Portland does not have enough resources to be an LGBT ‘safe haven’
Briana Oser
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Portland, Oregon, which has promised to be an LGBT “safe haven” for people seeking to escape “discriminatory” states, is now protesting that it does not have enough resources. It is no surprise that Portland is struggling to come through on its promise, since it is already dealing with a homelessness crisis. Portland also has serious drug problems, and its crime rate is rising. It is failing its residents, and it cannot afford to engage in virtue signaling.
Democratic-run states such as Maine and Oregon have enforced legal protections for both children who escape their parents to get transgender surgeries and their doctors. The new policies are a response to laws in other states which have recently banned sex reassignment surgeries for minors. Maine and Oregon present themselves as “sanctuaries” to the LGBT community because of recent “anti-LGBT” legislation, lamented about and listed in depth by the Human Rights Campaign.
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Local newspaper Willamette Week did a recent exclusive about economically stable LGBT families and their “mass exodus” to places such as Portland, stating that “If Portland is seeing an exodus of wealthy residents who are tired of high taxes that don’t seem to fix anything, it may soon become a haven for people who have seen what else government can do to its citizens: oppress them.”
The article correctly points out that people are leaving Portland because of heavy taxing that does not seem to be improving quality of life. Homeless encampments continue to pop up all over the city. And as crime increases, so do prices. However, replacing taxpaying citizens with homeless people will only make problems worse. It will not help residents or LGBT people.
According to Willamette Week, the “Queer Affinity Village,” a shelter for LGBT people, is at maximum capacity and has a waitlist of six months. It has doubled the number of people it has ever served in the past two months.
“Rose Haven,” a day shelter designed initially for women and children that now extends resources to “gender diverse” people, is packed early in the day.
Erin Waters, Portland’s equity director, told Willamette Week, “I definitely don’t think we’re the utopia we make ourselves out to be.”
This comment suggests self-awareness, but certain decisions do not.
In 2020, the director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services demanded $500,000 from Portland to help with transgender housing services. That was one of the worst years for homelessness in Portland because of the COVID-19 pandemic: Shelter space made social distancing impossible, and hospitals were bursting with sick patients. Budgeting was tight for regular homeless people. Portland could not afford to allocate $500,000 to a special group of homeless just because they were LGBT.
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In 2020, Portland was also suffering from its 2019 Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, which spiked fentanyl abuse and enabled drug addicts until it was overturned at the end of June 2023.
Portland would be wise to work on its current problems before inventing more. Seventy-five percent of Portland residents consider the state of homelessness a “disaster.” Maybe Portland would do well to listen to its citizens and stop promoting policies that clearly and predictably worsen their quality of life.
Briana Oser is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.