Portland has become one of the favorite whipping boys of the right. Oh, how they love to make shit up about Portland.

Our shuttle driver yesterday said that now in Portland if a homeless person is camping in your backyard 'you can't make them leave!'

My BS detector went off. No surprise, this is FALSE.

You can camp on private property with permission. Otherwise, trespass laws can be enforced against you. Camping on public property is prohibited under many city and county ordinances, and on state lands under state law.

oregonlawhelp.org: Home | Oregon Law Help

Like so many cities, Portland does have a serious homelessness problem. Salt Lake City, here in Utah where I live, liked to claim that they didn't have a homeless problem, and it was true for a while. But no more. I recently walked the downtown streets and saw many homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks.

Back in 1985 when I was doing medic training at a hospital in Phoenix, the staff were complaining that other cities were buying bus tickets to Phoenix for the homeless. This was true. And this has been going on for decades.

theguardian.com - Bussed out america moves homeless people country study

I recently got home from a month in Europe where the homelessness problem seems less severe. I did see a few people sleeping on the streets in London. In Paris and Madrid it seemed almost non-existent and we did a lot of walking around these cities. There were a few pan handlers but they were very unobtrusive and simply held out a hand or cup and we were never badgered by them in any way. I don't recall seeing anyone walking the streets and raving madly, as I sometimes see in our cities.

I'm not sure why we perceived it to be less of a problem in these European cities, because statistically the rates don't seem to be very different.

homelesshub.ca - Homelessness europe and united states comparison prevalence and public opinion)%20and%20Belgium%20(3.4%25).

So, it is clearly a widespread and pernicious problem, but to hear the righties, it is entirely a woke/liberal/left/Democratic problem. And Trump is going to fix it!