As  homeless teenager, I decided to stop riding riding trains in Portland to see where that might take me. Ten years later, I am a "three percenter" due  in large part to Portland's amazingly kind social workers and the city's generosity. I have since helped others in similar shoes,  and it's true  that it is difficult to calibrate and standardize an objective metric for measuring success in the realm of social services' effectiveness. And truthfully, a lot of it  comes down to the individual person. But regardless, I choose  to continue living  here because Portland is not Seattle or San Francisco where dead homeless people are stepped over and where  I have been scolded for buying homeless folks a cup of coffee.