An Oregon county home to Portland lost over $1 billion in income as the area saw a large exodus of people amid complaints about rampant homelessness and crime.
From 2020 – 2021, a net total of 14,257 tax filers and their dependents left Multnomah County, according to IRS data analyzed by The Oregonian/Oregon Live. Most of the residents who left during the year after the pandemic started tended to have higher income, according to Oregon Live.
“The real question is to what extent the pandemic era changes were temporary, or if they are permanent,” state economist Josh Lehner said. “Unfortunately, that can’t be answered until we get the 2023 and 2024 data.”
Over one fifth of people who left Multnomah went to the suburbs of Portland in nearby Clackamas County, according to the data. Other people went to Texas, South Carolina, or Washington.
Many residents in Portland have raised concerns over crime and skyrocketing homelessness, which increased 50% from 2019 to 2022. Overall population in the city has fallen steadily over the last several years, leading Portland to have the distinction of being one of the most rapidly declining cities in America.
“I want to cry,” Christina Hartnett, a local resident, told KGW8 last year. “I just want my house back. My lawn is now becoming a public bathroom.”
“When you have grown men meth raging in your driveway, the last thing I feel safe doing is going out and saying, ‘Hey, can you please move so I can go to work?’” she added.
In May, longtime resident Larry May said that tourists no longer came to Portland. “It’s like Portland died,” he told Fox 12. “The tourists haven’t come back like they used to be.”
May also said that crime was rising due to funding cuts for police. “I hope they get it back up again because the crime is really bad, shootings,” he said. “It’s not the Portland I knew.”
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In 2020, amid violent protests against police, Portland’s city council voted to slash the police department’s budget by $15 million. The city has gradually attempted to reinstate funding, but with little results.
Afterward, Portland’s police department started hemorrhaging officers. The city has hired more police since September when the city was short 100 cops, but the police department is still down about 80 officers.