Portland’s ‘Band-Aid’ approach to the homeless crisis
As Oregon struggles with one of the highest rates of homelessness in the nation, a longtime drug counselor says Portland is using a Band-Aid approach on the crisis.
An Oregon man whose videos about homelessness in Portland went viral online has been arrested on theft charges related to his job as a homeless services specialist.
Police arrested Kevin Dahlgren Tuesday morning on 19 charges related to multiple incidents of theft and misuse of his official position with the City of Gresham, a city just east of Portland.
Kevin Dahlgren speaks with Josh, 33, about his experience with addiction and living on the streets of Portland. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
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Court records allege Dahlgren stole property worth thousands of dollars from 2020 through 2021 while working as a homeless services specialist for the city of Gresham, The Oregonian reported. An official source told the paper that the investigation involves Dahlgren's use of a city procurement card.
A city spokesperson told Fox News that staff "discovered suspicious activity" in March of this year and placed Dahlgren on leave. Dahlgren resigned soon after, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
"Public service is at the heart of this organization, and we want to assure our community that anyone whose actions could cause harm to Gresham will be held accountable," the statement reads.
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Dahlgren has been a vocal critic of what he calls the "homeless industrial complex" in states like Oregon and California and regularly films interviews with people living on the streets.
One clip of a woman making a tongue-in-cheek remark that being homeless in Portland is a "piece of cake" racked up millions of views on X.
"If money were the solution, we would have already solved" homelessness, Dahlgren told Fox News in February.
"When you're not actually helping the permanent solutions, the old homeless stay there and the new homeless come in and everything just grows," he added. "And I don't know exactly why, except I think there was certainly a shift in Portland politics and people ideologies just sort of changed over the last 20 years."
Kevin Dahlgren, a drug and alcohol counselor, looks into an empty tent erected near occupied tents on a Portland sidewalk on Feb. 17, 2023. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
Dahlgren describes himself as a truth teller, shining a light on "radical" activists who have turned homelessness and drug use into a "social justice cause." He's spoken on national newscasts and podcasts and was heavily featured in a YouTube documentary about drugs in Portland that was viewed 10 million times.
He also found an audience among many Portland area leaders, speaking at a neighborhood town hall alongside Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler in March, meeting with Portland Commissioner Mingus Mapps for lunch last year and campaigning for now-Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, The Oregonian reported.
"He went around and talked with a lot of candidates and campaigns," Gonzalez’s chief of staff, Shah Smith, told the paper. "He had a lot of ideas that didn’t pan out."
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The charges against Dahlgren include seven counts of theft, five counts of identity theft, two counts of aggravated identity theft and five counts of official misconduct.
Dahlgren was released yesterday, according to jail records. He did not return a request for comment.
Dahlgren started working for Gresham's homeless services team in 2018 and was paid $80,000 a year, The Oregonian reported.
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