Residents Forced Out By Homeless Camps

(RightIsRight.co) – Many residents of the Democrat-run city of Portland, Oregon, say they are thinking of moving to avoid living next to growing homeless encampments, while some families have already made a move.

The homeless camps in Portland are growing and coming closer and closing residential neighborhoods in the city’s suburbs, The Washington Examiner reported.

“It makes you not feel that great about living here. It makes living in the neighborhood harder, not as congenial as it could be,” Greg Dilkes, a 30-year-old resident, said regarding the homeless encampment along the Peninsula Crossing Trail near his home.

“It’s the first time in a long time that we’ve actually seriously thought about moving,” he added.

“Every day if you go from one end of the street to the other, you’re confronting some very difficult situations, people in really dire straits,” commented another resident, whose name was not given but who emphasized that people there no longer feel safe.

Residents informed that at least three families who used to live along McKenna Avenue in Portland have recently abandoned the location because of the growing homeless encampments.

The report quoted Lauren Iaquinta, a real estate broker, who emphasized that the encampments of the people living in the streets have begun to encroach upon the Portland suburbs over the past couple of years.

In her words, the local living situation varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, so she carefully vets every area before purchasing or selling a home in the Democrat-run city.

“Most people don’t want to have to worry about if they can leave their car parked in their driveway overnight without maybe having it broken into. It’s a pretty testy subject,” the realtor noted.

The last year for which homelessness data is available for the state of Oregon is 2020, and back then, the homelessness rate had spiked by 20.5% in the six years starting in 2014.

The city of Portland itself has been living in a state of a “housing and homelessness emergency” since April 2015.

At the same time, in 2021, Portland also saw 90 homicides, a record number in the history of the Northwest city.

The number is higher than those registered in Seattle and San Francisco last year, even though Portland has a smaller population than either.