Vulnerable People and Places Blog

  Photo from Katu.com Have you ever heard from people in Oregon, or even outside of Oregon constantly talk about how there are too many people in Portland that are homeless and that it is a rising problem? They are not wrong and there is more than just the reason as most would say, “People do not care”, “They are just a bunch of druggies!”, “Well that is what happens when you keep Portland weird!”. This is not always the case especially when there is such a rise in AI. AI doesn’t just impact the earth and environment but people’s jobs which is the only way to afford living. Oregon is number 17 for the highest likelihood of job loss due to AI taking over. If this is not a problem, it should be. Jobs are at high risk every day and you will never know when it will happen to you. I know everyone has had this thought that I'll just get a new job. Then that new job is taken over by AI employees, and it is a never-ending cycle of losing jobs, gaining jobs and losing that said job again. E...

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash When Portland's 2021 heat dome killed 69 people in a single week, most of us pictured the same thing: someone unhoused, caught outside with nowhere to go. It's a reasonable assumption. People sleeping on pavement during a 116-degree afternoon should be in the most danger, and they are at risk. But the medical examiner's data tells a different story, and it's one worth sitting with. Of those 69 deaths during the heat dome, four were homeless . The other 65 were people who lived in houses and apartments. The 2022 heat wave was similar: of five confirmed heat deaths, only one person was unhoused. In summer 2024, Multnomah County recorded 14 heat-associated deaths, and again, just one of those people was without a home. Two out of every three people who have died from extreme heat in Multnomah County since 2021 were men over 50. Most lived alone. Most did not have working air conditioning, or did not turn it on. That desc...

Study finds that home villages are working better than group shelters and are helping citizens secure permanent housing. "The village model is also faster to build and more attractive to occupants, as it offers greater privacy. Villages have the lowest initial capital cost per unit, if the land on which they stand is provided for free, the study found. But over the long term, they may be more expensive than motel or congregate shelters if the tiny homes must be replaced due to wear and tear, it said. And operating costs are higher for villages than congregate shelters despite similar staffing levels." Want to find out more about the study? Check out this link! Tiny home villages more effective than group shelters at getting formerly homeless people permanently housed, study finds Attention: The Portland State University senior capstone for multimedia would love to hear from you. If you have the time, please click here to fill out a survey about ...

It's 7am, and most of us are hitting snooze or brewing our first cup of coffee, but not for the homeless community in Clarkston, Washington. John Parke, known as "Cowboy," gets up at the crack of dawn not to wake up to an automatic cup of Keurig coffee but to pack his entire home before the local authority writes him up another ticket for sleeping in.  Cowboy on the move Many cities across the United States are finding ways to either support or ban the homeless population growing across the country. Some counties are creating permanent supportive housing while other counties are banning encampments, an out-of-sight, out-of-mind solution that, for some odd reason won't cause the issue to disappear.  When rural counties aren't taking responsibility for their community but instead pushing the problem for others to fix, it isn't creating a solution but creating an ever-growing snowball. When Lewingston County in Idaho banned camping in 2022, the homeless community...

It's 2024 you would think we've figured it out. If you live in Portland, you can testify that the houseless situation has become more apparent, but what about Oregon as a state? Oregon hit a record high in homelessness; what does this mean for our future or even the present? Check out the link below to see how it's dated since 2007.  Homelessness in Oregon hits record high in 2023