sonali Kolhatkar points out that homelessness is primarily the result of the lack of affordable housing. When I was a kid who had just come to New York City, and Manhattan had plenty of ungentrified ‘hoods, there were also plenty of single room occupancy hotels where the poor could still get a bed and have access to a bathroom. As the tide turned back in favor of city living, those buildings were purchased, razed, and replaced with upscale housing. So there is some merit in describing where ultimate solutions lie.
It is disappointing not to see Kolhatkar spell out why the guard was acting illegally, since far too many are deferential to men in uniforms, much the less suggest action steps, like filing a report with the local precinct and cc’ing the chief of police, the mayor, and important local media (the big local TV stations, any important local papers). One report won’t change things but a series of complaints will raise the specter of bad press about out of control security thugs. (...)
by Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism | Read more:
The Rise of Private Cops: How Not to Tackle Homelessness
During a recent visit to Portland, Oregon, my husband and I watched a private security guard help up an unhoused man from the sidewalk. Three white women looked on at the interaction that took place in the trendy Nob Hill neighborhood on August 7, 2023, right in front of a yoga studio.
But the guard was not responding with compassion. Seconds earlier, the tall and very muscular man sporting a flak jacket emblazoned with the word “security,” had walked right by me toward the unhoused man and savagely knocked him to the ground without provocation or warning. Blood streamed from the victim’s face and onto the sidewalk. He stood up as the guard hovered over him and stumbled toward the damaged glasses that had fallen off his face during the assault. The guard, who was twice the man’s size, picked up and offered him the hat that had also fallen off his head and ushered him away.
It’s increasingly common to see private security guards patrolling the streets of Portland—considered one of the most progressive cities in the United States. Not only are businesses banding together to pay for private armed patrols, but even Portland State University is using such a service on its campus. The city of Portland also recently increased its private security budget for City Hall by more than half a million dollars to hire three armed guards.
The trend is a knee-jerk response to sharply rising homelessness. There are tents belonging to unhoused people sprinkled throughout downtown Portland and Nob Hill. Like much of Portland, many of the unhoused are white, but, as Axios in a report about a homelessness survey pointed out, “the rate of homelessness among people in the Portland area who are Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander grew more rapidly than among people who are white.” (...)
In a detailed three-part investigation for Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) in December 2021, Rebecca Ellis examined how businesses have begun paying unknown sums of money to hire private security patrols. According to Ellis, “Private security firms in Oregon are notoriously underregulated, and their employees are required to receive a fraction of the training and oversight as public law enforcement.” She added, “They remain accountable primarily to their clients, not the public.”
Business owners and residents are claiming that rising homelessness is the result of increased drug addiction, forcing them to resort to private security. But researchers point to high rents and a lack of affordable housing—not drug use—as the cause of people living without homes.
As we responded to the assault against the unhoused man with an appropriate level of shock, the three white women who had also watched the incident unfold rushed to the guard’s defense. They seemed to know instinctively by our visible horror that we were visitors to the city, and informed us in no uncertain terms that the guard was simply doing his job. “Leave the poor man alone,” said one of them, sporting what appeared to be scrubs (I wondered, was she a health care worker?). She wasn’t referring to the victim, but rather his assaulter.
Meanwhile, an employee of prAna, the storefront where the attack took place, shooed us away from the still-wet blood spatters that now stained the sidewalk. He used a spray cleaner to wipe away the evidence, seconds after I photographed it. The yoga studio, which also sells high-end clothing, boasts on its website that the Sanskrit word for which it is named, is “the life-giving force, the universal energy that flows within and among us, connecting us with all other living beings.” (...)
There is indeed a serious problem of homelessness in Portland and the business owners who have resorted to private security claim they simply want to “clean up” the problems that the city refuses to. A political battle is ensuing over allowing homelessness to flourish rather than cracking down on the unhoused.
But there is a glaring omission in the police-versus-private-security and violence-versus-the-unhoused fights, and that is the fact that Oregon is simply an unaffordable place to live. One economist told OPB’s April Ehrlich, “We have the worst affordability… Low vacancies and high prices… [are] indicative of a housing shortage.” According to Ehrlich, “Oregon is among states with the lowest supply of rentals that are affordable to people at or below poverty levels.”
The Rise of Private Cops: How Not to Tackle Homelessness
During a recent visit to Portland, Oregon, my husband and I watched a private security guard help up an unhoused man from the sidewalk. Three white women looked on at the interaction that took place in the trendy Nob Hill neighborhood on August 7, 2023, right in front of a yoga studio.
But the guard was not responding with compassion. Seconds earlier, the tall and very muscular man sporting a flak jacket emblazoned with the word “security,” had walked right by me toward the unhoused man and savagely knocked him to the ground without provocation or warning. Blood streamed from the victim’s face and onto the sidewalk. He stood up as the guard hovered over him and stumbled toward the damaged glasses that had fallen off his face during the assault. The guard, who was twice the man’s size, picked up and offered him the hat that had also fallen off his head and ushered him away.
It’s increasingly common to see private security guards patrolling the streets of Portland—considered one of the most progressive cities in the United States. Not only are businesses banding together to pay for private armed patrols, but even Portland State University is using such a service on its campus. The city of Portland also recently increased its private security budget for City Hall by more than half a million dollars to hire three armed guards.
The trend is a knee-jerk response to sharply rising homelessness. There are tents belonging to unhoused people sprinkled throughout downtown Portland and Nob Hill. Like much of Portland, many of the unhoused are white, but, as Axios in a report about a homelessness survey pointed out, “the rate of homelessness among people in the Portland area who are Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander grew more rapidly than among people who are white.” (...)
In a detailed three-part investigation for Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) in December 2021, Rebecca Ellis examined how businesses have begun paying unknown sums of money to hire private security patrols. According to Ellis, “Private security firms in Oregon are notoriously underregulated, and their employees are required to receive a fraction of the training and oversight as public law enforcement.” She added, “They remain accountable primarily to their clients, not the public.”
Business owners and residents are claiming that rising homelessness is the result of increased drug addiction, forcing them to resort to private security. But researchers point to high rents and a lack of affordable housing—not drug use—as the cause of people living without homes.
As we responded to the assault against the unhoused man with an appropriate level of shock, the three white women who had also watched the incident unfold rushed to the guard’s defense. They seemed to know instinctively by our visible horror that we were visitors to the city, and informed us in no uncertain terms that the guard was simply doing his job. “Leave the poor man alone,” said one of them, sporting what appeared to be scrubs (I wondered, was she a health care worker?). She wasn’t referring to the victim, but rather his assaulter.
Meanwhile, an employee of prAna, the storefront where the attack took place, shooed us away from the still-wet blood spatters that now stained the sidewalk. He used a spray cleaner to wipe away the evidence, seconds after I photographed it. The yoga studio, which also sells high-end clothing, boasts on its website that the Sanskrit word for which it is named, is “the life-giving force, the universal energy that flows within and among us, connecting us with all other living beings.” (...)
There is indeed a serious problem of homelessness in Portland and the business owners who have resorted to private security claim they simply want to “clean up” the problems that the city refuses to. A political battle is ensuing over allowing homelessness to flourish rather than cracking down on the unhoused.
But there is a glaring omission in the police-versus-private-security and violence-versus-the-unhoused fights, and that is the fact that Oregon is simply an unaffordable place to live. One economist told OPB’s April Ehrlich, “We have the worst affordability… Low vacancies and high prices… [are] indicative of a housing shortage.” According to Ehrlich, “Oregon is among states with the lowest supply of rentals that are affordable to people at or below poverty levels.”
by Sonali Kolhatkar, Z/Economy For All/ Naked Capitalism | Read more:
Image: uncredited
[ed. Eh, where to begin (how about rebranding homelessness as the "unhoused"). I certainly agree that private security is a problem but this account seems more like some liberal's birdseye view rather than a deep dive into the complexities. Comments about methheads could come straight from any city. Here, from Naked Capitalism: ]
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"I cringe each time I see Sonali Kolhatkar‘s byline.She is beyond clueless. Aside from her failure to call 9-1-1 when witnessing an apparent (to her) unprovoked assault, she claims to be a “reporter.” Why then, didn’t she follow-up with a public-records inquiry about the eventual (no thanks to her) police response? Kolhatkar can only be bothered to share her superficial, personal, and privileged reaction, which apparently isn’t shared by the presumably quite “liberal” yoga class, who evidently saw more than her. We’ll never know the whole story.
Kolhatkar has discerned that “Oregon is simply an unaffordable place to live”??? News-flash: if a person has no job, no income, and no assets, nowhere is an affordable place to live."
Kolhatkar has discerned that “Oregon is simply an unaffordable place to live”??? News-flash: if a person has no job, no income, and no assets, nowhere is an affordable place to live."
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"I have to admit that I didn’t read the article because homelessness has become a trigger issue for me. Just writing this quick comment is going to ruin my morning and I will now be thinking about my former home for hours and I won’t be able to think about anything else. I won’t be able to read any responses either so feel free to call me a hater or whatever, I’ve heard it all before so many times. When homeless people begin to frequent an area, it certain cities with a big enough homeless population, there is always a second wave. First wave is people who need help and can benefit from it. Second wave is what I call the methheads. Apologies I know we aren’t supposed to call people that but I feel it’s an incredibly fair label. These are the people who were on meth before they became homeless, or more accurately, made their home under the highway. They bully and rob the other homeless people, and everyone else. The go to the bathroom everywhere all the time. And they panhandle for meth. Soon, all the first wavers are gone because they can’t handle it and now that community if left with nothing but second wavers destroying homes and businesses, bullying, threatening, and attacking everyone. Darting out into the street in front of cars intentionally. And smoking meth all the time. Hanging out with the young kids from the neighborhood. After 5 or 10 years of the second wave taking hold, things get really desperate until you get around the idea that you are going to have to leave your home and start fresh, leave your friends and neighbors, your home town. It’s such a weird feeling to see a community torn apart because a small number of activists thought they could let people ‘camp’ in a city and do drugs all day and night and that that wouldn’t turn into a huge disaster for the drug addicts and the rest of the community. I’m still struggling with the trauma of having a second waver attack me with a golf club in 2021. Since then the hardest part has been hearing all of the activists talk about criminalizing homelessness or housing is a human right, when all I asked about is can we get some police to take action against the people who are destroying our community? Not talking about arresting any and all homeless people, I just want the person who threatened to kill me in the park to get arrested, or the person with the golf club, or the guy selling meth to the teenagers. I don’t care if they get charged and do time, but at least getting processed might make them change their ways? If the idea is that enforcing the law would cause someone harm because they are poor, what about poor people with cars? Shouldn’t they be allowed to drive drunk? Any attempts to clarify are often met with shouts of “YOU CANT CRIMINALIZE HOMELESSNESS!!!!!” So people are left with no good options. Especially businesses. Often a person living on the street will get mad at a business for some reason and then decide to torment that business until it’s forced to relocate or close. I don’t think it’s a good idea for businesses and residents to hire goon squads to harass homeless people. I can also understand why many are, they have been left with no choice. If a business was doing it in my old neighborhood I would not complain. As more and more blue cities turn into meth camps, people are going to start finding solutions where ever they can, like hiring goon squads. It’s just human nature. The left can keep pointing fingers at everyone and acting like they are morally superior, but that’s just going to make more regular people so pissed off they vote republican. It certainly isn’t going to help people living on the street, no matter which wave they rode in on. Now I’m going to go spend the next few hours, maybe the rest of the day, thinking about my former city council, mayor, and activists stealing my home and my home town. And about all the first wavers in Austin that weren’t able to escape before the second wave, and the activists who insist everything is going according to plan, destroyed everything."
