Street roots
Nov. 22, 2013
Emmons, from page 8
going to be putting chronically homeless
people into The Morrison. There was going
to be a shared garage underneath them and
how would that work? We said we were going
to carefully screen people and put good
supportive services in place - the problem is
not going to be with the chronically
homeless people. And that turned out to be
right.
You have a successful project like that, it
might be nice to go back and say, “OK, we
did this.” People said you can’t put
chronically homeless people here. We did it
and it was successful. Now let’s do another
one.
You do hear people saying people are
homeless because they have an alcohol
problem; they’re mentally ill. When I was
first doing this, we had people with alcohol
problems and mental illness in the
community who
were housed,
because we had a lot
of inexpensive
There have been setbacks
housing. We had
but P ortland is a progressive these SRO hotels
and some of them
comnwaiity, I f g just having
were not very nice,
the p o litic a l w ill to do this. 1 but people could flop
weal ©»I and met w ith a lo t
in and out of them
of business people. I shared without a lot of
credit background.
w ith them the Ideas that I
We’re probably not
was going to be sharing and going to build those,
s a i< % hat do yon th in k
but when we lost
them we spilled
about a local trwst fund?
people onto the
What do yon th in k about $ 1 streets. The question
b illio n over 2 0 years?" They has to be asked, do
saldr almost universally^ ^the you know people
with alcohol
money Is here Susan. The
problems that are
money is here in this
middle and upper
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3 M By»
income people that
are housed? Is it an
economic issue more
than a behavior
issue? I would say it
is. Without being pejorative and blaming
people, we need to really take a look at that.
I think that we do have to have a better
community dialogue. There have been some
very hurtful things that have been said
recently in the community. Demonizing of
people because they are poor or without
housing, that needs to be combated. I think
that’s something that Street Roots is doing
very well and is prepared to really show
leadership. That’s going to be very important
as we move this conversation along. We need
the business community to support our
efforts and to be a part of this: get people
inside.
J.R.: What responsibility do you think the
private sector has with homelessness? Are they
livin g up to it?
S .E .: Boy, that’s a big question. I think
there’s a role for the business community. As
government folks, there’s some very smart
business people in our community who
would like to be invited to the table and be
part of the solution, who know how to do
development, who have some great ideas
that we haven’t involved. That’s been a
shortcoming on our part and maybe on the
part of government, not to bring these
people in. We couldn’t operate our
organization without the support of business
and all the property management firms and
the building owners that take our referrals
and take our people. Beyond that, there is a
role to play for the business community in
terms of supporting the effort: finding out
how they can be involved, thinking about
some private philanthropy: If they re
concerned about panhandling and people
being on the streets then saying, “O K how
do we solve this? What are the solutions?
Being part of that, both in terms of their
involvement and possibly donations and
leadership.
J.R.: What breaks your heart?
J.R.: What are some o f the milestones, the
things we're doing right?
S.E .: The urban renewal funds are
lessening and sort of drying up, but we
passed public policy that said 30 percent of
urban renewal funds would be set aside to
build housing for very poor people. That did
create housing to be built and that was good
public policy. We’ve done a good job between
the city and the county in trying to protect
the safety net for poor people and for
agencies desperately trying to serve people
and get them into housing. The short-term
rent assistance program has been important.
Home Forward operates it, but my
understanding is the city and county and
Home Forward all put money in collectively.
And there’s quite a variety of community
groups serving singles and families and the
mentally ill that have access to short-term
rent assistance. To help people with housing,
hopefully there’s a long-term strategy with
each person that’s housed, that it does lead
to housing stability. Some of our community
development groups have done a brilliant job
of developing housing and making beautiful,
quality housing for people to live in long
term.
J.R.: What in the work that you do gives you
hope?
S.E .: On a day-to-day basis, I see people
who come in here look absolutely forlorn and
without hope. Usually after they spend an
hour or two with a worker in this agency,
they go out looking more hopeful. That is
our idea, that people who have been without
housing or without resources for a long time,
we want to make them feel hopeful about
their future. I see people here getting people
into housing, getting them into a shelter,
moving them from the shelter to transitional
housing, from that to permanent housing,
seeing them the day they come in to get
their keys for their apartment, their new
bedding that the church groups provide —
that’s a pretty astonishing transformation. I
know it works and I know it can be done for
a variety of people.
And then to see those same people who
have been so desolate and without hope,
coming back here wanting to contribute
when finally they have income. It’s
remarkable. Usually when we do a letter
asking for contributions, the very first people
to respond are the people who are the
poorest. Almost without exception, the first
donations in are from people we’ve placed in
subsidized housing, who might be living on
$700 a month. Even if they are sending a
$25 or $50 check, the percentage of their
annual or monthly income is so much
greater. It’s remarkable.
We have a man that I know lives on $650 a
month and every month he gives us $100,
because he was sleeping outside and he feels
like we saved his life. He doesn’t have cable
TV. H e’s a bright man and he would probably
love the History Channel. But when I say to
him, “you don’t need to do this,” he says,
“Yes, I do.” So, I do feel very hopeful.
There have been setbacks, but Portland is
a progressive community. It’s just having the
political will to do this. Getting ready for the
talk that I gave, I went out and met with a lot
of businesspeople. I shared with them the
ideas that I was going to be sharing and said,
“What do you think about a local trust fund?
What do you think about $1 billion over 20
years?” They said, almost universally, “the
money is here Susan. The money is here in
this community.” That surprised me,
because I thought they would say, “oh, no
way.” We’ve had people with deep pockets
who have been generous towards the arts.
We have to have a compelling leadership -
people who step up and say, “I’m going to be
the champion for this.” Give people
something to donate to, to respond to. I
think the community would, because I think
people understand. Housing is so
fundamental.
S.E .: My husband and I are lifelong
renters, married for 45 years. I walk in from
Northwest Portland on any given day to
come to work and I see people sleeping in
doorways, of churches, anywhere people can
find an overhang. That to me is
heartbreaking, to see the number of people
who are outside and have no place to go —
people around my neighborhood. I can
complain about being cold when I’m inside,
in a heated place with a warm bed. To
imagine people sleeping out in this weather,
it’s just unimaginable to me. I’ve never been,
unless I was camping out in the woods
voluntarily, but knowing I could leave at any
time and come home to a warm place. That
is heartbreaking to me, to see how as a
community we’ve failed very vulnerable
people.
J.R.: How do you battle fatigue, when y o u ’ve
been an advcoate on the frontlines fo r so long?
S.E .: I’ m very inspired by the people I
work with. We have younger people on the
staff and they are doing the hard work. I do
public speaking and fundraising. I monitor
contracts. For me it’s inspiring daily because
I think they are the ones doing the tough
work. When I overhear them say day after
day to somebody who’s calling in, “No, we
still don’t have a shelter bed for you.” —
knowing that they are highly educated
people, working at a lesser wage because
they are passionate about this. It’s the
hardest thing in the world to take on a job
where you want to help people and then you
don’t have the resources to do it. To see
them come back day after day ready to do
that is inspiring.
To talk to the people that we have housed,
and to see them year after year. People who
were pretty fragile when they came to us,
and how they’ve gotten involved in the
community and now what they’re doing to be
active citizens and living a full life. That’s
inspiring.
All of us have days where we feel down
and feel discouraged. I ’m not an angry
person by nature, but sometimes I do feel
angry that there isn’t more of a sense of
urgency, when I go into some of these public
meetings and I think people are
concentrating on the wrong things.
Collectively we should be talking about what
we are going to do right now to solve this.
But mostly I don’t feel discouraged because I
see what works. I know that we have done it
and I know we can do more of it. It’s just a
matter of convincing others, of getting the
broader community to understand.
J.R.: What would you say to someone who
has given up on the battle to end homelessness?
S.E .: I have been in City Council meetings
where I have heard public officials say we’re
never going to end homelessness in this
community. And I just totally disagree with
that. It might be fair to say we’ll always have
poor people among us. It’s the kind of
system we have - inadequate minimum wage,
we have companies that don’t give full hours.
There probably always will be poor people. I
don’t like to say that. But I don’t think that
it’s true to say that we always have to have
people without housing. That hasn’t always
been true in Portland.
I was struck yesterday (after the speech)
by the number of older people in the
audience that came up to me afterwards and
said, “I was here in the 1960s and I know
exactly what you’re talking about. There
weren’t visibly homeless people all over our
streets. That’s right and I remember that.”
That was validating.
For our vzorkers that get burned out, I can
understand that. In that case we have to give
them more to work with. They need to have
more funds and they need to have better
tools. One of the tools and the most
important tool we can give them is more
housing.
You can read the
full transcript of
Susan Emmons’
Oliver Lecture
Series presentation
in which she
outlines Portland’s
homeless history
and how we can
end it, at news.
streetroots.org.