Portland Hipsters Upset Because They Have To Get Full-Time J-O-B-S

Portland Hipsters Upset Because They Have To Get Full-Time J-O-B-S

Portland Hipsters Upset Because They Have To Get Full-Time J-O-B-S

Pass the Kleenex. Never did Portland’s famed “Keep Portland Weird” sign promise to the skinny-jean, handle-bar mustached set that the city was to “Keep Portland Affordable for the Artsy-Fartsy Set”.

This story tells the tale of Susan Langenes and her husband, both professional musicians, who lived for over a decade in an inner neighborhood apartment complex with other artists. They created a community, cooking together, gardening and playing music together.

Until they received no-cause evictions. New owners renovated the complex and rents tripled. She and her husband were exiled to Milwaukie, a small town five miles away.

“That vision of Portland as a place where people can have the freedom to invent their own job and not have to fight the awful rat race to keep a roof over their head, it may be going away. It makes me sad.”-Susan Langenes

Steven Olsen, 31, moved from Missouri and hoped to raise his two children in Portland due to its progressive values (yay). He now works full-time doing medical billing and his wife works part-time at Goodwill, but a recent $200 rent increase is “forcing” them to move back to Missouri.

“It used to be you could live in Portland on a part-time job, pay your rent, pay your bills and be pretty comfortable.”-Steven Olsen

Sondr Engvaldsen, a self-proclaimed ““aging creative,” has also considered leaving Portlandia:

“The do-it-yourself artist, I don’t think you have much of a chance of making a living here, unless it’s a side hobby. It breaks my heart. I wasn’t planning to leave, but I’m scared I’ll be forced to.”-Sondr Engvaldsen

This article, originally published last month in The New York Post also suggests that “bringing up wages — up to $15 an hour, or more — could help.” Not sure how the $15 dollar hourly wage increase has really helped anyone to be honest with you. Employees are getting fewer hours reflected in their paychecks and customers are having to input their own orders and make payments on restaurant kiosks under the supervision of an employee who doesn’t seem to understand how the new ordering/payment kiosk works. Frustrating on both sides of the fence. Seems their progressive ideals are backfiring in their faces.

Call me heartless, unsympathetic and hard as I say this. I may be going out on a limb here but perhaps it’s time to drink your kale and dandelion smoothie, grow up and move out of the compound. Being “forced” to move five miles away from your city is not a real hardship. And, sadly, in order for people to “invent their own job”, unless you’ve inherited a large sum of money from a distant family member (who probably worked his or her butt off), you need to have some capital to create your “vision”. People are not just going to cut you slack because you are the “free-spirited-artsy-type”, naturally gifted or talented or you just perceive yourself to be that way. There are lots of talented people out there. Lots of talented people who happen to have the money to live inside of the metropolis. You can be one of them, too but chances are you have to work more than one part-time job (especially if you have two kids). Just saying. Life is unfair. Boo-hoo. Judging from this article, these people who are complaining about this situation are able-bodied individuals who can work full-time, 40-hour a week jobs. They can even handle a bit of a commute. My father-in-law and mother-in-law were in their 60s when they were pushed out of the lot they lived on due to increasing rent. The result was them ultimately having to move an hour and a half away from family. My father-in-law made the two-hour 4am (up at 3:30am) trek to the Seattle Shipyards until the day he retired. It’s called grit. If having to work more than a part-time job and living in Clackamas is a hardship, perhaps you should head downtown with your guitar and Bernie Sanders t-shirt and take a long walk along the western bank of the Willamette River and check out some of the other people who live in the city. They call the park bench their “home”. It’s called perspective.

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8 Comments
  • Merle says:

    OHHH, those poor babies! Sadly I have a cousin like that who thinks an “artist” should never have to work for a living. Strangely enough, his mother is the enabler!

    Merle

    • Lisa Carr says:

      Let me guess..he is an “artist” and every one has to be quiet in the house when he is thinking so as not to interrupt his “creative flow”?!

  • Penny says:

    Portland is getting weirder and weirder and weirder. Some of it is that Califinians have been moving up the coast, I believe. But then, that wouldn’t explain the nuts up in Seattle. We who have an ability to think for ourselves, who were raised to grow up and get a life, who were told from childhood that being “on your own” is the intelligent way to go, we just do not understand these people. When “OCCUPY” was sliming up the parks and streets, I was astounded that people could live like that. Some of it is that the parents were “flower children” in the ’60’s and ’70’s. But then, it could just be that we live on the Left Coast.

    I live in Vancouver, WA, which “used to be” a great place to live…………

    • Bastiat Fan says:

      Hey, Penny! I live in Vancouver, too….sad to see that—based on the Letters to the Editor in the Columbian—we’re nearly as infested with so-called “progressives” as Portland is.

  • Lisa Carr says:

    I live in the metro Seattle/Tacoma area and enjoy a Portland trip every now and again. My husband and I pass through occasionally to enjoy some of the breweries and restaurants. As far as homelessness goes, I think Portland surpasses Seattle in regard to homeless individuals. And the whole occupy craziness? Wow. I think the funniest thing I heard was a local Seattle radio show host doing “man on the street” interviews. One guy had a Starbucks cup and the host asked him why he was holding a Starbucks coffee cup if he was protesting corporate America. The “protester” answered “I don’t know, I didn’t pay for it”! Clearly, he had NO CLUE how ridiculous (and humorous) his statement actually was!

  • Mike says:

    Hilarious. I was about to lose my job in Portland and while interviewing for another job in Portland, the interviewer told me that none of the temps want to go to permanent even though it comes with a $2/hr raise and benefits. The reason? They can’t stop smoking pot for even a week or two to pass a drug screen. If it means a job or more money, I could stop for two weeks… did it twice last year matteroffact.

    Once I was riding my bike to work in the NW from the SE.. I passed two of Portland’s finest river rats. I went as far around them as I physically possible, never coming within 6 feet of them. The girl part of the duo decides it’s an appropriate situation to call me a fucking asshole. I did a u-turn and bolted back to her to ask why she called me that (not so nicely… I was pissed and called her a few choice names myself) and she said “I don’t know, you passed us up”. I’m on a bike… going to work. You’re walking, going nowhere… of course I’m going to pass you up dumb-ass! Then her boyish friend comes up and says “you giving my girl trouble”. I said, “yeah… you want to take the ass whooping for her tough guy?” I’m not a violent person but these two entitled brats crossed me before my 2nd cup of coffee.

  • John doe says:

    I have worked since i was 13. My current job will not provide full-time jobs. I was evicted out of my last residential place on a no cause eviction. So i now sleep in my car. I have severe medical conditions now. My job is not allowing me to claim FMLA to pay me even $200 aweek.

  • Joe says:

    Its fucked.

    Alot of people migrated to Portland for the music and artist scene. You actually could make a living at it; rents were cheap and it seemed to be the last of the citys where you couldd do it. It attracted not only myself, but alot of others of equal mindset of community over commodity.

    I cant point the finger at the tech industry. or Adidas or Nike or any of the companys that have brought a higher sence of economy to the Northwest.

    and you cant blame the developers either…

    Whats killing Portland is Greed. Greedy landlords and property owners selling out the communitys that have supported them throughout the years.

    they are pushing out what made this city attractive in the first place. the artists, the musicians and the working class.

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