In the third State of City address of his term, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Monday cast himself and city partners as effectively tackling the city’s homelessness crisis and policing controversies, pointing to what he said was significant and even unprecedented progress and pledging to ensure even more.

The speech, delivered from a corner of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum concourse, was chock full of oratory and anecdote. Wheeler told, for example, of taking a college course where he interacted with homeless people, which he said led him to forgo a Wall Street career for civic service.

But the speech was light on specifics for ways to alleviate what Wheeler said are Portland’s most pressing problems, with the mayor focusing on his administration’s successes. He told reporters later that he wanted the speech to “be more about values” than policy proposals.

Wheeler said the city government has made vast strides helping homeless people, including assisting 35,000 people to get off the streets or avoid landing there, even though it may not seem like it.

“We know that there are still significant challenges ahead of us and we know the problem could seem like it’s getting worse before it gets better,” the mayor said. He added: “We’re not giving up.”

Record numbers of homeless people have been moved from the streets and into affordable housing, he said, and the city is constructing affordable units at a pace ahead of what was promised to voters.

In his most significant policy announcement of the speech, the mayor said the Portland Housing Bureau on Tuesday will make available $70 million in bond funding for affordable housing projects. That money could lead to construction of as many as 600 units, he said.

Portland’s homelessness crisis still presents “daunting” problems, Wheeler said. But the mayor assured Portlanders the city government is responding urgently and that “we are on the right path.”

On policing, Wheeler said the Portland Police Bureau has done more to train its officers on racial profiling, has hired unarmed specialists to help the homeless and officers’ use of force is on the decline.

Being a Portland police officer is often a thankless job, he said, and the Police Bureau is at a critical juncture where retirements are high and recruitment is low. But Wheeler did not offer a plan to address the meager recruitments, which he attributed to the competitive job market.

Wheeler’s speech also made no mention of some of Portland’s toughest problems: people openly using drugs or suffering mental health breakdowns in the city core; increases in property crime; failing infrastructure, especially in East Portland; a spate of pedestrian deaths; the strained city budget and more.

Wheeler has not said whether he will seek reelection in 2020 and did not directly address it Monday. But he struck a much different tone than six months ago, when he muttered off-the-cuff that he couldn't wait for the end of his first term.

In his formally prepared speech Monday, he called being mayor “my purpose.”

“Being mayor is not easy. I was never under the illusion it would be,” he said. “But it’s by far the most meaningful work of my life. This is my life’s work.”

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com