When Portland officials finally arrived last December, they punished the homeowner instead of removing those who were illegally camping just on the other side of his hedge, the only thing that protected him and his children from the homeless hordes, loud noises, disgusting behavior.
DARE TO COMPLAIN, GET PUNISHED
Chris Bolton had spent months bugging the city of Portland about the latest batch of tents and derelict trailers set up along the sides of his giant laurel hedge in southeast Portland. Over time, he said, the leafy green shrubs had grown to shield his home, himself and his children from the area’s persistent problems.
So, Bolton was utterly baffled when an employee with the Portland Bureau of Transportation showed up in early December with no intention of removing the illegally parking RVs he had repeatedly reported. Instead, the worker warned Bolton that his hedge had inched too far into the public right of way, which had no sidewalk or buffer, and would impede a stop sign which would be, maybe, installed in the distant future, not an actual stop sign, at the intersection.
Soon thereafter, the nuisance notices and city code enforcement officers began to arrive. A formal notice outlined the possibility of a $693 fine and even a lien against his home if the hedge was not brought into compliance quickly. The escalation stunned Bolton, a self-employed single father who said he had already spent months trying to get the city to address conditions outside his home, yet the city was spending hours & hours harassing HIM!
KEEPING HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX FUNDED: INCREASING HOMELESSNESS
In 2022, there were 6,633 people “experiencing homelessness” across the Portland Metro Area, the tri-counties of Multnomah (Portland), Washington, and Clackamas counties. By 2024, the Democrats had managed to increase the number of homeless to 12,043, almost double it.
The Portland Metro Area has wasted massive amounts of tax dollars funding the Homeless Industrial Complex, totaling over $1.3 billion in recent years. In 2024 alone, Democrats transferred approximately $724.1 million from taxpayers to their friends, relatives, supporters, political cronies pretending they were helping these people. In reality, they were intentionally increasing the number of homeless. Democrats import ever more homeless people so they can keep funneling tax money to their constituents: Non-Government Organizations, NGOs.
By 2025 the number had decreased by NINE people, to 12,034 homeless individuals in the tri-county area. This worthless spending averages approximately $58,870 per person annually. The average income per person in the metro area is approximately $60,082. For the tax money they wasted, Democrats could have rented apartments for EVERY homeless person. They didn’t because they are only interested in power, not human beings.
LONG-STANDING PROBLEMS
Residents in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood said his experience reflects a broader pattern: One in which long-standing complaints about crime and disorder go largely unresolved, while minor code violations are enforced with urgency. Over the years, neighbors say the area has struggled with a range of issues, including illegal dumping, drug activity, reckless driving and a steady rotation of abandoned or occupied vehicles.
The encampments are just one part of a wider breakdown that worsened during the pandemic. City officials have acknowledged the corridor, just south of Division Street between Southeast 82nd and 92nd avenues, as a recurring trouble spot for lived-in and abandoned vehicles, but show little interest in fixing the problems.
Records show that at least 22 RVs and other vehicles were tagged for removal near Bolton’s home between October 1st and March 31st. Only seven of those were ultimately towed. The remaining vehicles, officials said, had moved before crews returned, a pattern neighbors say is all too familiar, with encampments simply shifting block by block.
CARRYING A BASEBALL BAT
Data from Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Communications shows 432 reported incidents within a three-block radius of Bolton’s home over the past year. Those reports include theft, assault, robbery, prostitution, vandalism, suspicious activity and even shootings. Thirty-two incidents occurred within roughly 165 feet of Bolton’s property.
Neighbors said those numbers only tell part of the story, pointing to constant calls to 311, emails to city agencies and online reports that often go unanswered. “It’s extremely frustrating,” resident Kristopher Mahdak said. “You’ve got to have a Buddhist mentality* when trying to get the city to respond to just about anything around here.”
Another resident, Stefanie Kraus, described taking extraordinary precautions when walking her child through the neighborhood. “I used to carry a baseball bat and bear mace in my baby’s stroller,” she said.
FORCED TO TOLERATE SEEPING SEWAGE
Bolton’s attempts to get help were extensive. Public records, including emails and call logs, show he contacted more than a dozen city employees, departments and programs. At one point, six weeks passed before a constituent liaison from the City Council’s District 1 office responded to his request for assistance.
By his own estimate, Bolton spent more than 40 hours trying to resolve the situation, along with thousands of dollars and significant personal stress.
“A question I often asked myself was: How in the world could anybody else deal with this?” Bolton said. “I never figured out what to do or who to call. It just seemed like I kept getting lost in people’s inboxes, or they were simply passing the buck.”
Bolton’s own paper trail shows a steady escalation of concern. In an October 5th email to the city’s Public Environment Management Office, he described campers cutting into his hedge and digging into the ground, likely being used for waste (excrement, et al) disposal. “I have a tenant. I have a grade schooler. I don’t want sewage seeping into my yard. Can you help?” he wrote.
Weeks passed without a response, he said, despite repeated calls to 311. On November 3rd, he sent another message, describing late-night arguments, generator noise and fumes drifting into his home. Still without a reply five days later, he wrote again expressing doubt that anything would be done. “I know this is a fruitless exercise because you won’t do anything about it,” he wrote.
He finally received a response on November 10th, when a city coordinator apologized and said the site would be cleared within a week. It wasn’t. Some tents did leave, but debris, trailers and trash remained when transportation officials arrived in early December, shifting the focus to Bolton’s hedge.
Unable to fully access parts of his hedge BECAUSE BUREAUCRATS REFUSED TO REMOVE THE ILLEGAL ENCAMPMENT, Bolton says he was nevertheless expected to bring it into compliance immediately. “I can’t even get to parts of my hedge because of the trailers,” he wrote in a December email to city council offices. “The irony of being threatened with a (lien) on my house if I don’t cut down my hedge feels like something out of a Kafka novel.” ^
In the end, Bolton said he and a group of friends and neighbors took matters into their own hands, cutting back the hedge extensively to satisfy the city’s demands. But the experience, he says, has left a lasting impression.
Portland bureaucrats focused on Bolton’s hedge rather than the ILLEGAL encampment on the edge of his property.
Check me out on X @dianelgruber.
On July 28th, Dr. Mary Costantino, 50, a Portland radiologist, was walking down the street with a friend about five blocks from a police station when an unidentified attacker approached the pair and launched an aluminum bottle at the left side of her face, according to
*Buddhist Mentality: A state of extreme patience, emotional detachment, and radical acceptance in the face of suffering or absurdity.
^Kafka novel: A system that is illogical or contradictory. For example, a homeowner being punished for a hedge he cannot access because the city won’t remove the illegal encampment blocking it is a “Kafkaesque” irony. The victim becomes the target of the rules, while a much bigger, more important violation is ignored.
The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited. Follow me on X @DianeLGruber.
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