Street roots
Jan. 21, 2011
EDITORIAL
Join us for exciting work in 2011
City should vote no - ag^in
- on JTTF membership
treet Roots has put together its 2011
during certain hours of the night.
Advocacy Agenda. We have several
We also hope to begin the first stages of
things on the docket including
a conversation between local government,
working to secure a public restroom in the hospitals and social service providers to
inner Southeast corridor near St. Francis.
better understand emergency room visits
The City of Portland has done an amazing
and discharges for people experiencing
job at creating new
homelessness and poverty. Right now, we
restrooms downtown
know that many individuals are discharged
— we’re hoping to be
directly into shelters and the streets from
able to push that
emergency rooms. We would love to better
vision forward in one
understand this problem, and how we can
capacity o r another to
create some practical solutions system-wide.
create restrooms for a
Last, but not least, Street Roots
diverse group of
continues to believe that our region
neighbors,
deserves a housing levy, or another form of
businesses and people
major revenue for housing. We will continue
experiencing homelessness on the eastside.
to report and push for our region to be
We hope to work with the city to make
better prepared to make this happen and to
structural changes to Portland’s relocation
advocate for housing as a major priority
policy. Currently, state and federal law
right alongside things like transportation,
requires any housing project th at will
the environment and growth. You can’t have
relocate individuals from one low-income
sm art urban planning without adequate
building tb another to include securing a
affordable housing.
location for individuals o r families and to
We hope you will join us in 2011 and
help pay first and last months rent. We
support the work of Street Roots, like you
hope to work with the Portland Housing
did in 2010 when we were able to move
Bureau to, at th e very least, require basic
several major policy changes forward. Street
levels of support on th e front end for
Roots can’t drive lengthy processes that
residents.
gain little traction over time. We can help
We hope to work with partners to move
create real change for larger institutions to
•sleeping guidelines forward th at would allow own and maintain. Through investigative
for a harm-reduction approach in dealing
journalism, working with individuals on the
with homeless campers, including allowing
streets and community partners, creating
for people to sleep in church parking lots
real change is exactly what we plan to
and in certain areas of the city undisturbed
continue. .
S
ext month City Council will vote on deputizing
several Portland Police officers to becoming Federal
agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
through the Joint Terrorism Task (JTTF).
The FBI does do good work on numerous fronts ranging
from human trafficking to combating violence against
- Portlanders. Saying that, SR still believes that members of
local law enforcement agencies have no business operating
as federal agents.
There’s no question that terrorism, or what we are calling
terrorism today, is unacceptable. But the word terrorism,
and the beliefs behind it, can
be easily manipulated to
The actions that took
accomplish any number of
place surrounding the
political ideologies. All words
Pioneer Square bomb
and actions can be.
The actions that took place
scare shouldn't be
surrounding the Pioneer
taken lightly, hut
Square bomb scare shouldn’t
neither are they a
be
taken lightly, but neither
compelling argument
are
they a compelling
to abandon solid
argument
to abandon solid
practices at home and
practices
at
home and go
go lock step with
lock step with another
another bureaucracy.
_______________________ bureaucracy.
Let’s take immigration. We
know that immigration is a
challenge we all face - one that Portland can’t solve on its
own. But that doesn’t mean we jump to volunteer our
police officers to become deputies of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE). Why? Because we know that
many of our citizens are immigrants, and come from all
walks of life and different experiences, some good and
some bad. The police serve all the people, and a re sw o rn to
protect us equally. It is a matter of public safety for an
entire community.
The FBI has said that it has changed its culture. We’re
not so sure.
In September, the FBI and the JTTF dispatched SWAT
teams to the homes of anti-war activists in Minneapolis and
Chicago and arrested people connected to the peace
movement. Thinking that these peace activists might be
dangerous, SR did a simple Google search and found that
they looked more like grandparents, old hippies and corn-
fed college kids than importers of terrorism.
It has since been reported that an undercover agent had
infiltrated the groups, and supplied materials directly to the
FBI, none of which amounted to a bowl of beans in the
legal world.
The Chicago Teachers Union (in solidarity with the fact
that several of those arrested were union members) passed
a resolution condemning the raids, calling them a “witch
hunt.” Because it is a witch hunt, and Portland should no
more take part in these kinds of actions than it should take
part in actions by ICE when they deport our neighbors.
As a city, we are proud to know that our local law
enforcement represents the people, all people. We know
that when working with the Portland Police Bureau that we
have rights: Immigrants, refugees, peace activists,
homeless folks, the gay and lesbian community, normal
everyday folk and yes, even criminals.
By voting yes, .the city will be saying to Portland peace
activists, and others who dissent (and we are many) that we
could be next — not based on local laws or policy, but on
federal agendas that shift with the sands of politics. Some
of us have already been targeted in the recent past
The Portland City Council should vote no to rejoining the
JTTF, or deputizing any of its officers as federal agents in
any capacity, plain and simple. It may not be the popular
thing to do, but the Portland we love will be better for it,
and so will the diverse citizens its elected officials proudly
represent
N
STREET ROOTS’ EDITORIAL BOARD
The views expressed in the editorials in Street Roots are the
consensus o f members o f the editorial board and
contributing volunteers.
Israel Bayer is th e executive
director o f Street Roots a n d
th e c h a irm a n o f the N orth
A m erican Street N ew spaper
Association. You can reach
h im a t streetroots@hotmaiL
LETTERS
Reader urges community to not give up on those in trouble
I n response to the Street Roots
editorial, “Housing, not bullets,”Jan 7.
Too often so many people give up on
others just as that person is about to
break through and make a critical
change. The ones who don’t give up
on themselves have the best chance
to move beyond, but some just don’t
have that will. That’s where
community comes in. Thank you for
acknowledging the police having a
hard job to do, and the stress for all
involved. That’s true. We’re all just
trying to do the best we can with
what we have. It doesn’t always look
that way, but I do believe that’s how it
works.
BECKY BLANTON
Portland
Relocation journal
misses new units
I’d like to commend Martha Gies
on her recent article “Every time we
say goodbye” (Nov. 26, Street Roots)
about the challenges of relocating low
income tenants, particularly seniors,
and the state of affordable housing in
downtown Portland. As always,
Martha raises some important issues
around this topic.
However she refers to “10 Central
City Concern housing units”
previously used by homeless people
that were dedicated to the chronically
homeless under the 10-Year Plan. One
might get the impression that only a
few units were funded and only
replaces one set of homeless people
with another. Actually, under the
federally funded chronic homeless
initiatives in 2003, Central City
Concern in partnership with HAP and
Worksystem Inc., acquired Shelter
Plus Care Vouchers, funding about
176 units of supportive housing.
People were placed in some 19
different zip codes, allowing people to
access housing not typically available
to homeless individuals. Furthermore,
funding for these vouchers has
continued and has enabled Portland
area agencies to house several
hundred people over the last seven
years.
During this time, CCC developed
270 new units of very low income
housing and entered into a
partnership to manage and provide
services on 108 new units developed
by HAP.
ED BLACKBURN
Executive Director, C entral City Concern
The author responds:
Though the purpose of my article
(“Every Time We Say Goodbye”) was
to give a history of relocation in
downtown Portland, my remarks
about the 10-Year Plan evidently upset
some people, to judge by the two
letters I saw.
In December 2004, the 10-Year
Plan to End Homelessness Action
Plan pledged to increase the supply of
permanent supportive housing for the
homeless in Portland and Multnomah
County. The goal was to create 2,200
additional apartments in 10 years for
extremely low income households. Of
these, 1,200 units were to be new
construction and 1,000 units were to
be created by renovation, conversion
or leasing in the private sector. The
Action Plan stated: “These additional
housing units will be added to the
homeless system’s permanent units.”
We have just finished year 6 of the
10-Year Plan. How many new
apartments have been constructed?
Overall, how are we doing with our
housing production goals?
Unfortunately, press releases
typically speak of housing
“developed,” without specifying
whether that means new construction
or existing rental housing co-opted for
the Plan. And to be coopted by the
Plan means that whole buildings
otherwise affordable to the poor are
unavailable because they are attached
to special-needs'programs.
As a writer, I stumble over the
word “developed.” As a sometime
relocation specialist, I am frustrated
by affordable units essentially taken
off the open market because they
have been coopted for supportive
housing.
Central City Concern (CCC) has
done huge and important work in
both preserving and constructing
rental housing for the poor. Yet today
most of the 1,400 units they control
are not for public access, but rather
for special groups of people already
enrolled in designated programs.
Under the Plan, that special group,
the intended recipients of housing,
are the chronically homeless, that is,
those who have been homeless for a
year or more.
In his letter to the editor, Ed
Blackburn mentions 176 vouchers
acquired for supportive housing
without clarifying whether these were
new vouchers, or vouchers redirected
to the Plan. Likewise, he cites 220
new units “developed” by CCC and
“108 new units developed by HAP.”
But there’s that tricky word again:
does develop, in this instance, mean
constructed or retooled? If he means
constructed, then right here we have
evidence of 328 newly built rental
units that we can count against the
original 1,200-unit goal.
We need the Portland Housing
Bureau to track and regularly report
these numbers, eliminating from the
count the ambiguous word “develop.”
Until then, most of us can only go by
what we see in front of our eyes: city
streets full of shopping carts piled '
with soggy sleeping bags, and people
camped in doorways and freeway
gullies or hiding out in forest camps.
Portland needs a huge amount of
new construction affordable to the
very poor, more than ever envisioned
in the Plan, which was articulated
before the current recession and rash
of foreclosures. Meanwhile, those of
us in the social services all want the
same thing, and our compassion,
hope and idealism should make us
allies: With a common language and
readily available data, we can work
together toward seeing that everyone
in our city has a decent place to live.
MARTHA GIES
Portland