PORTLAND, Ore. — As head of Portland's transportation and water bureaus, Commissioner Mingus Mapps doesn't have the most direct hand in the city's response to homelessness. But as a member of the current city council — and a candidate for mayor in 2024 as the whole of city government gets a long-awaited makeover — it's something that he does have to think about.
“If we don't get better fast, the city could fail. This is an inflection point for Portland,” Mapps said.
KGW reporter Blair Best recently sat down to talk with Mapps about his vision for the city and what he would do to address homelessness and the city's beleaguered downtown. The following excerpt from that interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A vision for Portland
Best: On your campaign website it says, "I have a vision to make Portland the best run city in the United States." What is that vision?
Mapps: Well, this is a unique opportunity and moment in the history of Portland. One of the things that will happen on January 1, 2025, is that we will have a new form of government … One of the things we want to do is, all 24 bureaus within the city have to be synced up and working and pulling in the same direction, and that historically has not been the way Portland operates. And frankly, that's one of the reasons why downtown Portland in particular looks the way it does.
Best: Under your leadership, if elected, will people still be sleeping on the sidewalks?
Mapps: We are going to see, every year, we are going to see fewer and fewer people sleeping on the sidewalks. This problem has exploded over the last several years. The metric I am committed to holding myself accountable to is seeing the absolute number of people sleeping on our sidewalks decrease over time. I'd like to see it shrink by at least half (in) the first four years. A lot of people will be skeptical of that. I will tell you that's actually achievable.
Best: So, you talk about continuing to remove camps …
Mapps: Yup!
Best: What about a place for them to go?
Mapps: This is an important thing — you know we've got 6,000 people sleeping on the streets, probably in about a thousand camps. Right now, the city is probably moving about 500 camps a month and every time we go out to a camp or to an RV, we let folks know, "Listen you need to move," we try to connect them with services.
RELATED: 'Hope it works': Portland launches new program to connect homeless people with outreach workers
The county's domain
Even though services are limited, Mapps points to the city-led tiny home villages as part of the solution. But Mapps said that if he's elected, he wants to make that program a county responsibility.
Mapps: One of the conversations that the next mayor needs to have is to make sure the county takes over this work so that I and future commissioners on council can focus in on parks and roads and delivering safe water and keeping our rivers clean.
Best: Is it financial reasons (why) you would want the county to take all of that over?
Mapps: Well, number one, this is really appropriately their work. The city does the things that are on the names of our bureaus … human services really aren't part of our portfolio. In the last couple of years we have gotten into that work, frankly, because the county has struggled so much. That's bad government, and frankly we aren't well-equipped for this and we don't have the funding for it … One of the reasons why we are in this economic challenge is that we are investing tens of millions of dollars in houseless services that, frankly, the county should be providing. And I would be happy to do that if there is need out there — which there is — or if the county were broke. But the county is not broke, the county is sitting on hundreds of millions unspent dollars that should be serving this population. They need to get those dollars out the door.
Best: We’ve heard this rhetoric before. Do you really think you can get through to the current leadership at the county?
Mapps: Well, I actually am optimistic right now. One of the things to remember is that elections matter, and I believe everybody — pretty much everybody — on the county board is up for reelection in May, so I encourage every Portlander and every Multnomah County voter to pay a lot of attention to the folks who are going to be on that ballot. Who you choose is going to make a huge difference on what the future of the county and city looks like. The other thing is ... to be fair, the current county chair has only been in that position for about a year or so. We all approach public work with a lot of idealism and whatnot, and then your idealism meets reality. I see the county adjusting here, I do think there are some core differences in our worldviews that explain why the county chair behaves differently and makes different choices than I would make ... at the same time, I do see an overlap in our core goals.
Best: What do you have to say about people who have completely lost faith in our local government?
Mapps: I hear ya! And I’ll tell ya, elections matter … we have to make some choices about what our future is going to look like. If we stick with the status quo and allow folks to die on our streets by the hundreds every year, Portland will be a ghost town — Detroit will be our future. I believe that Portland is one of the best cities in North America ... we've come through some challenges but we can be in the lead again, and I’m deeply committed to making sure that we get there.
KGW plans to interview each of the major candidates for mayor, three of whom currently serve on Portland City Council, ahead of the 2024 election. We'll be sitting down with Commissioner Carmen Rubio later this month.