The crime problem here in Portland is multifaceted. We won't see great changes until we get control of the housing industry. 'Flippers,' gentrification, out of control rent hiking has hyperinflated cost of housing.
Portland has a long and sordid history of ghetto displacement areas due to segregation, internment, and neglect post-disaster. A lot of people have grown up in communities with low social movement, which covid, shortages and housing crisis has displaced onto the street. Which increases both drug use and violence.
We've recently repealed criminal slave labor, which hopefully deals a major blow to for-profit prisons that have long lobbied for overpolicing profiled areas and removal of social aid programs.
If we can get a governor and mayor willing to collaborate on the new healthcare initiative and rent control, more homeless people might have hope of independent living again.