A recent letter writer from Lewiston, Idaho, chastised Portland leaders after a downtown stay for a concert. He sarcastically wrote:

What a great place for tourists and families with children to visit. Drunks on every street corner. Tent cities with trash everywhere. Open drug deals and usage. Folks passed out on every sidewalk and doorstep. People sharing needles. The smell of urine and human feces.

Last September, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Portland be “the cleanest and most livable city in the United States” and he would start a new program to install more trash cans in the city core and establish regular pickups at the receptacles. Downtown Portland businesses pay for the Clean & Safe District, a 213-block segment of downtown monitored by roaming cleaning crews and security teams each day of the week. Crews removed 724 tons of garbage and more than 27,000 needles from downtown last year, according to the district’s figures. Other areas are under the jurisdiction of the Oregon Department of Transportation or other entities, complicating matters.

The mayor said trash was one of the main complaints he heard. Lewiston, however, is also not immune to the problem of homelessness. Do you agree with the visitor from Idaho?