It is not that the ideas are wrong.
It is that they are not the correct moves for a team that is not ready for them.
I know it sounds like a silly parallel. But changing societies is hard, long, unique and not well understood process. It makes sense to try to learn from examples where it is much easier to gather some information.
When I come to meet a team that has trouble (I work as an advisor and help teams that have trouble), I am not coming with a library of good solutions BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING NOT WORKING. Time and time again, I am repairing after previous people who did just that -- they came with a solution thinking they know it all because it worked somewhere. More often than not they have observed something working, they learned elements they could easily understand and they tried to transplant and failed miserably.
So whether you are trying to fix a team or fix a homelessness problem, you have to come with an empty mind and willingness to relentlessly problem solve. And look at those other successful examples as examples to learn from but not necessarily duplicate.
Let alone whether they can work in the real world.
In this case I don't think anyone in Portland or Oregon attempted such an analysis.
A lot of us here have more experience in working or introducing microservices that shaping drug abuse policy. I would be surprised if there was one politician here who actually was responsible for dealing with the problem himself/herself.
Maybe like $2 trillion over a decade?
It does not work where the "Deep State" is the enemy and grifters run for Congress to become Twitter trolls.
You are blaming Portland's currently fail[ed|ing] policies on federal congress members that have nothing to do with Portland?
This is a progressive failure
I think more to the point the issue is that you can't legislate morality. Some people will break the law no matter how harsh the penalty, and some people will take advantage of permissiveness no matter how much you try to help. Some problems the government just can't fix.