Portland Homeless Build ‘Tiny Homes’ On City Streets
Homeless residents of Portland, Oregon, have begun building “tiny homes” on the street amid the far-left city’s ongoing homelessness crisis.
Small, makeshift homes built from wood and plywood have been popping up on streets across Portland, with the tiny structures actually resembling livable homes.
Footage of the homes was shared on social media by Kevin Dahlgren, an Oregon resident who has been documenting the city’s homelessness crisis — which has become out of control thanks to Portland’s far-left policies, leading to open-air drug use and a massive spike in crime.
In the video clip shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, Dahlgren shows multiple tiny wooden homes that have been built by homeless people. He explained in the post that several of the “tiny homes” he has seen were being used for drugs and prostitution.
“I’m finding tiny homes built by the homeless popping up on nearly every block in some neighborhoods. This one is quite nice and even has a basketball hoop. Another I saw today though was used for prostitution and another for drugs,” Dahlgren wrote.
Portland has been one of the hardest-hit cities when it comes to the homelessness crisis over the past few years, leading to law-abiding residents fleeing the city’s downtown to escape the open-air drug use and the potential for becoming a victim of violent homeless people.
The problem was exacerbated by the far-left’s policies, especially after Oregon voted to legalize hard drugs in November 2020. Earlier this year, the state finally voted to re-criminalize possession of hard drugs after the disastrous consequences of the policy.
In October 2022, then-Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) deemed the city’s homeless encampments a “humanitarian catastrophe” — as reports indicated that, under his tenure in office, more than 700 homeless encampments in Portland were riddled with violent crime and open-air drug use.
Meanwhile, Portland has continued to handicap its police force, making it extremely difficult for them to deal with the homelessness crisis. The city began its war on police following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — which prompted lawmakers to pass bills that restricted the police department’s ability to address crime and added further scrutiny to their actions, leading to many officers becoming too concerned about the public blowback on their career to deal with crime.
In June 2021, every single member of the Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response Team, also known as the “riot squad,” resigned at once after an officer was indicted.
Daryl Turner, the person in charge of the union representing Portland police officers, stated at the time: “They’re demonizing and vilifying you, and then they want to put you in a unit where you’re under an even bigger microscope.”
With officer resignations came an officer shortage, which only exacerbated the homelessness crisis, drug crisis and spike in crime. Instead of enabling police to deal with these problems, leftist lawmakers in Portland have spent over $1 billion in taxpayer money to “solve” the homelessness crisis. These funds have done virtually nothing to address the problem, as it has continued to worsen.
Social media users slammed Portland in response to the footage of the “tiny homes,” with many users questioning why they are allowed to exist while law-abiding citizens are forced to get permits, pay fees and follow other regulations just to build similar structures in their own yards.
“But I need permission and inspection to build a shed in my yard,” one user responded.
“It’s hard to imagine they paid for permits for that but I’m sure they will be allowed because the homeless are victims according to the city of Portland,” another user wrote.
“Surely, they are paying thousands of dollars for permits. Good on them,” another user replied, adding the hashtag “satire.”
