MEET DAVID
David Burnell is a 6-year sober black Portland father, a certified drug and alcohol counselor, and a union member.
David has stayed involved and informed with the issues directly affecting Portland through his work and personal life.
In His Professional Life
David has been living in the Portland area since 2017. Prior to finding long-term sobriety, David worked in several Blue-collar jobs, his last job in this field was working at Schnitzer Steel. David then switched careers with the intention of getting directly involved in Portland's clean and sober community.
In this time David has worked with youth who were under Oregon Child Protective Services and/or Oregon Youth Authority supervision. A culturally specific program for youth who are directly affected by gang violence and substance abuse. At the same time volunteering at City Team Portland (the inpatient rehab he went to) as the relapse prevention teacher, and currently on the board of advisors for the program director.
After completing the educational and hourly requirements for his Substance Abuse Counseling Certification, David began working as a counselor in local methadone clinics. During this time David worked directly with the homeless population in the city. David is currently working for an inpatient treatment program.
The biggest thing that David has learned in this field is that no one program or one person will be able to fix the complex problems Portland has.
It takes a team of programs and individuals with specialties to help a person get back on their feet and become a productive member of the community, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes all of us communicating, working together, and setting realistic smart goals together to be efficient.
This is one of the biggest problems Portland leaders, programs, and politicians have. They are siloing themselves from each other while all attempting to fix the same problems to keep power and be reelected.
The madness needs to stop.
How We Fix It
When elected, the first thing the new city council needs to do is meet and put together a unified agenda of both short-term and long-term goals, with the programs, agencies, experts, and community members that should be involved in building initial plans to tackle problems facing this city.
David volunteers as an advisory board member to a local non-profit that offers daily meals, nightly shelter, and inpatient treatment to Portland’s homeless and substance abuse victims.
David was the first co-chair of the Government Transition Advisory Committee which he’s been serving on since March 2023.
David is a contributing author for the Adult Suicide Intervention and Prevention Plan and was the cochair to the Crisis System Advisory Workgroup that oversaw the 988 suicide hotline role out in Oregon.
He has been an active member in the Multnomah County Democratic Party, as an elected PCP, contributing author to the MultDems Blog, and a trainer for committee members to interface with the public.
