"It's a piece of cake" being homeless in Portland

Today’s interviewee Kevin Dahlgren talks with a homeless person in his or her shelter in the Portland area.

Kevin Dahlgren, a veteran in homeless policy, homeless outreach and addiction and mental health counseling, took a video with his phone of a Portland homeless woman named Wendy saying, among other things, “it’s a piece of cake” to be homeless in Portland. The video went viral on Twitter (over 2 million views worldwide and counting), and in today’s episode I interview Kevin about Oregon’s homeless crisis, what he thinks needs to be done about it, why what Tina Kotek is doing is unlikely to help, and more.

Here’s the viral video of Wendy (WARNING - there is profanity in the clip below but it’s bleeped in the podcast):

Kevin Dahlgren @kevinvdahlgren

“It’s a piece of cake…you get three meals a day and don’t have to do shit…wake up, eat get high, wake up eat get high” repeat. A homeless woman shared with me why it’s so easy to be homeless. She was brutally honest because she hates the enablement “They are loving us to death”

And a piece Kevin wrote in the New York Post this week about how Oregon is “loving” the homeless to death.

I hope you enjoy this informative interview with Kevin. I’m really enjoying my recent series of interviews with people, and about issues, having a big impact on Oregon. If I do say so myself, no one other than the Oregon Roundup is telling these stories in this way. Doing that takes resources, and doing more of that will take even more.

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