The homeless crisis in riot-torn Portland, Oregon, is now turning residential areas into what one resident called a “nightmare neighborhood.”
Homelessness has increased in southeast Portland, according to KGW-TV.
“I’m living in a nightmare neighborhood,” said Christina Hartnett.
“I want to cry. I just want my house back,” Hartnett, who has lived in the area for about five years, said. “My lawn is now becoming a public bathroom.”
“It is scary. When you have grown men meth raging in your driveway, the last thing I feel safe doing is going out and saying ‘Hey, can you please move so I can go to work?’” she said.
City officials, including the police, do not respond, she and neighbor David Berkson said.
“So far no one has come to help us. No one has come to help us,” Berkson said, adding, “It’s really scary.’
“It is going to take one of us getting severely hurt or killed before they will do anything to come help us,” Hartnett said.
City officials said they are going down a list, and there were 272 homeless camps that were a greater risk than the one in Hartnett’s neighborhood.
Have cities like Portland lost all control?
“I have to report from like four different bureaus then I have to report that report to a report and then I have to report that report to a second report and it’s the only way to get any kind of traction,” Hartnett said
Nearby businesses are also affected.
“I’ve found people standing there in their underwear scrubbing up in the sink in a sports bar in the bathroom,” Cliff Perce who works at Bucket Brigade Sports Bar & Restaurant, said.
“It unnerves our customers when they pull in and see people overdosing on the sidewalks out in front of our restaurant,” he said.
One neighbor interviewed who was identified only as Tess said she boarded up her own front door after homeless individuals broke its windows.
Brendan Harvey, who is a resident and was once homeless, said neighbors “have a right to be upset.”
“I feel like it’s just gotten a lot bolder, more rash, people aren’t afraid to do things that have to do with criminality,” he said.
