How to destroy a city

 Victoria Taft:

You can’t say Portland had good intentions because they should have known that what they were trying to do wouldn’t “solve” the drug and homeless problems in the metro areas. Free-wheeling drugs and government tents have never worked anywhere they’ve been tried. Never. Not in San Francisco, not in Los Angeles, not in San Diego, and not in Seattle. But the we’re-smarter-than-you set just threw millions more at it, ignoring that Portland doesn’t just have a homeless problem; it’s got a drug problem. And predictably, things are worse.

Oregonians can blame their “progressive” leaders, George Soros, and the voters staring back at them in mirrors for this mess.

The governmental equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle — state progressives, Multnomah county actors, and Portland activists — have worked together to dispirit the people through their lawlessness, destroy their once beautiful metro area with tents and bodies strewn about, and make it a hospitable place, as a local photographer put it, “for people to come to our city to kill themselves.”

These progressives have chased out several retailers. On Monday, Pacific Northwest outdoor outfitter REI told its members it would close its doors in NW downtown, citing break-ins and thefts.
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Soros has had a hand in Portland’s decline. Soros’s Drug Policy Alliance, on whose board he sits, was the force behind a measure passed by Oregon voters in 2020 to decriminalize hard drugs. Measure 110 allows crackheads to carry a personal amount of hard drugs. So, of course, they’re always high. Rarely is anyone arrested for drug possession because that’s racist or inequitable. They’re let off with a ticket and a promise to go to state-paid drug counseling that doesn’t exist to any great degree yet, though the state claims it’s helped 60,000 drug addicts.
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Soros’s hollowing out of the tenets of civil society had a supporting cast of useful idiots. Kassandra Frederique, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, called Measure 110 a blow to the so-called war on drugs. “In a historic, paradigm-shifting win and arguably the biggest blow to the war on drugs to date, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, the nation’s first all-drug decriminalization measure.” She predicted it would become a model. It’s a disaster.

Another Soros acolyte, Kayse Jama of Unite Oregon, said that decriminalizing drugs in the election following the Summer of Love riots would help end “systems of oppression.” If “ending systems of oppression” means bodies lying on the ground from drug overdoses, then mission accomplished.
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Drug and alcohol counselor Ken Dahlgren spends his time on the streets with addicts, which describes most homeless people. He said if money solved this problem then Oregon would have solved it long ago. Instead, “The fact is, over the last seven years since the Joint Office of Homeless Services was established, our crisis has gone through the roof. So, as more money is poured into solving this problem, the problem continues to grow, which means money isn’t the solution.”
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 It is happening from Seattle to San Diego.  Liberal city leaders do not seem to have a clue as to the cause of their city's demise.  It is a shame that city officials and voters who elect them in these cities are so out of touch with reality.  The Soros answer to the cities' problems just is not working and it appears to be making things worse.