I don’t think housing can “solve” drug addiction. However, there are factors that have been shown to contribute to addiction from homelessness. Less stability, regular trauma, mental health, etc causes all of these things to interact and exasperate each other.
The frustrating part is that voters keep telling the city, county, and state to invest in all of these areas. Measure 110 was supposed to create more space to have drug addiction treated, and there was no follow through. Now, further existing infrastructure is closing with no replacement. Similarly with housing, voters overwhelmingly keep calling for housing solutions, but any progress turns into new vendor procurement, deals with developers that don’t follow through, and half baked plans that don’t materialize.
Also, I think it’s important to remember that a lot of drug addiction happens amongst the housed. We just don’t see it. But as our coworker who is struggling falls apart, loses their job, and times get tough the more likely they will be the one moving from pain pills at home to fentanyl in the streets.
I’m glad some of the electeds are at least acting like they are as frustrated as I am. I hope they actually do something about it. (thought the need for national reform on both housing and drug addiction also can’t be ignored).
The admins finally responded after a few days, but by then I had already removed the other user as a mod (the method to do so is a bit hidden).
Currently there are two mods, myself and @absolutebeginner@lemmy.ml who created this community, but has since deleted all their posts and hasn’t posted again in years. In order to remove a mod though you need to click into a post they made. With no posts, I can’t remove absolutebeginner even if I wanted to.
There’s a fediverse ride on July 30th: https://www.shift2bikes.org/calendar/event-17449
This is great. I hope they add more harm reduction mechanisms for drug users. I would also like to see safe injection sites, safety testing, and even sanctioned sale of doses if it mean less deaths.
All of that depends on the state actually sending out funding as outlined in measure 110 though. Instead they seem to believe that treating people with a disease as criminals is more important than actually getting them the help they need. I hope this program helps counteract that.
Just because a deterrent isn’t the “number one reason” doesn’t mean that it’s a bad deterrent. If this is helping some people that’s great. It’s not like someone is going to go pick this stuff up having never done the drug before, and even if that did happen then I’m pretty sure the clinic would be working to dissuade them from trying it.
Weird, it always works for me. Here is an archive someone made of the full article: https://archive.ph/bpXJ9
What’s happening with PSR is so frustrating. I had a coworker ask me the other day what he should do to get help for an unhoused guy who seemed to be in distress but not need an ambulance. The police weren’t really the right answer (the unhoused guy wasn’t doing anything), but my coworker wanted someone to go talk to him. PSR was the only answer we could find for him to call.
Regardless of people’s positions on funding the police, regardless on their complaints on addressing the symptoms of poverty, I can’t understand why anyone would not want a group of people to be on call to help with these types of situations. Let the police tend to other priorities.
PSR is a really popular program in Portland. Most people want it expanded. A single city councilor leading it to failure makes me angry.
My politics don’t really fit in a tidy box, and I’m not really interested in wielding my personal ideology to craft this space (beyond rejecting hate). As we figure out what this place will be I hope we can work together to make it a space for those that use it. As we need more mods and new perspectives we should add those as well.
For transparency though, I am of course biased (like everyone). I was born and raised in Portland. I’m a union member. I’m middle aged. I’m socially and fiscally far-left, but I’m also a bit of an individualist who loves freedom and guns. So, if I start wielding power to enforce those ideas (again beyond rejecting hate) then call me out on it.
El juego parece muy divertido. Estoy feliz de ver que regresan más actividades al aire libre a las calles de Portland.