Maybe Bud Clark Commons at $47 million will draw some away from SE to NW. Just living in Portland now has become the disturbing pattern.

Bush's fault. No Doubt. Now that he's gone, Stump town city hall just needs to provide more free shelter, food, transportation, storage, classes, etc; and stump town city hall can solve world homelessness and hunger. If only it didn't seem to attract folks from all over the country and world looking to retire young. If only folks on Jack's Blog would not mouth off against city hall's utopian dreams. What do these bloggers have against communism, anyways? City hall only aims to make them like it...or else.

How is that 10-year plan to increase homelessness coming along?

It's called the 'law of unintended consequences' City of Portland and it is real.

Notice that almost all cities on the list are college towns. Does that mean anything? I'd venture to say that an environment welcoming of transient population plays a big role.

On that note, shocked to find that the downtown/university area of Eugene is not on the list.

I was the victim of a car prowl and a burglary in SW Portland, less than mile from Lewis & Clark College. It's not just a problem in Buckman.

Many crimes go unreported: unless you're filing an insurance claim, there's very little to gain from reporting it.

Mister Tee, please understand that reporting a crime will almost always increase your insurance premium and reduce your property value.

I wonder if the FBI considers that result when tabulating their crime reports?

I wonder why San Francisco has been more successful in curbing homelessness.

Portland police: "Property crime is only a problem down there because of all the property criminals in the area. See? Case closed."

Benjamin:

SF successful in curbing homelessness? I don't think so.

I highlighted the build-up of the problem in a comment section last week. None of it is surprising: it is a mere matter of shifting the consequence(s) to a different victim pool. Rotate it enough and the recursiveness will confuse most, but not all.

I wonder why San Francisco has been more successful in curbing homelessness.

That's why San Francisco has BART: Give the homeless a one-way train ticket to their choice of Oakland or San Jose.

Just as Portland gave many a one-way ticket on MAX from downtown to Rockwood, just outside Portland city limits (in Gresham's city limits).

Solution solved, homelessness is not a problem within the city.

Graffiti and running shoes hanging on utility lines might be a clue.....or something.

The number of counted homeless in San Francisco had declined from 8,640 in 2002 to 6,455 in 2011. Percentage of chronically homeless has shown a particularly big drop. Data available here: http://www.sfhsa.org/1047.htm. News report on the latest homeless count: http://www.mercurynews.com/rss/ci_18095103?source=rss.

And exactly how does one take an accurate census of the homeless? Homeless people are pretty much invisible non-citizens. That's why social/economic engineering policies that result in the turnover of property ownership by driving people to ruin or homelessness go pretty much unnoticed... the casualties basically disappear and don't create the kind of international protest that bodies would.