Content Warning: This story contains discussions of homelessness, mental illness, police violence, and potential exploitation of vulnerable individuals.
Some headlines you just can’t unsee. This is one of them: A top Portland political aide took in a homeless woman to his home, yet abandoned her at a state park days later.
What is going on in Portland, Oregon? Let’s dive into this bizarre story that reads like fiction but is all too real.
The Middle-of-the-Night Abandonment That Started It All
Picture this: It’s 2:00 AM on a cold Friday morning. A car pulls into an empty campsite at Milo McIver State Park—about 45 minutes southeast of Portland. The driver unloads a few possessions belonging to his passenger: a disabled homeless woman with documented mental illness and her scrawny white pit bull.
Blankets, a beach umbrella, a wheelchair, a walker, assorted grocery bags. After lighting a fire for the woman—who had no tent, sleeping bag, or camping stove—the driver got back in his car and made the winding 30-minute drive back to his home.
The man behind the wheel? A top Portland City Hall staffer earning $131,000 annually. And apparently, he’s still employed.
If you didn’t read this in The Oregonian, you’d think this whole Portland homeless crisis story was made up, right?
Meet the $131K Decision Maker: Amini Kolikoli
This is our guy—Amini Kolikoli, then chief of staff for Councilor Jamie Dumbeauty. According to his memo to his boss, he had “scooped the woman off a Milwaukee street days prior in an attempt to help her avoid arrest.”
Less than 36 hours after abandoning her at that isolated campground, park workers called state police to remove her. She wouldn’t cooperate, records allege. Police used a taser to shoot electricity through her body to subdue, handcuff, and arrest her.
On September 27th, the woman’s dog—which she described as an emotional support animal—bit a state trooper before bolting into the woods and disappearing.
Does this seem like a weird story to you? Yeah, me too. The math isn’t mathing here.
When “Good Intentions” Look Suspiciously Bad
The episode, pieced together through interviews, incident reports, court documents, and other public records, supposedly represents “good intentions gone horribly awry.”
But when I hear about a single guy bringing homeless women to his house—women who are mentally unstable and extremely vulnerable—the first thing that goes through my head isn’t “good intentions.” These folks are not mentally well, and often have addiction issues. Didn’t know if you knew that.
Unless you’re working at a mental hospital or treatment facility helping them in that controlled environment, you’re not trying to help by saying, “Hey, come to my house. I got candy.”
What was this guy doing? Maybe don’t ask. Don’t ask, don’t tell—just like a certain military policy back in the day.
The Story That Doesn’t Add Up
Here’s where this homeless assistance scandal really starts to fall apart:
Kolikoli claims he first contacted the woman on September 17th when she called his work cell phone—which isn’t listed online—asking for help. How did she get his number? He must have given it to her previously.
Three days later, on September 20th, she called him more than a dozen times in the middle of the night. A homeless woman you don’t know, calling you a dozen times overnight? That makes absolutely no sense.
When he finally answered at 1:30 AM—and here’s the question: What are you doing picking up your phone at 1:30 AM from someone like this? Clearly, you know how this conversation is going to go.
The Coincidences Keep Coming
She frantically said she feared for her life and begged him to meet her where she’d been camping near the public library in Milwaukee—the same Portland suburb where he also happened to live.
Coincidence? Oh, hey now. Okay, all right.
When he got there, he found the woman in a wheelchair with her dog. She told him she had autism and a history of violent interactions with police that caused neurological damage and Broca’s aphasia—a language disorder making it difficult to speak.
Perfect. So regular citizens should have no problem picking up a homeless person, probably on drugs, with violent police interactions, and a pit bull. What kind of shenanigans do we have going on here?
The Two Missing Days Nobody Talks About
Once the woman was at his house, Kolikoli waited two entire days—the whole weekend—before seeking help for her. What happened in those two days? What were you doing? Just sitting around having tea? Going out for coffee?
His memo doesn’t explain what occurred during this crucial period. When his boss found out, the conversation probably went like this:
“Boss, I’ve got a situation here. I brought a woman home with me.”
“You brought a woman home with you?”
“Yeah, she’s homeless and mentally really, really ill.”
“You brought a homeless woman who’s mentally ill to your home? What the f*** is wrong with you?”
“I was just trying to help her.”
That’s not what anybody’s going to think. It’s not what anybody’s going to think.
Professional Standards? What Professional Standards?
Despite working in community engagement and supposedly knowing how to “navigate different bureaucracies,” Kolikoli made decisions that specialists in the field called “outright appalling” and defying professional standards.
If you’re not a social worker or mental health specialist, maybe this shouldn’t be your gig. The optics alone are terrible—horrific, even. Don’t let your mind wander; just the optics alone are awful.
Meanwhile, unknown to our $131K decision-maker, a battery of outreach workers had spent more than a week trying to assist this woman through proper channels.
The Real Portland Homeless Crisis: System Failure
This woman clearly needed intensive, long-term mental health intervention. Court documents revealed her long history of instability:
- Living in an RV filled with trash and human waste
- Barricading herself inside for weeks
- Requiring hazmat suits for responders to enter
- Multiple citations for illegal RV parking
- Refusing to cooperate with professional services
She needed to be in a mental institution, not wandering Portland’s dangerous streets. But cities like Portland, San Francisco, and LA just say, “Here’s some food, here’s some services, here’s a tent. Just do your own thing.”
This misguided compassion—letting someone who’s cognitively unable to make safe decisions roam freely—isn’t compassion at all. It’s abandonment disguised as progressive policy.
Housing First Doesn’t Work When Someone Can’t Make Decisions
The “housing first” approach fails people like this woman who can’t even provide identifying information or accept basic help. She doesn’t want housing—she wants to find her lost dog because she isn’t mentally able to prioritize her own safety and well-being.
When that happens, people need real help. They need facilities, treatment, and yes—sometimes involuntary intervention. We’ve given up mental institutions and replaced them with this housing-first philosophy that says, “People with problems just need housing and they’ll be fine,” without requiring sobriety, medication, or addressing underlying issues.
Instead, she’s being shot around like a ping-pong ball—people dragging her here, people dragging her there. This is somebody’s daughter, potentially somebody’s mom. This concept of allowing people to live wherever they want puts vulnerable individuals in jeopardy.
The Uncomfortable Questions Nobody’s Asking
Here’s what really bothers me about this Portland homeless assistance scandal: When you hear people saying “everything’s fine” with how we handle our homeless industrial complex, stories like this prove them wrong.
Is leaving mentally ill women to “do their own thing” on Portland’s rough streets—especially dangerous for single women—really compassionate? I don’t think so.
There’s got to be a better way. And there is. But in big blue liberal cities, we’re not implementing it because:
- We believe in housing first without accountability
- We refuse to work with law enforcement
- If we actually solved homelessness, some people would be out of jobs
- There are no real plans to end homelessness—just more of the same
What This Really Tells Us About Portland
This story perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with Portland’s approach to the homeless crisis. Professional outreach workers spend weeks building trust and developing treatment plans, only to have some unqualified city official swoop in and make everything worse.
The result? A disabled woman getting tasered in a state park while searching for her lost emotional support animal.
Until we get serious about involuntary treatment, mental health intervention, and yes—law enforcement cooperation—we’ll keep seeing these tragic outcomes. Until everyone agrees that we need to get people the help they actually need (not just what makes us feel good about ourselves), vulnerable individuals will continue suffering.
This woman shouldn’t be running around without shoes and socks in a forest 45 minutes from services. That’s your bottom line. But that’s exactly where Portland’s “compassionate” policies led her.
What do you think about Portland’s handling of homeless crisis situations like this? Have you witnessed similar policy failures in your city? Share your thoughts and experiences—because these conversations matter for creating real solutions.
