With the homelessness crisis cited among their top concerns, Oregon voters are taking note of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s declaration of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the state’s largest city.
Oregon has among the highest homeless populations in the nation per capita. According to DHM Research, 9 of 10 voters statewide identify homelessness as a “very big problem” as Election Day draws near.
In the Portland metropolitan area alone, an estimated 6,000 people are experiencing homelessness, according to Multnomah County’s 2022 point-in-time count, an annual census of the unhoused.
“The magnitude and the depth of the homeless crisis in our city is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe,” Wheeler said in an Oct. 26 city council meeting….