By City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez
Hello, SE Portland! I’m a 20-year resident of this part of the city and want to introduce myself. I’ve been on the job since January 1 as your City Commissioner of Public Safety. I’m eager to share with you some of my first impressions.
First, a bit more about me. I ran for office because Portland is struggling right now in a way we’ve not seen in our adult lifetimes. These struggles aren’t bound to one corner of Portland, one community or one language. This is a shared challenge for all of us centered on our city’s safety and livability.
As I was sworn in this January, I was assigned to run many of the city’s frontline public safety bureaus: the Fire Bureau, Emergency Management (disaster planning) and Emergency Communications (our 911 system). Right away, I began to hear about the major challenges our first responders are facing.
Rank-and-file firefighters have told me over and over about the overdose and homeless-related calls they’re seeing every day, about the sheer number of these kinds of calls they get and how they’re feeling stretched thin because of it. Similarly, I’ve heard from our 911 dispatchers that their call volumes have skyrocketed into a “new normal” from years past.
Whether you’re talking about the hard drugs on our streets, empty businesses and homes or the families that don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods, Portlanders are fed up, like their city has forgotten them. It’s not hard to see why.
Acknowledging that we have a problem and how we’ve enabled things to get this bad is just the first step. What comes next? Action.
Take unsanctioned homeless camps, which is a big issue for families across SE Portland. As the city prepares to transition to temporary alternative shelter sites, I have asked the bureaus I run to look closely at their policies to see what needs to change. I want our city to ask itself a fundamental question. Are you enabling the status quo when it comes to crime, homelessness and addiction across our city? This is where I keep returning to two themes: opportunity and hope.
Yes, Portland has been struggling. That’s true for many reasons and it’s a shared challenge that touches us all–from renters and homeowners to our unsheltered neighbors; young and old; Black, white and brown; Asian and Slavic. Bringing together all these communities in a compassionate movement that restores our city’s safety and livability? That’s our shared responsibility.
Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to working with you to achieve these goals, to not only make 2023 a year where Portlanders begin to feel safe again in a city’s that’s livable, but also where the city’s unsheltered will have access to services in safe, sanctioned environments.
I also look forward to updating you on our city’s coming budget discussions and my public safety priorities, including lowering 911 wait and response times, and ensuring stable staffing, tools and training in our fire department.
Please reach out to my office if you have questions or concerns. We can be reached at Portland.gov/Gonzalez.