This is an imminent question in Portland, Oregon: the mayor wants to relax the requirements to civilly commit a person against their will despite a lack of hosp

This is an imminent question in Portland, Oregon: the mayor wants to relax the requirements to civilly commit a person against their will despite a lack of hospitals that can receive or treat them,[1][2] another of his suite of tactics to address homelessness that's included perpetual weekly sweeps of dozens of homeless encampments,[3] asking for $27 million to build city-run open-air camps,[4][5] and trying but failing through those policies to secure additional state funding for city-run shelters.[6] None of these tactics have been strategic - housed and homeless people alike in Portland who want mental health resources can't access the limited inventory of them, so expanding involuntary commitment without funded services will only add to that resource stress. Sweeps without a variety of funded shelter options just move the problem of camps from one part of the city to another while destroying what little the campers own, at a contractor cost of $4.5 million per year. The city-run camp proposal has been derided as "concentration camps", and the $27 million price tag would pay for a year of stable housing for nearly 2,500. State legislators cited the sweeps and camp proposal as reasons why they were giving $25 million in funding to the separate county leadership instead of the city, and put conditions on the funding that explicitly prevented its use for sweeps or involuntary camps. All of this happened _before_ the proposal to expand involuntary commitment criteria, which would at worst facilitate abuse or harassment of people with mental illnesses - housed or not - and at best fail to solve the underlying lack of treatment resources available to anyone, much less the involuntarily committed.[7] 1: https://www.opb.org/article/2022/12/12/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-suggests-easing-process-involuntarily-commit-mentally-ill/ https://www.opb.org/article/2022/12/12/portland-mayor-ted-wh... 2: https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/12/07/mayor-ted-wheeler-wants-to-forcibly-commit-more-people-with-mental-illness/ https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/12/07/mayor-ted-wheeler-want... 3: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/portland-has-dramatically-escalated-tent-sweeps.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/portland-has-dra... 4: https://www.columbian.com/news/2022/nov/18/homeless-vote-in-portland-oregon-delayed-in-angry-meeting/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2022/nov/18/homeless-vote-in-... 5: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/multnomah-county-rent-assistance-wheeler-plan/283-7f1e75c8-8a1b-4dca-9362-344d859aaf9f https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/multnomah-co... 6: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/02/no-direct-funding-for-portland-homeless-shelters-in-legislative-housing-plan.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/02/no-direct-fundin... 7: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/11/08/when-going-to-the-hospital-is-just-as-bad-as-jail https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/11/08/when-going-to-...