Weekly News Roundup
10 minute news recap. Portland's City Council bans unsanctioned camping & effectively criminalizes homelessness, the RSV outbreak provides an reminder on the importance of government regulation, and the Federal Reserve's latest news & moves on interest rates. Plus, it's still raining!
Full transcript below
00:00
Hi, it's Katherine at Sunnybranch Wealth and welcome to this week's Weekly News RoundUp, our first one in November. We're gonna kick it off with some local news. This week the Portland City Council passed a new ban on homeless camping in public spaces that's going to start taking effect, being phased in starting May of 2023. The resolutions that the city council passed include other measures. There was first the ban on camping. It also set up a plan to establish six city wide shelters that are going to house between 150 and 250 individuals, effectively sanctioned mass camping sites. The measures also indicated that the city council is going to support the creation of 10,000 additional units of affordable housing over the next 20 years, as well as increase access to addiction and mental health services.
01:15
This proposal was introduced two weeks ago. It was just voted on and approved this week, Joanne Hardesty was the sole vote that didn't that didn't vote to approve. I find it to be pretty disappointing. Certainly I understand the issues that many people business owners, ordinary Portlanders have with camping and public spaces, I understand that there has been a rise in theft and vandalism in crime. I'm sensitive to all of that. But it feels like what the city council has done is basically put in place a ban on camping that's going to take effect next year. And then said, here are all these other things that we would like to do, along with that ban on camping. But this measure was introduced two weeks ago. And there have been no conversations about where these six sanctioned campsites are going to be across the city, how they're going to be paid for, what access to treatment is going to be like at these six locations, how that access to treatment is going to be paid for.
02:27
And additionally, the same issues with the creation of affordable housing, and improving access to mental health services. I'm for all these things, I think these, this additional access to treatment is the most important part of the measures that got passed. But it's totally unclear how any of it is going to be paid for there is no plan about how it's going to be put into place. There have been no discussions with stakeholders. So in effect, what I see happening, is the city council said, we need to ban camping in public spaces. But the only way that we're going to be able to politically ban camping in public spaces, is if we put all of these other support measures in the same package. But they really just gave lip service to those support measures. And it's hard to believe that they're going to be able to find the money to get everything that they want to get done done when they haven't been able to find it so far. And it's unclear if this funding is just going to magically show up. Most likely it won't. So I don't I don't support it.
03:39
I applaud Joanne Hardesty for voting no. There needed to have been more discussion, more involvement of stakeholders, greater consideration of what criminalizing homelessness will actually mean, in terms of how many additional people who are suffering from mental health or addiction issues that you're just funneling into jails, which, by the way, are also very expensive. I find it disappointing. I also don't find it surprising, because we have midterms coming up in which the Democrats are really we're not looking very good nationwide. Democrats aren't looking very good in Oregon, Tina Kotek, especially as I've talked about, is in a really tight race. So I understand there was a very high degree of political motivation to get something passed so that people feel like something is happening. And we're not just staring down this this problem with no solutions. But I wish that it had been a more intentional process, more stakeholders consulted and a clearer way forward in terms of how the most important parts of this package: how people who are unhoused and/or experiencing addiction and mental health issues are going to get support
04:57
In national news, obviously affecting us here in Oregon as well. We are looking at triple threats from viruses this winter, potentially high rates of COVID as well as the flu and RSV. The RSV season has already started early and is looking really severe. And it's unfortunate. No one wants their kid to get RSV especially no parent really wants their kid to get really sick from RSV. I think it's a really important point, though, to look at why government into intervention is so important. And at Sunnybranch, I talk a lot about philanthropic giving. But I also talk a lot about political giving an advocacy work and supporting the role that government has within our society and trying to improve how government is acting and how government is supporting its citizens within society. And the RSV case, what's happening in hospitals is a perfect example of this.
06:07
Basically, what happened during COVID Is that many, many pediatric beds in hospitals were converted into adult beds. And the reason that that happened, there was a pandemic going on, there was a very high number of adults that were getting really, really sick with COVID, relatively smaller number of infants, children, that we're getting sick. And so these beds shifted from pediatric beds to adult beds, fine. It's a pandemic, we all get it. But then these hospitals realize, well, we actually get paid more with adult beds than we do with pediatric beds, adult beds are more profitable. Because generally adults who come in are sicker, they require more testing. So they're more opportunities to get reimbursed by insurance companies or by Medicare or Medicaid, whatever. And so these beds didn't switch back from adults beds to children's beds, because hospitals were focused on profit, and the government didn't put in place any incentives or any requirements to force them to move these beds back to pediatric beds.
07:21
Well, what we have now is a very, very severe early RSV season, children's hospitals across the country are overwhelmed with pediatric patients who have severe cases of RSV, and community hospitals, local hospitals, especially in rural areas, many of them have totally gotten rid of their pediatric beds. And that means that parents with kids who are really sick with RSV are having to shuttle around maybe their region, maybe even the country. There's discussions of hospitals, referring patients to other children's hospitals across the country. But the majority of children's hospitals are full, and are looking at creating field hospitals to treat pediatric RSV patients taking other extraordinary measures, because they don't have any beds left. So a reminder to everyone, get your booster extra COVID boosters, get your flu shots, wash your hands. And think about when you're doing your giving, especially as we move into the end of the year, the season when a lot of us are starting to think about giving back maybe making our philanthropic contributions for the year. Challenge yourself to give not only on the philanthropic side, but also give to advocacy organizations and causes that you care about that aren't going to encourage the government to to make decisions and to interact and create regulations in the private sector that are going to be to the benefit of its citizens.
09:03
Wrapping up this week with what else: more news from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve had a meeting this week where it increased interest rates, again, by three quarters of a percentage point. This was a widely expected totally telegraphed move. What markets were watching more closely is what the Federal Reserve was saying. And what they said was that at their next meeting, which is in December, they plan to keep increasing rates, but they're open to start increasing rates at a slightly slower pace. So maybe in December, instead of three quarters of a percent. They might be looking at looking at raising rates by half a percent. This was somewhat reassuring to the markets because the markets really want the Fed to slow down with increasing rates. But there was a lot of stock market volatility when the Fed made its announcement, there has continued to be a lot of volatility this week, as markets decide really what they think about the Feds plan of action and what's going to happen as we look towards the next couple quarters in both in the markets and in the overall economy.
10:17
The tricky line that the Fed is walking right now is that raising interest rates is not a one to one proposition, you don't raise interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point and then the next day you see a corresponding decrease in inflation. Inflation lags fairly significantly behind the interest rate increases that the Fed is making. So it's possible that the Fed has already done enough to tame inflation. But we won't know that it's enough for the next three to six months. It's also possible that the Fed hasn't done enough, and they need to continue on the path they're on now to, to continue increasing rates. But we also won't know that until two or three quarters down the line. And that is what markets are worried about is that the Fed has, in fact, accomplished its goal. But we won't know that for three to six, however many months. And in the meantime, the Fed is continuing to raise rates. So by the time we know the Fed has accomplished this goal, they may already have gone too far. And then they'll be looking at pushing us into a recession.
11:32
It sounds like the Federal Reserve is planning to decrease the severity of these rate increases. Again, this is all dependent on the kind of data that comes out between now and the Feds next meeting in December. And we'll really just, as I always say, this should be the title of these videos: We'll have to wait and see what happens. There are very smart minds working on this and there continues to be disagreement between the market and the Fed over what the course of inflation is going to be. But it's encouraging that the Fed is listening to the markets while it maintains its plan and its conviction to increase interest rates and bring inflation under control.
12:21
That's all I have for you this week. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We're going to be taking it pretty easy doing chores getting ready for upcoming fall celebrations: Thanksgiving if you celebrate Christmas or whatever you celebrate hope you're looking forward to it. Have a good one.