Gavin Kelly and his mother Amanda hug, inside the tent they live in, off a side road in a SE neighborhood of Portland, Ore., on November 1, 2022. (Photo by Jordan Gale)
Photo Essay / August 18, 2023

An American Crisis

An Intimate Look at Portland’s Housing Crisis

The ongoing housing crisis in Portland, Ore., has desensitized us to the real people who have been affected.

Jordan Gale

Since 2021, the photographer Jordan Gale has been documenting the worsening housing crisis in Portland. The city was once a crown jewel of the Pacific Northwest, hailed as a destination for the upper middle class eager to escape the West Coast’s crowded metropolises. But as Portland’s population increased, driving up housing prices, its unhoused population ballooned. Oregon has a dire housing gap: The state currently needs 140,000 additional units, and that number could reach over 440,000 in the next 20 years unless drastic efforts are made. When such crises become large enough to affect thousands of families every day, individual stories get lost in the blizzard of statistics. Over the past two years, Gale’s work chronicling his home city’s plight has expanded to incorporate portraiture and handwritten testimony, increasingly becoming a collaboration between the photographer and the people most affected. The result is a project that succeeds in highlighting the otherwise overlooked individuals whose lives have been forever altered by this devastating crisis.

Jason laying on the sidewalk outside an encampment he lives at in Portland, on September 9, 2022.
Pat constructing a shelter for himself off an Interstate-84 entrance ramp in Portland, on October 22, 2022.
Two residents of Woodspring Apartments, a senior citizens’ affordable housing complex in Tigard, a city in the Portland metro area, walk through the complex’s parking lot, hand in hand, on March 6, 2023.
Tenants at Woodspring Apartments meet on March 6, 2023, to discuss legal options, after it was announced that the complex’s rent would be raised to market level rates. The contract that the complex was founded on expires at the end of 2023, letting the current owners raise rents to market rate. With most residents already spending more than 50 percent of their fixed income on rent, many are worried they’ll be forced to find new housing elsewhere. It was recently announced that the county was in talks to buy the property, in order to stop rent prices from increasing.
Portrait of Sandra Frying in the bedroom of her Woodspring Apartments, on March 8, 2023. Fry: “I have no family, no kids, I already sold my car to pay the bills. God will have to find a way to keep me here, but if I lose this apartment, he’ll have to take me home.
Priscilla Clark and her family carry boxes out of her apartment at La Hacienda Apartment Complex in Portland, on March 25, 2023. La Hacienda is a low income housing complex, but all tenants were given a 90-day eviction notice just before Christmas 2022, so that the owning nonprofit, Relay Resources, could demolish the property, in a bid for 2024 state housing funds. Most if not all tenants were given little to no rehousing assistance from Relay.
Left -behind property is removed from an evicted apartment unit at La Hacienda Apartment Complex on March 31, 2023.
Portrait of Rebekah Thompson and her son Miguel, outside their apartment at the La Hacienda on March 26, 2023. Thompson: “It was right before Christmas when we were all told that everyone was getting evicted. And without reason! Everything has just become so unfair. It has become hard to just survive in today’s society. If I didn’t have my son to keep me going, I don’t know what I would do.
A local unhoused encampment near Portland’s downtown waterfront, commonly referred to as “The Pit,” on April 21, 2023.
On March 27, 2023, a rapid response team clears an illegal campsite in Portland that had caught fire.
Mikeasha Shep and a group of friends begin to collect their belongings during an illegal camping sweep by rapid response teams in Portland on April 3, 2023.
The Central City Concern outreach team pass out Narcan to one another while making their morning rounds with resources for those experiencing homelessness in the Old Town district of Portland, on April 5, 2023.
ICE and Rob sharing a cigarette in the single room occupancy that they’ve been squatting at in Portland, on October 26, 2022. After the original occupant died of a drug overdose, no family member or representative from the apartment complex came to remove the belongings. ICE saw it as the perfect opportunity to find shelter off the streets before the winter.
Portrait of Noah, while moving his belongings to a new campsite in SE Portland on November 26, 2022. Noah: “As if I’m not having a bad enough day, the neighbors come out and try to kick ya I the nuts while you’re down. Trying to find a place where a guy/gal can put up a tent and have a little home are becoming almost impossible to find. I just stopped to rest my arms from carrying all my shit and these shitty people come out to run me off, thinking I may be setting up a tent on their beloved street. Not a ‘Are you thirsty?’ or a ‘Are you staying warm?’ Desensitized people are in the majority.

Be part of 160 years of confronting power 


Every day,
The Nation exposes the administration’s unchecked and reckless abuses of power through clear-eyed, uncompromising independent journalism—the kind of journalism that holds the powerful to account and helps build alternatives to the world we live in now. 

We have just the right people to confront this moment. Speaking on Democracy Now!, Nation DC Bureau chief Chris Lehmann translated the complex terms of the budget bill into the plain truth, describing it as “the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history.” In the pages of the June print issue and on The Nation Podcast, Jacob Silverman dove deep into how crypto has captured American campaign finance, revealing that it was the top donor in the 2024 elections as an industry and won nearly every race it supported.

This is all in addition to The Nation’s exceptional coverage of matters of war and peace, the courts, reproductive justice, climate, immigration, healthcare, and much more.

Our 160-year history of sounding the alarm on presidential overreach and the persecution of dissent has prepared us for this moment. 2025 marks a new chapter in this history, and we need you to be part of it.

We’re aiming to raise $20,000 during our June Fundraising Campaign to fund our change-making reporting and analysis. Stand for bold, independent journalism and donate to support The Nation today.

Onward, 

Katrina vanden Heuvel 
Publisher, The Nation

Jordan Gale

Jordan Gale is an American photographer based in Portland.

More from The Nation

A pregnant woman lies on her bed with monitoring devices placed on her belly at the maternity ward of a hospital in Paris on June 29, 2022.

Giving Birth Almost Killed Me. Pregnancy Shouldn’t Be So Dangerous. Giving Birth Almost Killed Me. Pregnancy Shouldn’t Be So Dangerous.

Every year, tens of thousands of women bleed to death after having a baby. Cuts to aid and attacks on reproductive rights will make postpartum complications even more deadly.

Karina Piser

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller leaves after speaking to the media outside the White House on May 30, 2025, in Washington, DC. Miller spoke out against the recent court ruling that blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to prevent Harvard University from enrolling foreign students.

Banning Foreign Students Is the Opposite of “Making America Great” Banning Foreign Students Is the Opposite of “Making America Great”

How much of our future, our prosperity, and our moral leadership are we willing to sacrifice for this disastrous crusade?

Tariq Habash

Shujun Wang on “60 Minutes.”

Chinese Transnational Repression Is a Real Issue—but Shujun Wang Is a Bad Example Chinese Transnational Repression Is a Real Issue—but Shujun Wang Is a Bad Example

Our government spent almost a decade chasing a professor they thought was a spy. The case raises questions about our ability to pursue real perpetrators of China’s crimes.

Timothy McLaughlin

The Confederate flag is seen waving behind the monument of the victims of the Confederation Army during the American Civil War in front of the State Congress building in Columbia, South Carolina, on June 19, 2015.

The Heritage of Dylann Roof The Heritage of Dylann Roof

Ten years after the Charleston massacre, reverence for the Confederacy that Roof idolized is going strong.

Elizabeth Robeson

World Liberty Financial's website touts WLF1, its Trump-sanctioned “governance token.”

The Shady Financial Past of a Major Trump Crypto Investor The Shady Financial Past of a Major Trump Crypto Investor

Andrei Grachev, an early booster of a Trump crypto offering, has cycled through several alleged investment scams and was convicted on fraud charges in Russia.

Jacob Silverman

When It Comes to Understanding the Dangers Posed by Big Tech, We’re Lost in the Cloud

When It Comes to Understanding the Dangers Posed by Big Tech, We’re Lost in the Cloud When It Comes to Understanding the Dangers Posed by Big Tech, We’re Lost in the Cloud

By treating IT and AI as neutral tools, we obscure our ability to see—and resist—power. If just one of the big three tech giants collapses, societal mayhem could follow.

Column / Zephyr Teachout