18 June 2015

[pdx] What Good is Weird If You Can't Afford It?

3193.
We here at Home Base have been following the upwardly mobile cost of having a place to sleep in Portland with more than a little alarm. And while we're nowhere near retirement age, we do remember when one could find a place to hang in most areas of the core of Portland without having to pay more than half of ones' monthly poke.

We ourselves lived in a lovely one-room/kitchenette with a shared bath in NW Portland … NW Flanders between 21st and 22nd Avenues … for $150/month. And the same apartment we had near SE 52nd and Flavel until '04 … and was paying a mere $600/month for it (860 sf/2br/1bath) now leases for a year at more than $1,000 a month.

That's insane.


I love Portland's weird. I like helping to keep Portland weird. But if there's a sign at the city limits that says "You Must Be This Wealthy To Enter", then what good is weird? 

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