Witnessing the anti Trump and anti @elonmusk protest yesterday with @tarafaul503 I realized I was surrounded by thousands of delusional people that lacked any sense of self-awareness, critical thinking or rational thought. Many were just lemmings doing what everybody else was doing in order to feel connected to their community not to mention the fear of ever having a dissenting voice. Nobody could really explain why they were there or what they were fighting for. All they did was chant the same things over and over again

Addicted to the streets. Over 60% of the homeless population choose the streets. In fact many have told @tarafaul503 and I they already have access to housing, but still choose to live outdoors. The Homeless Industrial Complex and more specifically the NGOs that benefit the most from homelessness have
convinced the public and lawmakers that housing ends homelessness. The two biggest reasons for this is either they don’t know the truth because they’ve never actually extensively studied the homeless or they do know the truth, but refuse

I get a lot of hate from Housing First activists because I’m critical of the model. This is why. One of their components is Voluntary Personalized Services. Translation: A person is placed in state/county funded housing for free and often times for life and are not expected or required to make any changes whatsoever that led them or kept them on the streets. This means other than being indoors, nothing about them has changed. While some do voluntarily utilize services most do not because they don’t have to. And now

We found twin autistic children in a homeless camp surrounded by active drug users, trash and uncapped used hypodermic needles on the ground. @tarafaul503 and I stumbled upon the first child eating bark off a tree. He told me it was harmless, but also that he was hungry. I immediately went and got them pizza which maybe isn’t much healthier than charcoal but at least it’s food. We met their aunt that was very sweet and is working on getting Social Security due to partial blindness and

“It’s all an illusion” I asked a homeless woman when was the last time a trained professional offered real help and she laughed out loud. She told @tarafaul503 and I she hears and reads about services all the time, but said the way they’re set up, they are almost impossible to access or when you do access them, it’s nothing but long waitlists. I’m well aware there are two sides to every story but I have heard this identical complaint easily thousands of times. Not hundreds but thousands. So at the very least our current system

A year in photos. In 2024 @tarafaul503 and I did the most extensive documentation of the homeless population of a major city ever. We met and documented thousands of people currently living on the streets. We photographed them, we interviewed them


and we helped them. I believe what we have now is one of the strongest understandings of why they ended up on the streets and why they stay on the streets. Most people choose to ignore this population. Tara and I have an immersed ourselves in this population and

Housing will never end homelessness. A homeless man who has chosen to live on the streets for 37 years. He told @tarafaul503 and I that throughout his life, he has been offered help many times and has always declined. The current narrative by the Homeless Industrial Complex is that housing ends homelessness and
why we have literally spent billions of dollars on housing. I have done extensive homeless outreach for decades and just over the last year I easily met/interviewed 40-50% of the homeless population in Portland, Oregon. I can confidently

Shanty town cliff dwellings in Portland Oregon. They are starting to pop up everywhere and are in plain sight.@tarafaul503 and are seeing these in multiple neighborhoods. This is the natural result when you have a system unable or unwilling to end the homeless crisis. I discovered these Hobbit like houses five years ago. They were in the deep woods though and nearly impossible to see.

The moment I realized the Harm Reduction movement cared less about the person and more about the Social Justice cause. My second position working/volunteering in social services was doing needle exchange in Portland, Oregon 25-26 years ago. I had graduated from college and joined a nonprofit and one of the first places they sent me was with a team to do needle exchange in downtown Portland in the middle of the night. I knew very little about harm reduction and was eager to learn more. Our team encountered a family. A mother and father

WARNING GRAPHIC. An addict afflicted with the flesh eating drug xylazine that is cut into fentanyl. Nearly his entire body is rotting away. On parts of his body @tarafaul503 and I could see his bones. Soon he will start losing his limbs and then eventually die. Xylazine is a horse tranquilizer that is added to fentanyl to enhance it. It’s a tranquilizer only meant for horses. It first appeared on the East Coast a few years ago and is now almost everywhere. We begged him to go to the hospital, which he insists he has.

We found a fentanyl addict who was overdosing and we saved his life. @tarafaul503 and I found him sitting in an unnatural position with labored breathing and we knew immediately what was happening. His friend was right next to him and had no idea. He briefly tried to wake him and seconds later Tara administered Narcan. After thirty seconds of chest rubbing and and talking to him, he came to. He was confused for a moment, then quickly recovered. He was very happy we only gave him one Narcan. If you give a person multiple

A former crack addict with a warning of why to never use drugs. @tarafaul503 and I met Faye at a bus stop. She spent many years using every possible drug (starting in the early 80s)  and the results are evident. She was handed thousands of  ‘clean’ crack pipes back in the day by Harm Reduction workers and now wonders how things would’ve turned out differently if they would have told her no.

A time lapse video of a homeless man in a wheelchair, nodded out on drugs. He stayed in this position for over six hours. @tarafaul503 waited for even one person from social services stop and engage with him to check on his well-being. We were after all in the most concentrated area of social
service programs in Portland. To the haters who question why we didn’t help this individual sooner, we did this to prove a point that nobody other than volunteers are engaging with these individuals and one of the reasons why we have

WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC. What started out as a peaceful donation of winter jackets to the homeless quickly escalated to a completely insane street fight @tarafaul503 decided to hand out jackets that were donated to us. We were very excited to do this as we know most of the homeless and knew they’d be very appreciative. It went well for the first three minutes. There was a lot of thank yous and pats on our back.

WARNING GRAPHIC. I filmed a man overdosing and dying during my interview with him. In the middle of our conversation, he stopped talking to @tarafaul503 and I and started smoking fentanyl. Within seconds, it affected him more than he realized. He dropped everything in his hands stretched out his arms and then fell over. Fortunately, I had Narcan on me and it was administered quickly. After three attempts, we could finally hear labored breathing again. He didn’t wake up and 911 was called.

Why I no longer call mobile crisis teams. These teams are designed to help a person in crisis but calling them is often a waste of time. When @tarafaul503 and I call it usually takes over an hour for them to arrive and sometimes not at all. When they do arrive their job is to assess the person in crises, try to calm them and on some occasions put them on a directors hold and get them to a hospital. That sounds great on paper, but sadly that almost never happens. We called a few times on this woman who repeatedly hits herself in the head,

Saving a teenage runaway. A homeless teenager approached @tarafaul503 and I and begged for help. He told us he was scared and just wanted to go home. We had never seen him before and he was in the worst possible part of town notorious for human trafficking, especially for the young and vulnerable. He showed us a note with directions to the nearby Homeless shelter. It took seconds for us to realize that was a terrible idea. He is so innocent that we decided the worst thing we could do is point him in the direction of the sketchiest Homeless shelter in town.

I witnessed a homeless man smash grab a SUV and steal a laptop. Something clicked in me and without thinking I chased him. Fortunately I had my phone out and the second I heard the smash I started taking photos. You can see him sprinting away, holding a few bags.

An interview with a serial arsonist. @tarafaul503 and I met a homeless man who readily admits he loves fire and loves to watch things burn. This was evident as he burned things the entire time we spoke to him. He admits to only being caught twice but has been in jail over thirty times for other reasons. He said he came to Portland from California because you can get away with a lot more. It felt ominous when he said that and I pray he doesn’t do anything.

We found a homeless dwarf who’s a trained lawyer stranded on the sidewalk and unable to move. She asked @tarafaul503 to physically move her into the shade. She goes by ‘Lady Boss’ and has been on the streets many years. She is unable to walk unassisted due to her advanced medical condition. She studied law fifteen years ago but never passed the bar and soon after went to the streets.

Searching for the ‘mole’ people living under the city. @tarafaul503 and I were tipped off that some homeless have been living in underground caverns for many years. Getting there was very difficult and in certain places an extremely tight fit. Once we made it into the main chamber, we found multiple old homeless camps but no people. We went to a second location and hit pay dirt. Through a near impossible hole and then down a long cavern we came to a small square door. On it was written ‘Heavens Demon Hell baby Cooridoor’ Inside