CITY TRASH FROM PORTLAND TO VANCOUVER

City trash comes with the territory. More people, more garbage, more clean up.

Except the clean up part is lacking, and it’s not the first time.

Take New York City trash for example. More people than Portland, which is bigger than Staten Island, but half the size of the other Burroughs.

I moved to the Big Apple during a garbage strike and it changed the way the city appeared in any publication. It looked like a big rotten apple.

That happens when the gleaming steel and glass towers have garbage bags stacked up to the second floor on the sidewalks. Luckily they planned for this with wide sidewalks.

I walked past these piles and heard rustling rats having a field day.

No one see a huge shit pile of city trash as a reason to make travel plans. “Come see the biggest collection of garbage this side of a landfill,” does not inspire the imagination.

Any driver passing through Portland sees the same thing from I-5. Coming from the south things look normal enough. Going over the Marquam Bridge shows Portland in grand review. It’s a vantage point photographer use to show Portland’s best side.

Dropping down on the Eastside shows a different story.

There’s homeless housing in a parking lot near the Water Ave. exit, then the tents, individual and gathered. On sloping ground near the freeway the trash runs downhill from the villages like a waterfall of garbage.

City Trash In A Can

I had a place in the Lee Apartments on the corner of NW 20th and Lovejoy, my third apartment on the same block. It was run-down enough to justify the low rent for a one bedroom.

Eight single trash cans were lined up on a walkway in the back of the building, which was just below my bedroom window. It was a time during the early 80’s when derelicts would wander up from Old Town and expand their turf.

Every morning I heard eight garbage can lids slamming around while they checked each one. Later the building switched to a dumpster. The rattling garbage can search was replaced with an industrial slam of the dumpster lid for a big “Good morning, Portland,” feel.

I peeked out the window and saw the same guys. When I started getting The Oregonian delivered it went missing. I saw the same guys sitting on a low wall up the street reading a newspaper. Maybe mine?

We chatted about current events since they were my new newsroom with updates from my paper. They weren’t very talkative, but I persisted until they ignored me, which seemed fair enough.

Did I pull over on I-5 for a nice sit-down discussion about their trash problem, which is apparently everyone’s problem? No, I didn’t.

Without experience in Third World refugee camps, I would have been on uncertain ground. After seeing two men in different camps standing beside their tents in the classic ‘got-to-pee’ pose, it would have been a slippery slope in more ways than one.

City Trash Tourism?

No one visits New York for the trash. Portland homeless trash isn’t a big draw, either.

Then there’s the graffiti, lots of graffiti in impossible places that look risky to tag all the way up I-5 North.

How different is Oregon from Washington in terms of trash and graffiti? Crossing the interstate bridge to Vancouver was clean. Ten miles into the Evergreen State showed few campers and debris.

Heading back south, the intensity of the new normal picked up around N. Lombard. A mobile tourist would see the difference with no references.

I crossed the Willamette River on Fremont Bridge, curved down to the 405, and jumped off at the Everett ramp for a left turn to Front Ave. The closer to the river, the more beat things looked. I cruised SW 3rd and 4th Ave with tents on the sidewalks and business with boarded up windows.

It looks like a scene from Bruce Springsteen’s ‘My Hometown,’ but on a bigger scale.

Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain’t nobody wants to come down here no more
They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says “These jobs are going, boys
And they ain’t coming back
To your hometown.”

Making A Comeback

Will things change after the covid pandemic dies down?

Willamette Week did a big story last year.

The city stopped its usual sweeps of homeless camps in March, after Gov. Kate Brown issued her stay-home order. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against dispersing homeless camps in the midst of the pandemic. Homeless people are among the most vulnerable to contracting diseases and often have health conditions that put them at risk of getting much sicker from the coronavirus.

Portland Downtown Clean and Safe is on the job.

With Cleaning:

 In partnership with Central City Concern’s Clean Start Program, the program trains, mentors and employs workers who are formerly homeless or have other barriers to employment.

With Safety:

Downtown Portland Clean & Safe contracts with Portland Patrol Inc., the Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office to provide enhanced security in the core 213-block area.

With Visitor Information:

They (Ambassadors) are trained experts on local facts and attractions, can assist with basic first-aid, and help those in crisis who need access to food, shelter or supportive services.

Don’t count Portland out, even if it looks down.