Portland protests, homelessness have residents avoiding downtown, poll reveals

Portland residents surveyed about the city’s downtown said they plan to visit less frequently, mainly citing homelessness and rioting that has plagued the area in the last year, according to a new poll.

Downtown Portland, once a cultural and tourist center, is now rife with homeless tents, smashed windows, graffiti, trash and boarded-up businesses, the newspaper reported.  "There seems in the last year to be this permission to do violence."  And while large-scale anti-police protests have mostly faded since their apex last summer, the city has yet to quell continued destruction caused by smaller groups who go through the city purporting to demonstrate for racial justice, smashing windows and tagging buildings in the process.  "There seems in the last year to be this permission to do violence," respondent Laurie Lago, 75, who lives near where the protests have been centered, told The Oregonian. She expressed frustration about the lack of riot-related arrests.