Saturday 1 October 2022 10:30 PM Portland woman slams mayor for scoffing at her concerns about homeless crisis trends now

A woman who says she moved to Portland, Oregon for its progressive values has accused the mayor of scoffing at her after she confronted him over the city's homelessness crisis.

At a virtual city council meeting on Wednesday, Gillian Rose slammed Portland's handling of its homeless population, saying the squalid encampments that are pervasive around the city make life miserable for residents.

'You have to stop enabling this,' said a visibly emotional Rose. 'I'm angry and I'm sad and I'm fed up, and I'm so sick of having politicians pander to a woke agenda that's been nothing short of an epic failure.'

Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, chuckled audibly as he responded, saying, 'thank you, you've made your point emphatically clear. Thank you for being here and sharing your perspective, we do appreciate it.' 

After the meeting, Rose said that Wheeler had scoffed at her concerns, telling KOIN-TV: 'when he laughed, it kind of just proved my point.' 

She added 'it was really insulting actually and painful to hear.' 

A spokesperson for Wheeler did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday. 

In her remarks at Wednesday's council meeting, Rose spoke passionately about the stark impact that Portland's prolific homeless population has on quality of life.

She said that she had moved to the city from the East Coast four years ago because she embraced its left-leaning values. 

'I moved here in hopes of becoming part of a progressive city where it seemed like its leaders cared about social issues -- what's transpired here is not progressivism,' she said.

'A lot of people who live on the streets fill them with trash and their own feces while openly using drugs -- it's not progressive, it's insane and unacceptable,' added Rose.

'Portland has become the laughing stock of the country, it really has,' she told the city's leaders.