Who needs a bank account? Let's build cheap apartments!

I see our charming new governor is pushing for the state to drain its rainy day fund for her priorities. 

She’s specifically calling for at least $300 million in new spending on homelessness, in addition to the $200 million lawmakers approved earlier this year. Kotek’s also seeking $120 million for literacy programs – which she described as the minimum the state should spend as fewer than 30% of Oregon fourth graders demonstrate proficiency in reading on standardized tests. 

And she’s seeking about $80 million in additional funding for the state’s behavioral health program, including money to recruit and retain behavioral health providers. 

Kotek is also calling on legislators to use $1 billion in state bonding capacity – more than half the amount the state Treasury says the state can offer in bonds during the next two years – to build more affordable housing. Lawmakers on the Joint Transportation Committee want to commit $1 billion in bonds over the next eight years to replacing the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River. 

It's hard to argue with spending money to fight homelessness, mental illness, and illiteracy. But for all the hundreds of millions sloshing around, not much is being spent on some big things the state really needs: two more mental hospitals (by whatever name called), another prison, and more and better-trained cops. About the only good thing I see on the governor's laundry list is money to recruit mental health experts, and $80 million won't be nearly enough, especially after that hideous state health department sucks the life out of it.

But there's a billion for crappy apartments. The politicians are all so dead set on building them. The Oregon political class has been in the pockets of the developers and construction dudes for decades, and now the tent squatter crisis the government has allowed to develop is the perfect excuse to slap up more human warehouses everywhere. 

The roots of the problem on the streets are drug addiction and mental illness. Giving the junkies a free roof over their heads isn't going to stop them from killing themselves, each other, and innocent bystanders while they're at it. All it's going to do is draw more junkies here. Blowing nine or 10 figures on apartments is a mistake that Oregonians will regret. But then again, we're used to regret around here.