Street roots., September 02, 2011, Page 5, Image 5

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Street roots
Sept. 2, 2011
GEN DERED, from page 4
cold hands.”
“No one is going to hire someone who is
looking dirty, carrying their baggage. It
makes them look unstable,” says Sister
Cathie Boerboom, the executive director of
Rose Haven, a resource center for homeless
women.
That dynamic may change. The Bud Clark
Commons, which opened in June, provides
showers, lockers and other basic'resources
to homeless men and women* JOIN, a
homeless outreach agency, provides showers
and lockers to men and women. Still, the
resources are far outstripped by the
demand.
Rosé Haven provides a clothing closet for
women, as well as a day space — but not
necessarily a place where women could
leave their belongings. And the Gateway
Center for Domestic Violence, which
opened last year, provides access and
referral to other services.
Martha Strawn Morris, the program
director of the Gateway Center for Domestic
Violence, says the Gateway Center has had
4,000 visits in the first year of operation. *
“I’m still a little bit overwhelmed by the
terms, of the number, realizing how many
people are actively experiencing this in our
community,” Strawn Morris says.;
hen the study was presented to the
city’s Coordinating Committee to end
Homelessness, it drew gasps from the
members in attendance. “I thought it.was ,
really spot on,” says Shannon Singleton, the
manager of the Salvation Army’s Eemale
Emergency shelter. “There’s not a lot of
data out there on women experiencing
homelessness.”
Rebecca Peatow Nickels, the executive
director of the domestic violence hotline
Portland Worhen^s Crisis Tine (PWCL), says
PWCL answers 23,000 calls per year and
serves 400 individuals. The. first reason
women call PWCL, she says, is to seek-help
in relation to domestic violence. The second
is related to housing and homelessness.
“There is a very large link between domestic
violence and homelessness,” she says,
W
FA IR HOUSING, from page 3
practices in multiple districts, including in
Polk, Umatilla, Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln
and Washington counties, and the cities of
Eugene, Corvallis, Beaverton and Klamath
Falls — all resulting in evidence of
discrimination much higher than standard
complaint rates.
/Commissioner Fish said the city could
^✓ conduct another fair housing audit as
soon as late fall, however, “we’re not going
to do testing until we get itright,” Fish said.
“I have a sense of urgency, but most
importantly, we need to do it right.”
Moloy Good said he stands by the
methodology used by his organization in
showing different treatment to inquiring
renters. He told Street Roots that the
survey conducted for the city was never
intended to stand on its own in a complaint
process, but was rather a snapshot of what
was going on for the city’s reference in *
crafting a plan.
“There has been a lot of -
misunderstanding about what the original
intent of the study was, and what can be
dope with it now that it has been completed
— especially with the public disclosure of
who the targets were,” Good said. “That
made it harder for us to moye forward.”
Good said that FHCO typically conducts
multiple tests and interviews before filing a
complaint, however, they felt they had
substantial evidence against C ascade,^
“I went through their surrrfnary report,”'
Peatow Nickels says domestic violence
and homeless services are too “isolated”
from one another to effectively serve victims
of domestic violence and reduce
homelessness.
Many survivors of domestic violence, she
says, more often than not become homeless
as a result of fleeing their home. Women
fleeing domestic violence, she says, leave
behind many of their belongings, may lose
access to bank accounts, and may have no
money of their own. They cannot necessarily
live with friends^ because their abuser would
know where to find them.
* Despite the strong link between domestic
violence and female homelessness, Peatow
Nickels says the communication between
domestic violence and homeless services
providers is inadequate.
If, adequate domestic violence services
were provided in Multnomah County,-she
(thinks, the numbers of women becoming
homeless would dramatically decrease. “If
there were suddenly 150 more beds, it
would almost be double what we have
today,” she says. “It would be an amazing
help.”
There are approximately 170 women on <
the Salvation, Army’s wait list, according to
Singleton. Jean’s Place, the women’s shelter
Good said of BOLI’s findings. “There are
; some times where (BOLI) just saw it
' differently than We did,” Good said. “We do
believe that the -results show different
treatment, which is what we reported.”
Federal and state law lists a spectrum of
“protected classes” as a measure of
including all individuals and prohibiting
discrimination of any category. Federally
protected classes include race, color,
national origin, religion, gender, familial
status and disability. Oregongoes further in
protecting marital status, legal sources of
income and sexual orientation and gender
identity. More recently, domestic violence
survivors have 'also been listed as a
protected class.
Good disputes the notion that his /
organization has an interest in finding
housing discrimination in its surveys as a
means of self-preservation.
' “Our mission is to eliminate illegal
housing discrimination, and that means we
have to look for it everywhere, and
sometimes that makes people feel
uncomfortable. But we wouldn’t be doing
our jobs if we weren’t doing th a t Nothing
would make me happier than to do one of
these studies and'find no different
treatm ent”
Caushana Hill, the fair housing staff ;
attorney for the Oregon Law Center, was a
member of the city’s Analysis o f'
Impediments to Fair Housing Committee,
for which the fair housing audit was
conducted. She said.it is importan t to put
tiie audit in perspective as fo the nature and
prevalence of housing discrimination that ,
happens in Portland. It can be a case of
operated by Transition Projects, Inc., has a
similarly long wait list.
Seventy-five shelter beds are reserved for
domestic violence victims. According to;
Strawn Morris, approximately 16,000 to
18,000 calls are made to a variety of crisis
lines in Multnomah County each year, all
requesting shelter.
Strawn Morris says that shelter is
important for the people who need it, but it
alone cannot solve homelessness among
domestic violence survivors. “Are sortie of;
those people asking for shelter who would
ask for something else if they knew there
was another option?” she wonders.
Increasing the amount of shelter for
women was something almost all of the
women wrote at the bottom of the
questionnaire they took without an
interviewer.
‘“There are not a lot of places for women,
at least in the Portland area,” agreed a
37-old woman. W
Building more shelter for women without
children, a 49-year old woman wrote, would
“get them stabilized and trying to make
them not feel they’re worthless.”
The “inadequate” services, Peatow
Nickels says, arè a direct reflection of the
10-Year Plan to End Homelessness not
prioritizing domestic violence. “You have
this very narrow definition of who the plan
was going to impact the mosh or at all,” she
says, referring to the 10 Year Plan’s
emphasis on housing people who are
“chronically homeless.”
No one from the Portland Housing
Bureau would comment on the survey for
this story, “We might in the future when we
have more knowledge about (the survey); or
about what the findings are,” said Maileen
Hamto, the Bureau’s public information
officer:
; > Boerboom calls the services» available to
homeless women “horribly inadequate.”
Tike Peatow Nickels, BoeîbÉfont thinks more
shelters for domestic violence victims are
needed. She also says there needs to be’ :
additional tending for mental health
treatment. On average, she says the 2,000
encounters Rose Haven has with women
each year reveal that the great majority of ■'
them suffer from mental health disorders
and traumatic histories.
racial prejudice, but more often than not, it
stems from the needs and rights of people
with disabilities, and even families with
children. Hill noted in one case where the
landlord charged a tenant a fee for letting
her children play outside.
“It would be unfortunate if the
discussions around this test became a
distraction from what is the real issue, and
that is the fact that people across the state
are experiencing discrimination in housing.”
Hill emphasized that it doesn’t take a test
from FHCO fo stand up for your rights if
Boerboom worries that many women do
not seek services, choosing instead to hide
themselves as much as possible, in order to
escape from abusers. Creed thinks many
women are hesitant to tell their story or
access services, to reveal something
personal, “and then that abuser will go, aha,
there you are,” Creed says.
Singleton, who says the sample size of
the women surveyed is “too small to draw
conclusions from,” thinks more needs to be
done to integrate and connect the variety of
services that exist in Portland. She points to
some changes in the intake procedure at the
Salvation Army’s shelter that takes info
account a woman’s particular needs, such as
asking about prior relationships and how
those relationships currently impact the
women.
Agencies not sensitive to the needs and
worries specific to homeless women will not
be able to adequately help woman end their
homelessness, according to Singleton.
“You relive what happened,” Creed says.
“You just don’t have someone to talk to who
knows what’s going on.”
Singleton also thinks service agencies can
lower barriers to their programs in order to
attract more women “There are still a lot of
programs that (require) sobriety,” die says,
which “keeps a lot of doors closed.”
And subsequently, women continue to
remain homeless and not access sendees.
Whitbeck and his fellow researchers plan
to do a larger, two-year survey that would
involve interviewing at least 100 women at
three or fourmonth intervals, Whitbeck
wants to continue to do the survey in
Portland, Omaha and Pittsburg, but also add
Boston and New Orleans.
By tracking woteen across time, he told
the group, themes and stronger data will
begin to emerge as to what distinguishes
homeless women from other homeless
populations. More details about their
“If we can pull this off... this’wili-be the
first study to focus only on women,” he said.
And he emphasized that thè survey is not
just for the sake of academic research and
esoteric data crunching.
“This data" needs to be put into practice. ;
you believe you have been the victim of
housing discrimination. The case always
begins with a call, she said.
;; “It affects the way that all of us lives,” Hill
said. “It’s difficult for people who live in
Portland to feel like we’re a part of a just
society when we still have people who don’t
have the very basic right to decide where
they want to live, to live in a place that is
not only of their choosing, but also safe and
welcoming to them.”
Creating community, creating change.
Sisters O f The Rood is-
Meals served up with hospitality.
Empowerment through our
Dorothy Day Community School.
Learning together for a
nonviolent and just community.
And don t forget; fun!
Stop by for a delicious meal,
Monday-Friday, 10am - 2:30pm.
w w w .sistersoftheroad.org
133 NW 6th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503-222-5694
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