Demonstrator Cameron Whitten sits on the sidewalk during an all-night protest against Portland camping and homelessness policies on July 2, 2012.
The number marks a 70 percent increase in homeless deaths in Multnomah County, home to Portland, local authorities said Thursday.
This is since officials first began tracking the homeless in 2011 and is in line with similar significant increase in homeless deaths in other large West Coast cities where the homelessness has surged.
The annual report is used as a barometer to track the city's progress addressing a crisis that has also overwhelmed cities from Seattle to San Diego.
Comment: Islamophobia and the culture clash may be one of the reasons for Syrians wanting to go away from Europe. But this article omits another aspect of the story - a more positive one. That is, the fact that Syrians are going back home to Syria in the thousands because the Syrian and Russian militaries have cleaned the land of ISIS. Cultural differences are secondary when you have the opportunity to go back to the land you grew up in and never wanted to leave in the first place, but were forced to due to a war of aggression from terrorist groups. See:
Syria: Thousands of refugees returning following failure of US-led war