Portland Parks Goes DEFCON 5 On Madrona Park To Stop Illegal Campsites
Used needles and other sharp objects lie on top of the soil at Madrona Park, but was this the solution that was really needed? Of course, illegal camping and what goes on beneath the trees at night has been a real problem for Portland within the last 5-10 years. However, was ripping the trees out of the ground the solution that was wanted or needed?
As you can see, an illegal campsite notice is displayed on a tree, which is no doubt to keep the actions within guidelines and/or laws. However, nobody really knew about what happened here until the work was completed. Residents were shocked to wake up and walk through the park, only to find that trees had literally been ripped out of the ground.
Strangely enough, this exact site only just had new trees planted in 2020 in partnership with Adidas, so why did the powers that be decide that 3 years was now long enough and it was time to go scorched earth!?
On the other hand, this kind of solution is clearly going to stop homeless encampments and drug use within the area – but surely it will just drive it to another location. In its current state – Madrona park now seems to be almost unuseable for everyone, or at least a place you probably wouldn’t consider going to since it doesn’t look very appealing anymore.
Critics of the policy have highlighted that many of these trees are at least 50 years old and would take a very long time to regrow. Furthermore, there is now soil erosion, which would make it difficult to restore the park to it’s natural state.
Some also argue that if people really want to camp in this site, it would only take them a couple of hours to set everything back up and get started again. Whereas the trees on the other hands, would take many, many years to regrow from scratch.
I’d rather people have “illegal campsites” than dirty air.
And also, should it be a illegal? Like, we did t start out with houses and apartments, we used caves, canopies, tense, etc. I get the people don’t like the drugs and everything, but that’s more of a mental health issue and people shouldn’t have to suffer because of it. You know like in psychiatric facilities all they do is give you drugs. So all that really tells people is that it’s okay to take drugs. So is that our fault is that the drug users faults or is that the government’s fault. How about knocking down some of the gangs, and the drug houses, rather than just the people that buy and use the drugs. They’re not really doing anything wrong it’s their body their life and they’re inside of a tent mind your own business.
There are more important things than telling homeless people that it’s illegal to be homeless.
Did you know it’s not illegal to be homeless.
That would be ridiculous.
Not everyone has their lives handed to them on a silver platter, but we shouldn’t be destroying the the environment because of it.
This should be brought to the mayor, did he give okay to do this.
I wonder sometimes if he’s actually approving some of this stuff that’s happening, or if people are just doing it because they don’t care.
This is a bad policy why did this happen?
Stop making excuses for people that are choosing to avoid facing their addictions and adhering to the basic rules of common decency and hygiene. Stop Enabling them… They need help not a free pass to be assholes