STUMPTOWNBLOGGER

NEW BURNS BROS ON UNION & ALDER

GREAT VIEW!

THE MONKEES ( was ) going to be called MADNESS

WHICH ONE IS THE REAL BETTY WHITE?

LOVE THIS ONE!

LINDNER’S WORLD & OURS

 I drove down to be with the kid for her birthday yesterday. Yes, “the kid.” She may be 37, but she’ll always be my little girl. She lives in a fly speck of a town, but it has the bare essentials of life; a brewery and a winery. We all walked down to the winery, enjoyed Neapolitan style pizza crafted by an actual Neapolitan chef, Oregon Pinot Noir, and watched the Great Blue Herons and Western Ospreys fish the river from a patio perched above it.

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As a not-so-pleasant aside, for the first time, I’m truly worried about the future of this beautiful state. The housing crisis has reached a fever-pitch. For several years now, driving through Portland has started to look like a scene from some post-apocalyptic film. There are tents and ramshackle encampments beneath all the overpasses, along the freeways, on sidewalks, even in some parks. Between Covid throwing folks out of work and the INSANE explosion of real estate values, many people have been forced out of their homes to no fault of their own.

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The Portland situation has been getting worse for several years, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw yesterday: Driving down I-5 into Salem, Oregon’s Capitol city... homeless camps there too. Then through Corvallis, a college town. MORE tent encampments crammed under overpasses. I saw two little children standing outside one tent.

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What concerns me beyond this instant poverty, are any potential solutions, which I cannot foresee. Folks are being squeezed out of their homes—and out of society—faster than new jobs and affordable structures are being created. Where does this end? People have to live SOMEWHERE, so chasing them off doesn’t solve anything.

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I’m so glad my daughter is established, with a steady career and a solid roof over her head. The same goes for myself. We’re both (relatively) safe. But I have NEVER seen so many Oregonians living in squalor before. The unemployment figures don’t correspond with the homelessness figures. It’s about the cost of available housing... and rent. Which is going nowhere but up.

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Sorry for the downer post, but it worries me. And if it can happen in Oregon, it can happen where you live too.

THE MAN THAT SAT IN FRONT OF KENNEDY IN DALLAS

COOL AD

1943 • Over 80,000 at Kaiser Shipyard to see the Alazon Bay named by The Roosevelt’s

JOHNNY IN A SECURE VAULT WITH THE REMAINING SHOWS