With the lack of parking already being a major issue for students at Lincoln High School, a new problem has recently emerged. In the past weeks, many cars have been broken into, torn apart and ransacked. These break ins are not only in the night but in broad daylight, including four cars with their windows smashed on 16th and Salmon. These break-ins reinforce the need for more parking spaces at Lincoln, as no car on the street is safe.

Presley Cable, a sophomore, had his car broken into and items stolen.

“It’s really hard to know that someone went through all stuff, it feels like I was violated,” he said.

This string of break-ins have even escalated to total theft of cars. Eric Petersen, science teacher at Lincoln, had his car stolen from under the bleachers after coming in early to work. A colleague noticed the car was missing, however he brushed the comment off till lunch when he found his car had vanished.

“If you’re a car thief, it’s kind of the perfect spot,” said Petersen.

Due to the vast amount of car break-ins Portland experiences, there isn’t a lot the Portland Police Bureau can provide besides telling the car owner to wait. While losing a car can be a financially devastating prospect, according to Lincoln’s School Resource Officer Thomas Stoffel, 80 percent of cars are returned.

This was just the case for Petersen, as, consequently, Pablo Dipascuale, a Spanish teacher at Lincoln, noticed the car near Lincoln and reported it to Petersen. Petersen had sent a staff wide email to inform his colleagues of the theft and asked them to watch out for his car on the roads.

The car was stolen by a member of the homeless population, another pressing issue that students and staff at an urban school must deal with. With the lack of housing the city has to offer, many homeless resort to living in cars instead.

“They all had large, unkempt hiking backpacks, and once I was near the car I noticed the amount of stuff inside of it as if people were living in it,” said Dipascuale.

Lincoln’s security officers are aware of the break-in epidemic.

Campus security officer Edward Sims says, “Don’t leave anything valuable to be seen, lock it up in your trunk, because they break into your windows.”