The biggest issues facing Portland are the startling number of people experiencing homelessness, high taxes and the rising cost of living, according to an annual survey.

Overall, just a quarter of those surveyed said the Portland area is on the right track. Nearly half said the opposite.

It’s a stark difference from the years leading up to the pandemic. In 2017, the same survey showed the opposite: 55% said the area was on the right track, and just 26% said the wrong track.

“That means that if you were walking around your neighborhood, seeing your colleagues at work, running into a buddy at the bar,” John Horvick, senior vice president at DHM research, told reporters Wednesday during a briefing on the results, “Most people would have felt that the place that they live is heading in the right direction.”

Sentiment switched in 2021, and since then, more Oregonians living in the Portland region have said things are going the wrong way. The 2025 survey continued that trend. More than half of respondents said they’re personally worse off economically than they were a year ago. And they’re pessimistic about the future: 52% expect to be even worse off a year from now.

Each year, the Portland Metro Chamber contracts with independent Portland firm DHM Research to survey hundreds of registered voters in the metro area on how they view the region’s economy. For the 2025 survey, DHM Research polled 600 voters from Dec. 6-14. The results have a 4% margin of error.

In addition to polling respondents on the general mood of the economy, the survey asks an open-ended question about the biggest issue facing the region. Year after year, homelessness tops the list. For the 2025 survey, 20% percent of respondents listed homelessness.

“‘I’m always counseling our clients and people who we work with when they interpret a question like this, that if something reaches 20%, that’s a pretty big deal,” Horvick said while explaining the survey results. “If I can get one out of five people in a community — on their own — to mention the same thing, that’s a flashing yellow light, that’s a really big issue in the community. And so homelessness reaches that threshold.”

Homelessness was the top concern in 2024’s survey by an even bigger margin, with 35% of respondents listing it as their top concern. While it dropped in 2025’s survey, an entirely new category came up: 10% of respondents said federal immigration enforcement was the top issue.

The most recent survey also showed growing concern about high taxes, which 14% said was the biggest issue. That was followed by cost of living at 12% and lack of affordable housing at 11% of respondents.

“Our region has four income taxes that you pay,” Andrew Hoan, president of Portland Metro Chamber, told OPB on Monday. “We pay a county tax, a metro tax, a state tax, and a federal tax. So not only is it the highest for middle-income families, it’s also the most complex to even pay.”

More so, voters surveyed feel like the taxes they pay are too high when compared to the services they receive.

“This is our, perhaps, most vexing challenge,” Hoan said. “That not only do we have difficulty recruiting top-notch talent and retaining our incredible people because of the taxes, not only do we have difficulty because we’re paying high taxes as businesses – because that creates a competitive disadvantage for our businesses – but we’re also really getting low quality services for how high these taxes are.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/15/portland-voters-survey-homelessness-taxes-immigration/