Portland needs to fully fund Portland Street Response citywide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Within 60 days, I would require the plan and budget and complete the expansion within one year. At the same time, let’s implement the 911 call-allocation recommendations so police and Portland Street Response are sent to the calls they are equipped to handle.
There are many positions that are funded and not filled, and those should be filled before more funding for officers is attached. And we need to change, as the 911 call-allocations recommendations state, the way calls are routed. Armed officers don’t need to be sent to most welfare checks, or repeat false alarms, or routine unattended deaths. The time saved from implementing these recommendations should be assessed before we look at adding funding for officers.
Camp Removals
When the City, like in a camp sweep, causes the disruption, it has an obligation to fix it. If a camp creates an immediate safety or access problem, removal may be necessary. But people need somewhere real to go, and the City cannot destroy existing connections to services in the process – a key tenet of my Continuity of Care proposal.
