Crisis in the Northwest: The homeschool mom documenting Portland's 'destruction'
Tara Faul never paid much attention to politics. But after 2020, the homeschooling mom picked up a camera and started documenting Portland's decline.
PORTLAND, Ore. – Piles of propane canisters, tarps, mangled furniture and other belongings littered the side of Northeast 33rd Drive. Scraps of plastic clung to the fence next to a sign reading "natural area."
Nestled in the remains of the RV encampment was a Minnie Mouse plush on a bright pink scooter. Tara Faul snapped a photo and then paused, her normally unruffled expression darkening briefly.
"It's always unnerving when you see kids' toys," she said.
The homeschooling mother of four had never considered herself political, aside from once being "really into Ron Paul." But after witnessing the city she loved decline, she picked up a camera and began documenting the problems she felt were being ignored — or flat out denied — in polite society.
"What I saw on the news and on social media did not match up with what I was seeing in real life," Faul said. "And then I realized that maybe the whole truth wasn't getting put out there."
Tara Faul has lived in Oregon most of her life and moved to Portland in 2018. But since then, the city she loved has become a place she'd move away from given the chance. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
Faul grew up on the Oregon Coast and bought a house in Portland in 2018. At first, she loved everything about the city — the food, the entrepreneurial spirit and the feeling that people were "free to be themselves."
That changed around 2020. Riots erupted in the city following George Floyd's murder in Minnesota and lasted more than 100 consecutive nights.
"It was violent and scary," Faul said. "People were trying to light buildings on fire with people inside of them."
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Faul said she was physically attacked more than once while recording the mayhem. Yet, in her moderate social circle, she said people either didn't know how violent the protests could be or "didn't want to say anything negative because it could be conceived as being racist or against social justice if you acknowledge that something bad was happening."
National news reports and people on social media insisted the demonstrations were limited to a few downtown blocks around the Multnomah County Justice Center and federal courthouse. But in reality, many nights saw crowds marching through neighborhoods chanting "wake up motherf------, wake up" at quiet bungalows and Craftsman homes.
"It was kind of like a gaslighting moment, I guess," Faul said.
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Meanwhile, homicides spiked to levels not seen in more than 30 years. Vandalism and smash and grabs became pervasive. Emergency response times doubled, and many Portlanders grew frustrated with the sparse prosecutions coming out of their new, progressive district attorney's office.
"Crime, I guess, became acceptable," Faul said. "If we don't prosecute people for crimes or you can't get the police to show up, everything's just kind of fair game."
"The social contract is kind of destroyed," she added.
Faul remembers calling her kids in from the yard when a man wandered by with a machete. A nearby house was shot up so many times it became difficult to distinguish the new bullet holes from the old.
"I just started taking pictures of what I saw around me," she said.
If we don't prosecute people for crimes or you can't get the police to show up, everything's just kind of fair game.
Mostly, that has been piles of trash. Faul goes by Garbage Ghost on X, trying to put an artistic flair and "investigate the story" in the litter she finds around town.
"I was really upset about seeing just destruction everywhere," she said. "It was making me angry, and I would come home mad all the time or just despairing. So I was like, 'You know what? I'm going to try to make this into an art form.'"
Biohazard cleanup crews still processing the rest of the Northeast 33rd Drive encampment eyed Faul skeptically as she walked through the rubble, squatting occasionally to photograph an unusual find. She chatted with one of the camp's former residents as she snapped his portrait.
Across the Willamette River, Faul parked in Portland's Chinatown neighborhood. She pointed out a corner where she recently took one of her "epic" pictures of human excrement splattered on walls and sidewalks.
The fecal photos have been especially relevant as the city's homeless community faces a surge in the waste-borne illness Shigella. But they've also sparked a bit of an inside joke with Faul's followers.
The chronically online scrutinize her appearance, trying to figure out where she falls on the political spectrum. Most can't place her as a Trump voter. Confused by her piercings, beanies and tattered band T-shirts, they instead assume she must have voted for this — whatever "this" is.
"I get it," Faul said. "I look like I voted for the poop."
She added, "I'm not going to change the way I dress myself to make people stop yelling at me. But I'm also not progressive enough to make people like me here. So nobody likes me."
And nobody (online at least) seems to want her moving to their state, Faul said, even though she counts herself among the 56% of Portlanders who said they would leave the city in a recent poll.
"I had a lot of people going, 'Don't you f---ing move to my state and ruin it like you did Portland,'" she said. "If I want to leave, don't you think that says something?"
She stopped to ask a group of people sitting on the sidewalk if she could take their picture. Most declined, but one man volunteered his friend, flirting with Faul as she set up her shot.
The subject struggled to light a flame under his meth pipe and tried to block the wind with his swollen, pink fingers. Finally, he ducked under a wool blanket, emerging a moment later along with a thick plume of smoke.
Many of Faul's photos feature the open-air drug use that has become widespread in downtown Portland since Oregonians decriminalized possession of small amounts of all drugs in early 2021. Lawmakers recently passed a bill making drug possession a crime again, and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek announced on March 8 that she intends to sign the legislation. (Photos courtesy Tara Faul)
"Really sad," Faul said after taking the picture, asked how it feels to document the moment. Before she could continue, another man started shouting obscenities from underneath a Portland Timbers blanket. "And sometimes scary," she said. "We should probably move."
I had a ton of pride in Portland.
Faul does see glimmers of hope. She pointed to the 2022 election, when voters replaced a progressive city commissioner with a moderate newcomer. Homicides and car thefts, two of the most reliably reported crime categories, both dropped in 2023, according to Portland Police Bureau data.
"It looks like [the city is] headed in a more positive direction right now," Faul said. "But it's still kind of a dump."
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While her husband's job and high housing costs have stymied plans to move out of Portland anytime soon, Faul still finds herself daydreaming on Zillow.
"It would make me sad because I love this place, and I used to tell everybody that it was the best city in the country," she said. "I had a ton of pride in Portland."
To hear more from Faul, click here.
Ramiro Vargas contributed to the accompanying video.