Three Portland residents offered their take on the city's homeless and drug crisis after legendary musician John Mellencamp released a new song about the plight of the city's homeless population.
"It is pretty bad, isn't it? The city of Portland and the state of Oregon are really in crisis at this time. And John Mellencamp has nailed it with a couple of these lines in the song. I think my favorite is one of the ones you just said, 'The land of the plenty where nothing gets done," resident Bridget Barton said on "Fox & Friends First" Tuesday.
The singer-songwriter released ‘The Eyes of Portland,' which highlights the city's drastic uptick in homelessness and echoes the concerns of many residents.
"As I saw through the eyes of Portland one day, there were so many homeless. They'd all gone astray. They slept on the corners during the day. All of these homeless, where do they come from? This land of plenty where nothing gets done," the song goes.
PORTLAND'S POPULATION DROPS AMID CRIME, HOMELESSNESS, OTHER WOES
"In Oregon, we only have 4 million plus people. In the last six or seven years, we've committed $4 billion to this crisis. And yet Portland's mayor freely admits that the problem is 50% worse, not better. It's 50% worse. That's a sad commentary on his leadership and on the state's leadership," Barton added.
According to recent census data, Portland has lost 0.04% of its population after growing for 30 years straight. Though the general population has declined for three years in a row, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office reported a 50% increase in homelessness from 2019 to 2022.
The mayor, a Democrat, also revealed Portland's number of homeless encampments has topped 700. In a bid to ban camping on streets and encroachment by next year, Wheeler has sanctioned the first city-run outdoor homeless camp. It's expected to house up to 150 people, a far cry from the more than 3,000 people estimated to be homeless in the city.
"We do have serious problems with the houseless and especially with the drugs in Portland," resident Tom Karwaki said.
Karwaki lives behind a "safe rest village" where houseless individuals can stay in pods with heat pumps. He said the situation near his home has improved but said overall, the city still has a "problem"
"A year ago, when I was on 'Fox & Friends,' it was gunshots and needles everywhere and hundreds of people living basically just behind my house. And so now today we have 60 people in 60 pods where people with heat pumps," Karwaki said.
"It will be a nice restful place for them to get away from things, to be safe from the streets and the drugs if they want to turn their lives around. And so far, the city has about 50% getting people into housing right now through this program."
Portland is also considering a Democrat-backed bill that would allow members of the homeless community to sue property owners if they as them to leave their residence.
House Bill 3501, commonly known as the "Right to Rest Act," would allow "persons experiencing homelessness" to "use public spaces in the same manner as any other person without discrimination based on their housing status" with an "expectation of privacy."
Another Portland resident unpacked his frustration with the local government for wanting to "administer" to the homeless instead of trying to alleviate underlying issues.
"One of the problems we have here is the government wants to administer to the homeless and they've created a homeless industrial society, in my opinion, that doesn't really get to helping or to alleviating what the real issues are," Stue Peterson said.
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"The local and state governments want to monopolize the money, use it for these temporary shelters that [Karwaki] addressed there and not actually help people."
Peterson also noted that despite having spent a tremendous amount of money in Portland alone, the city hasn't "been able to get anywhere close to solving this problem."
Meanwhile, Mellencamp's lyrics were panned in The Oregonian newspaper, with the commentary writer pointing out that the music video contained shots of Los Angeles, not Portland.
Fox News' Kyra Colah and Taylor Penley contributed to this report.
