The recent news of a Pearl District landlord threatening to sue the city over the new homeless shelter is a perfect example of why Mayor Keith Wilson’s current strategy is failing, (“Apartment owners sue Portland, Salvation Army, claiming homeless shelter lowered property values,” March 20). It’s becoming increasingly clear that the mayor’s plan was never about long-term solutions; it was a rushed, poorly thought-out attempt to clean up Portland’s image without doing the actual legwork.
Renting a vacant office building “to clean up the streets” might look good on a press release, but the reality on the ground tells a different story. When you have reports of spiked crime and waste immediately surrounding the site, it’s obvious that the city didn’t think through the impact on the neighborhood or the safety of the people they are trying to house. This is not solving homelessness…