Groups work to move homeless across downtown
The local Chamber of Commerce is working on a strategy to
move homeless youth downtown from SW 3rd and Stark to SW 5th and Alder.
It’s thought that nearly 60 staffers from City Hall,
nonprofits and the business community will be working on the plan. It’s the
group’s goal to create a process that will take somewhere in the ballpark of
400 hours to develop, several public hearings and create a divided public.
“It’s our hope that the new law created through this process
will be in place for 16 months before being ruled unconstitutional,” says one
business rep. “That’s four months longer than the first three plans we came up
with. We’ll take it.”
Businesses are upset because the City of Portland doesn’t
currently have sunset laws for homeless youth that represent a certain “dark”
culture.
A spokesperson for My Shelter Is Better Than Yours, a
nonprofit working with homeless adults, says they’ve recently become experts on
homeless youth who hop trains and listen to punk rock. “They’re devil
worshippers. We want them out!”
Another nonprofit who works to end poverty overseas says
they feel more comfortable in places like Iraq than downtown Portland. They’ve
recently hired the Pinkerton’s to run the tramps out of town and to keep the
riffraff off their doorsteps.
Food cart owners have promised that if something isn’t done
soon they will form a vigilante group and take the law into their own
heads.
Homeless youth say they plan to protest by playing jug music
12 hours a day in high-traffic areas with their dogs. “We’ll also get really
high,” said one youth.
Private security companies who provide security downtown for
a budget-strapped police bureau declined to comment on the new policy, saying
only, “We’re open for business.”
Business group gives anti-business workshop at conference
A Portland business group recently put on a workshop titled,
“Why Portland sucks for business” at a national conference meant to recruit new
businesses to the area.
The workshop focused on the pitfalls of living in a city
full of liberals and communist electives.
“We’re really upset that Portland electives don’t do a
better job at attracting businesses to Portland,” says one of the workshop
presenters. “We travel around the country letting people know that our streets
are overrun with hoodlums. It’s astonishing to us why people don’t want to come
here to do business. We blame the local government for spending so much money
on social programs and not enough money on doing exactly what we want them to
do.”
Asked why there are not more Fortune 500 companies in
Portland, a spokesperson for the business group says, “It’s clearly the lack of
compassion for what big business can give back to the community.”
“We hate it in Portland,” said one business executive who
traveled with the group. “The people are so liberal it makes me sick. We’re
going to go back and demand that City Hall does more to recruit new business to
the region. If they aren’t with us, they’re against us.”
This article is part of Street Roots’ annual satire edition released each year for April Fools Day.
This article appears in 2013-04-01.