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

Warning Extremely graphic. @tarafaul503 and I found a homeless woman punching her head as hard as she could hundreds of times. I have spoke to other Homeless who shared she has been trafficked more than any other woman on the streets. One homeless man suggested she has easily been r*ped a thousand times. I’m told there’s specifically a group of men that use a certain apartment in downtown Portland. She is picked up about once a week, forced to shower and for couple hours is used by multiple men and then they dump her back onto the streets. Tara

We met a homeless woman getting brutally terrorized by a well-known homeless man but she refuses to report him. She told @tarafaul503 and I he has sent multiple people to the ER in the last few weeks. Because she knows his name and where he camps I asked if she reported this to the police. She said she did not due to her lifelong hatred of the police. On her fingers is tattooed ACAB and ‘Fuc* 12’. I asked her where this hatred came from and she said it all stemmed from when she was 17 years old and she told the police it was her marijuana not her

“Once you become homeless, you stay in that hole” @tarafaul503 and I met a developmentally disabled, homeless woman who’s been on the streets since she was about eight years old. She said when she was very young, she was terrified, but now as an adult woman, she said “ I can’t not be out here” She was in special ED as a child and for some reason, her mom brought her to the streets with her. I asked her about housing and she said it is so difficult for her and many others that they just stopped trying. She said the only way this would

Exactly a year ago today I was in Vancouver BC Canada with @tyleraloevera reporting on the decriminalization of drugs. It was easily one of the most chaotic environments I’ve ever been to. The first part of the video is me sneaking into a shelter to get to this shocking footage. Drug use was absolutely everywhere. There was a person passed out in a bowl of soup, you could hear screams in the bathroom with people guarding the door, There were people weeping in the corner. It was a complete shi* show. Outside was even worse.

An endless line of homeless camps and millions of pounds of trash. It’s mostly on private property and no one has been able to reach the owners who live out of the country meaning there’s very little local government can do. @tarafaul503 went there to deliver supplies to a homeless man we met. He has MS and is unable to hold down steady work. He started working when he was 15 to support his family and hates what’s happened to himself Getting access to disability benefits he paid into as a working person even with a medical diagnosis

A homeless nonprofit funded tiny home that was completely destroyed by the occupant within a month. I know many deserving Homeless that would thrive in a tiny home. My question is why did they allow this person to make such a mess without intervening? I’ll answer my own question. Because in most cases once a person is housed they are then cut off and expected to thrive. When in fact without proper support, most homeless placed in the housing will end up back on the streets within months because they were not prepared.

A powerful photo of a girl hugging her father after being rescued from a homeless man that kept her captive in his tent for a week. I found her one day while doing outreach in the deep woods. I saw a tent and approached it and announced myself. Inside a man nervously told me to go away. Something felt strange, and I decided to stand my ground and insist that he open the tent. He reluctantly opened it, and in the very back, I found a young girl curled up in a ball, terrified. I called the police, but I was so far in the deep woods it would take them