When President Joe Biden flew into Oregon to try to shore up his party’s nominee for governor he would not have had far to look to see the problem.
He spent Friday night at the luxury Duniway Hotel in downtown Portland, a property at risk of foreclosure as visitors stay away from the city center.
And if he had taken a morning stroll, he could have seen for himself the results of the 2020 decision to decriminalize hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
The casualties were everywhere. Two blocks from the hotel lobby a man was folded up on a street corner, his body draped around a rolled-up sleeping bag.
Shoppers pretended not to notice his unconscious figure as they headed towards a Nordstrom department store.
‘You walk with blinders,’ said Charlene, a 21-year-old student, who carried a Zara bag. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t come here at all.’
Two blocks further on, a woman covered in a gray robe stood frozen at a drinking fountain, her clothing and drug-induced turning her into a living statue.
In a small city center park, morning dog walkers strolled past benches filled with droop-headed drug users.
One man flattened a piece of foil before putting a lighter to it, and inhaling the results through a pipe in plain view of a children’s playground.
A man slumps on the sidewalk in downtown Portland, Oregon. Homelessness, drugs and crime are dominating the contest to elect the state’s next governor. A Republican candidate with a law-and-order message has eased ahead in the polls
Businesses say they are losing custom because tourists are staying away and shoppers are too scared to venture into the city center. They say customers fear for their safety as they enter bars and restaurants
The decriminalization of hard drugs is blamed by many for changing the tone of the city. Drugs are on open display
Clusters of tents dot down town Portland. Critics of the city say it has taken a ‘laissez faire’ attitude to drug users
This is Portland, where hipsters line up for at Voodoo Donuts for their world famous confections next to an abandoned theater where rake-thin drug users sit on the sidewalk waiting for their next fix – or for their last one to wear off.
The hotels are near empty and restaurant owners say their customers don’t feel safe.
A coffeeshop where an oat milk latte would sell for $5 is closed, its doorway filled with sleeping bodies and the scent or urine in the morning.
Portland set a record for murders last year. It reported 90 homicides – shattering the previous high of 66 – and could be about to surpass it this year.
Such is the level of anger that liberal Oregon could be about to do the unthinkable and elect its first Republican governor since 1982.
The Democratic candidate Linda Kotek has seen a 16-point win for Biden two years ago eaten away by independent candidate Betsy Johnson who has described how the City of Roses has become a ‘city of roaches.’
Kotek helped introduce legislation that placed restrictions on what the state’s cities could do to remove homeless people from the streets, at about the same time that hard drugs were decriminalized.
As a result Christine Drazan, the Republican candidate, has seized on anger and resentment at the way downtown has filled with homeless encampments and drug casualties.
‘They just don’t seem to get it,’ she says in a 30-second ad released this week. ‘It’s time for a change, like declaring homelessness the emergency that it is.’
A woman fills her bottle from a fountain in downtown Portland. She moves slowly, looking like a living statue
Street sleepers dot the Pearl District, known for its fancy restaurants and shops but which is hit hardest by the problems
Trash collects around the city with the authorities apparently powerless to do anything about it
Rosemary Silen, 77, said she rarely ventured into downtown Portland since a visit when she returned to her parked car to find a bullet hole in the side paneling. She aired her concerns at a forum for independent candidate Betsy Johnson
On Monday morning, 77-year-old Rosemary Silen was making a rare foray into downtown.
She used to love visiting Powell’s City of Books. That was until she parked her car one time only to return and find a bullet hole in its side paneling.
‘I could have been in it,’ she said. ‘I told my kids what had happened and they told me not to come here any more.’
Another time, she said she had pointed out what she thought was dog poop on the sidewalk to her friend. ‘That’s not from a dog,’ came the response.
She was visiting to hear Johnson make her pitch for more policing and an end to the state and city government’s woke policies.
‘Oregonians I think are compassionate and kind and empathetic people,’ she told DailyMail.com ‘They have gotten this laissez faire attitude about live anywhere, do anything.
She said she had quit the Democratic Party to run as independent because it had become ‘too weird.’
‘We have taken woke to an exponential extreme and I think that’s an exacerbating factor,’ she said after a discussion with restaurant and bar owners who said their businesses were suffering.
One man described how his store had shut down after it had been broken into 17 times. A restaurateur said her customers simply did not feel safe. And all of them said tourists were staying away.
Later that day a nearby Starbucks announced it was closing permanently because of safety concerns.
Betsy Johnson has upended the race to be governor. The former Democrat is running as an independent and has gained enough of a following to impact the outcome. ‘We have taken woke to an exponential extreme,’ she told DailyMail.com
Pollsters say the Oregon governor’s race is now a toss up between the Democratic nominee Linda Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan, who has developed a narrow lead. No Republican has won since 1982
Rolling averages of polls suggest Drazan enjoys a narrow lead over Democratic Party candidate Tina Kotek, like this survey published recently by Emerson College Polling
President Joe Biden spent two days in Portland, Oregon, in an effort to stop the state electing its first Republican governor in 40 years. He talked up his administration’s economic agenda but not discuss drugs or homelessness
James Posey has lived in Portland for 40 years. The black community leader said he could see drug deals from his front porch
The city was hit by violence in 2020, amid nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Fortifications still surround the federal courthouse, a reminder of the Molotov cocktails that flew through the air.
Across town, in a gentrifying neighborhood, James Posey, a black community leader, said he could date the change to the start of the pandemic. As the city closed down, drug restrictions were lifted and a different population moved in.
‘Why did we decide to do this? This has become a Mecca for people want to live like this,’ he said.
He said he did not want to see a Republican take power, but could not bring himself to vote Democrat this time around.
Policing had fallen by the wayside, he continued.
‘They want to bill themselves as progressive. They want to see themselves as out in front of all the racism,’ he said. ‘But at the end of the day, we’ve seen this this whole state with a precipitous decline in the quality of life.’
From his porch, near Dawson park, he can watch cars pull up, buy drugs and move on in seconds. All in front of a Baptist church.
Almost on cue, half a block away a black sedan with tinted windows stopped in the middle of the street. A mini-skirted woman leaned through the window before strolling slowly to a parked car to collect something.
Meanwhile, a gaggle of men in ragged clothes clustered together, sharing around a small wrap of meth.
A recent poll found that a whopping 82 percent of voters in Portland want more police on the beat, cleaning up streets and making the city safer.
Police say they are doing their best but there is only so much they can do when political leaders shy from tough decisions.
Loretta Guzman, 52, knows what happens when you try to support the police. Her coffeeshop was hit by vandals after she publicized a ‘Coffee with a Cop’ event.
She said her hope had been for officers to hear the complaints of residents who are tired of living with crime.
Loretta Guzman’s coffee shop was attacked hours before she was due to host a ‘Coffee with a Cop’ event. She said she was now politically homeless as the state grapples with crime
Work continues on repairing damaged done to the Bison Coffee House. Paint was sprayed through broken windows
‘Some are scared. Some are mad or sad, some feel helpless,’ she said.
‘Some feel like they have no voice. Nobody’s listening to them. They’re tired, they’re ready for change.
Her security cameras captured the attack, showing six hooded figures lining up in front of her storefront in the early hours. They pause, as if conferring on their plan.
Then they begin pounding on the windows with clubs. Something breaks and a figure steps forward with what looks like a fire extinguisher, shooting a stream of white paint through the broken window.
He or she moves moves to a second window.
At that point they are startled. They turn to run.
One of Guzman’s neighbors had been woken by the noise and appeared on the scene with a handgun.
‘I was just numb,’ said Guzman, who arrived minutes later, crunching over broken glass.
Inside she was confronted by devastation. The paint had coated Native American art and matted the fur of a huge bison head.
An encampment on 33rd Drive stretches for a mile of broken down RVs, cars and trucks
The cleanup goes on two weeks later. Guzman plans to install bulletproof glass.
From her coffeeshop, it is a short drive to a homeless encampment. Broken down RVs, tents built from shopping carts and cars without wheels line a mile-long stretch of 33rd Drive.
She said years of mismanagement had blighted the city, and turned her own views upside down. ‘I’m politically homeless,’ said a woman who had once backed socialist Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
‘There’s no consequences. Those who do go to jail, they get right back out,’ she said.
‘They’re free to sit on the street and shoot right up up right. They’re free to stand there. Right there and smoke right in front of you.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk