Portland residents reveal how quality of life has disintegrated thanks to drug addicts and crime

Portland homeowner Julia McConnell is no economist, but she knows that the Pacific Northwest city’s current homeless crisis isn’t good for business.

‘You can’t run a business when people are pooping on your front porch,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘Nor when they’re doing drugs in your doorway.

‘You can’t do business when patrons feel unsafe coming onto your property. It’s not possible.’

Seeing addicts brazenly shoot up in public in the middle of the day has become commonplace as the city refuses to crackdown on the problem, according to residents 

Encampments or tent cities where the homeless congregate have popped up all over the city, turning neighborhoods into centers for drug use, violence and prostitution

McConnell has seen the quality of life in the ‘City of Roses’ disintegrate over the last few years as the homeless and the drug addicted have taken over the city. 

She’s seen Oregon’s largest city go from a kooky progressive place with great restaurants and reliable public transportation to a ‘post-apocalyptic’ hellscape where despite a high tax rate, city services always fall short.

‘Our Portland neighborhoods suffer from shootings, toxic waste, profoundly ill drug addicts, fires, a severe lack of police protection and response, virtually no access to drug treatment by those who seek it, and the closure of businesses that can no longer survive rampant shoplifting,’ she said.

Earlier this month, Walmart announced that they were pulling up stakes and moving out of Portland.

‘We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S. and unfortunately some do not meet our financial expectations,’ Walmart said in its announcement. 

‘While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped.’

Some believe that the move was political, a way for the conservative Walton family to stick it to a liberal city that has fallen on hard times.

But Nick Perius, 34, who works at Walmart’s the Southeast Portland location that is now set to shut on March 24, argued that it’s about economics, not ideology.

He also believes the outlet is shutting down because of uncontrolled shoplifting.

‘It’s definitely the theft,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing political about it.’

The shoplifting has been fueled by runaway drug abuse after Oregon voted to decriminalize recreational drugs in 2020 – a law referred to as Measure 110.

The situation has become so dire, retail giant Walmart announced last month that it would be pulling up stakes and moving out of Portland after uncontrolled shoplifting and criminal activity has hurt its business. The Eastport Plaza Walmarth is due to shut its doors at the end of March 

Residents say the rampant shoplifting at Walmart and other retail stores has been fueled by runaway drug abuse after Oregon voted to decriminalize recreational drugs in 2020

One Walmart employee told DailyMail.com the retailer’s decision to close its doors on March 24 is about economics, not ideology

Perius said that he spends his morning picking up hypodermic needles and pieces of tinfoil from addicts who use the parking lot as a place to get high.

‘I’ve seen drug dealing out of cars, I’ve seen people breaking into cars. I’ve seen a lot,’ he said.

‘I’ve cleaned up boxes of needles and countless amounts of tinfoil for whatever they use that for.’

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, customers and shoplifters continued to stream in and out of the store.

Sharita Cejalvo, 59, paused shopping with her mother at the Eastport Plaza Walmart to answer questions about the store’s closure.

Homeowner Julia McConnell believes the government is overwhelmed by the crisis and is now relying on citizens to deal with the problem 

She agreed with Perius that rampant theft caused the big box retailer to leave Portland.

‘It’s all the theft. It’s horrible,’ she said. ‘You can’t do anything about it. All [security] can do is follow the people around. [Thieves] even take the lock cases and they walk out.’

‘No rules apply anymore,’ she said. 

Cejalvo works for a Rite Aid in the area and said she has witnessed the same problem there.

Last year, that location alone saw $537,000 in merchandise walk out the door in the hands of shoplifters, more than double the $162,000 in losses the outlet faced in 2021.

Cejavlo put the blame on the city’s government for not cracking down on the homeless and drug addicts.

‘I think they need to quit enabling people and get them off their butts,’ she said. ‘They need to put them in work camps.’

Oregon politicians are going in a different direction, however.

Recently, the Oregon legislature introduced a bill that would dole out a $1,000 stipend for the homeless.

The trial program would give 1,000 families that struggle with homelessness that amount each month for housing at a price tag of $2million.

Cejavlo, however, is skeptical. 

Walmart shopper Sharita Cejalvo, 59, told DailyMail.com the shoplifting has gotten so out of hand, the store’s security and loss prevention measures have become virtually ineffective 

When DailyMail.com visited the store last week, shoplifters continued to stream in and out of the store, with one man seen brazenly walking out with a merchandise bundled in a bed sheet 

Thousands of homeless people have flooded Portland’s neighborhoods. The homeless population has jumped 50% since 2019, according to Multnomah County statistics

‘There are people who need help, but 75 per cent of the homeless don’t want to work,’ she said. ‘They want to live on the street.’

She also doesn’t believe it will solve the retail theft problem.

‘They’re still going to steal,’ she added. ‘I hate to sound so critical, but I’m just so sick of it.’

Jessi Periman, 28, and her fiancé Aaron Pakerman, 30, stood outside the Walmart after shopping, waiting for their neighbor to give them a ride.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I’ve been shopping here for the last three and a half – four years. It’s always been like this. People steal from this place all the time. 

Jessi Periman, 28, and her fiancé Aaron Pakerman, 30,  who were shopping at Walmart said it Portland is’going to hell in a handbasket’ 

‘Yesterday, two people walked out with a flat-screen TV. That guy over there was shoplifting.’

She pointed to a man with merchandise bundled in a bed sheet running out the door being chased by a security guard. 

The guard gave up before the two reached the parking lot. The shoplifter paused for a moment to bum a cigarette off a shopper on her way into the store and then continued out of the shopping center.

‘It’s going to hell in a handbasket,’ Periman said of Portland.

Developer Dustin Michael Miller, who grew up in the city, told DailyMail.com he is also considering leaving the city altogether.

‘I’ve seen this city come up 40 years ago. It was just kind of a small place and then all of a sudden about 20 years ago became a really exciting place,’ he said.

‘A lot of people were moving here and you know, this downtown scene was just thriving, and all of a sudden things started to take a turn. 

‘It’s just getting worse and worse each year to where you just don’t feel safe at our offices anymore. It’s just sad.’

His company Luminecient, which is located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, was recently in the crossfire of a shooting. He’s also seen homeless people armed with weapons.

‘There was somebody walking down the street and they have an axe in their hand. It’s just insane. This is like reminds me of some post-apocalyptic nightmare. It’s like Mad Max. They have this whole city occupied,’ he said.

Thousands of homeless people have flooded Portland’s neighborhoods over the last couple of years. 

The city has done nothing to crack down on the homeless and drug addicts taking over the city that is now experiencing an uptick in shootings, toxic waste, a severe lack of police protection and response and virtually no access to drug treatment by those who seek it

Some disgruntled residents who spoke to DailyMail.com about the crisis said they now spend mornings picking up hypodermic needles and pieces of tinfoil from addicts who use the parking lot as a place to get high

Despite the spike in crime and loss of businesses that are driving down the quality of life in the PDX, the government refuses to roll back its progressive policies 

The homeless population has jumped 50 per cent since 2019, according to Multnomah County statistics.

Neighborhoods in the Southeast part of the city have been inundated by tent cities and derelict vans or RVs where the homeless congregate, becoming centers for drug use, violence and prostitution. 

On Northeast 33rd Street near Marine Drive, in the shadow of the Portland International Airport, a mile-long stretch of the road has been taken over by dilapidated RVs, gutted cars and garbage.

Now, city leaders want to get rid of these disease-ridden squats and start their own tent villages.

‘Far too many in our city are living in dangerous and squalid conditions this is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe for our unsheltered neighbors and it also creates public health safety and livability concerns for the entire community,’ mayor Ted Wheeler said, adding that 94 per cent of city residents think that homelessness is the number one problem.

He ordered a crackdown on encampments near dangerous roads. A staggering 70% of all pedestrians killed last year in vehicle accidents in the city were homeless 

Now, Portland has plans to sink $27million into tent cities called Safe Rest Villages, or SRVs, with the idea that government-run encampments will better channel the drug-addicted and the mentally ill toward treatment.

But the only difference that will make, McConnell believes is that ‘illegal camping will become sanctioned camping’.

Inevitably, she added, the problems in the campsites bleed into the neighborhoods.

‘We have already seen such a huge increase in crime. We have drug addicts that are literally everywhere shooting up, doing fentanyl. Homes are being broken into.

‘Cars are being stolen. We no longer have the police come when a car is stolen.’

She said that the government has been overwhelmed by the problem and now relies on citizens to deal with the problem.

Residents have complained of drug addicts that are now seen shooting up, even doing fentanyl, in almost all corners of the city, at all hours of the day 

Previously hailed as the ‘crown jewel of the West’ for its trendy art and food scenes, the city’s Downtown was in markedly better condition just a few years ago

Now, nearly three years later, the city once touted for its coastal valleys and delicate pinot noir grape has become unrecognizable, now overrun by drug addicts and homeless individuals

‘One time I called 911 because someone was out cold with fentanyl and I didn’t know if they were alive or dead,’ she said. 

‘Then I was asked if I feel comfortable trying to wake up the person myself.

‘You don’t know how that person is going to react and, in fact, when police and fire did respond and woke him up, he immediately lashed out.’

Portland homeless activist April, who declined to give her real name, said that putting people into subsidized apartments is the only solution.

She attended a recent City Council meeting with a group of fellow activists who eventually became disruptive and were ejected from the chamber. They left City Hall after a shoving match with security guards.

The disagreement in the approach comes back to Portland’s lefty reputation. It has long been a hotbed of radical politics.

April lamented the ‘prosperity gospel bulls**t’ and summed things up by saying, ‘Living under capitalism f***ing sucks.’

‘I could be part of society. That’s easy. It’s easy to sell your time to someone. Selling your work to someone for money is easy,’ said Jake Reel, 32, who used to work in IT, but now lives out of a white van on Southeast Powell Boulevard, in a homeless encampment next to a weathered RV.

A three-foot pile of trash sat next to the van with old food containers, clothing, hypodermic needles, sanitary napkins, scattered crayons, an old car battery and little pieces of tinfoil littered the ground.

He spent a couple of minutes in the cold, rainy Pacific Northwest weather trying to jerry-rig a glass marijuana pipe with a pair of pliers before going back into his van with friends. He said he chooses this life instead.

‘I love this community. When I step out of this van, I know the people that I’m dealing with. They’re not the best people in the world, actually, they’re snakes, liars and thieves, but I know what they are.’

Still, he says that he would like to be inside and hoped the city could provide him with housing.

Neighborhoods are now inundated with derelict vans or RVs. Jake Reel, 32, (left) who used to work in IT, now lives out of a white van on Southeast Powell Boulevard, in a homeless encampment next to a weathered RV. He told DailyMail.com he prefers this life

Instead of enacting policies to offset the issue, Oregon legislature recently introduced a bill that would dole out a $1,000 stipend for homeless families

Commercial real estate developer Vanessa Sturgeon, the president of TMT Development, said people like Reel aren’t ready for housing.

‘I don’t think that more housing is a solution to the homeless problem, and I think that most Portlanders agree with that sentiment,’ she said. 

‘What will happen over and over again is that we will provide housing units and very shortly thereafter the units will be destroyed. They will be in condemnable condition mostly through fire and flood.’

She said that most of the homeless suffer from mental health problems and are not getting the services they need so that they can live on their own.

‘People are not prepared,’ she said. ‘They’re not ready to live on their own in a unit because they don’t have adequate services to do so.’

City Fire Commissioner Rene Gonzalez said that more than being a bastion of lefty politics, Portland had a reputation for ‘livability.’

‘That was our greatest strength,’ he said. ‘For most of my adult life, you didn’t move to Portland to get uber-wealthy or to become famous. You came here to live and to raise children and build a life.’

But that’s not the case anymore.

The post-pandemic fallout has been disastrous for Portland’s economy. Data shows that 12,691 people fled Multnomah County, where Portland sits in the last year, a $117million loss in income to neighboring Clark County.

With Portland’s aging population, it’s unlikely new births are going to make that up anytime soon. 

Though job growth has been a robust 5.4% for the city – outpacing the 4% with the rest of the country – businesses face many headwinds.

Local leaders are sharing strategies for solving the crime and livability issues, as they threaten to spill over into bordering counties, where public opinion is generally more conservative

Downtown and the Center City, two major business districts, look empty during work hours. Foot traffic in these districts is off a whopping 30% from before the pandemic.

Empty storefronts and other retail spaces sit empty – vacancy rates have doubled since 2019 – a trend that the Portland Business Alliance said would continue for at least the next decade.

Certainly, work-from-home and e-commerce have not helped bricks and mortar stores nationwide, but Portland businesses took on an additional 32% increase in local taxes to compound the pain.

‘People and businesses vote with their feet, and they’re not voting for Portland, the city or the region, the way they have in the recent past,’ according to the Portland Business Alliances annual report.

‘The decline in property tax receipts has implications for local government budgets that could portend scarcity decision making in the future,’ the group wrote. Property taxes bring in nearly $300 million to fund Portland’s progressive programs, but that took a 5% haircut in 2022 down to $280 million.

Despite the spike in crime and loss of businesses that are driving down the quality of life in the PDX no one wants to roll back its progressive policies.

‘It’s really frustrating as a business owner and developer,’ said Miller. ‘We’re seeing the city just fall apart.’