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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2014)
street roots 2 Feb. 14, 2014 liujujuuu A snowstorm, a tent city and Chief Reese A job well done deserves a statewide encore hen the snowstorm ended and the ice thawed — there was a lot td celebrate. ■ During the snowstorm, a coordinated emergency effort led by the Portland Housing Bureau and others brought together an army of city and county workers and volunteers to do outreach for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. The Portland Police and Fire Bureaus, along with 211Info and JOIN outreach teams, worked with local emergency shelters around the clock to ensure that people experiencing homelessness had a chance to come in from the cold. While one person did pass away from exposure in ~ , Clackamas Multnomah County, County in th e . At a time of growing Medical Examiner discontent and reported that there were compassion fatigue no fatalities for people surrounding the issue of experiencing homelessness and poverty, Portland rose homelessness. That’s an above and was able to amazing accomplishment, show great compassion. especially considering Athat in other communities around the country, that hasn't been the case. In San Jose, Calif., seven people froze to death on the streets, during a similar storm in December. Afound the country, there have been numerous reports of people experiencing homelessness left out in the cold and freezing to death. At a time of growing discontent and compassion fatigue surrounding the issue of homelessness and poverty, Portland rose above and w as able to show great compassion. hat a week on the homeless front A partnership between some of the most powerful interests in the city and a group of homeless, activists, a snowstorm, and the Portland police chief announcing a plan to DIRECTORAS address homelessness downtown. Wow. DESK I haven’t evern mentioned that there’s B y Israel Bayer a plan in the works to t potentially move a Israel Bayer is the prominent downtown executive director o f Street Roots. You can shelter to the Eastsidé, but honestly, that s a reach him at story for another timé. israei@streetroots.org I go on the Internet and see reporters and or follow h im on • pundits making fun of the conditions in Sochi Twitter @israelbayer. during the Winter Olympics and then walk out the door at Street Roots in Old Town to see a 64-year-old man freezing in the doorway. You tell me. First things first, a big kudos should go out to all of the men and women, who have been working around the clock to serve people on the streets. Individuals on the streets endure much and none more than during the current WHAT DO There’s nothing logical or YOU THINK? snowstorm. remotely civilized about watching people struggling without a home during the dead of Send letters to the .editor to the Street winter. There’s been an army of social workers, Roots office, 211 do-gooders, police Officers, the fire bureau NWDavisSt., and many others, working around the clock Portland, OR 97209, during these cold nights. They have one or e-mail to joanne® simple goal — to not let anyone freeze to death. They do it with compassion and heart. streetroots.org They should be saluted. z If you’re interested in volunteering or donating goods during cold spells, or anytime for that matter, holler. Dial 2-1-1. It’s one of the most important numbers you canhave in ■ F retty sw eet th a t R ight 2 D ream Too practices for communities to use during emergency weather. Imagine if all of Oregon was able to implement a similar strategy to Multnomah County. A Housing and Urban Development homeless team could mandate local communities to have an emergency' response strategy in place before allocating funding. In a time when government is looking at a more strategic approach to ending poverty, a uniform emergency response plan makes sense. We know that in Multnomah County dozens of individuals experiencing homelessness die each year on the streets. Having an emergency response plan in place saved lives this past week. Working to create and maintain this kind of coordination year-round is critical to being able to save individuals and families lives on the streets in the future. Salem and Washington D.C. should be locking at both tracking individuals who die on the streets and these emergency plans. Understanding why people are dying on the streets and being able to save peoples lives is something government both could and should do. While homelessness at times may feel like an obstacle our city can’t overcome, we know that together, regardless of our political beliefs or own experiences, we are able to accomplish great things. Multnomah County, we salute you. continues to navigate, with grace no doubt, in some very complex political waters. I’m very happy they’ve been able to negotiate the next steps of their journey with the city Here we have a group of 70 individuals experiencing homelessness, many from the , Our mission Staff BuaiM tfW reaW Executive Director Israel Bayer Bruce Anderson (Chairman), Michael Anderson (V ice-' ’ cfiairman), Heather Stadick (Treas.), Eddy Barbosa (Sec.), Rich Rodgers, Brad Taylor, Leo Rhodes, Nora Coon, - Darren Alexander, Amber Bielman . Street Roots 211 NW Davis-St Portland, OR 97209 503-228-5657 Fax: 503-227-3117 streetroots.org news.streetroots.brg Managing Editor Joanne Zuhi joanne@streetroois.org ' Vendor Coordinator Cole Merkel cole@streetroots.org , Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Program Assistant Grace Badik, Jesuit Volunteer, grace@streetroots.org Development Director Sarah Cloud Office Assistant Am ber Bielman R e p o rte rs Jake Thomas, Alex Zielinski, Nathan Gilles, Sue Zajokar, Ann-Derrick G aillot Photographers Kristina W right, Christopher Onstott a m ave sid ew alk l/^gislafinn forward in t o y ea rs. T h ey have to d eal w ith a h o m e le ss t camp called Right 2 Dream Too, and insiders who belieye homelessness is actually driving business away from downtown Portland. Their whole message, packaged in various See DIRECTOR'S DESK, page 3 D uring the recent snow storm in Portland, a homeless person huddles under a makeshift tent in Old Town Chinatown. Street Roots creates income opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and poverty by producing a newspaper and other media that are catalysts for individual and social change. Street Roots publishes every tw o weeks, launching on Fridays, and is available exclusively through our ' street vendors or by subscription. W e are proud members o f the North American Street Newspaper Association and the International Network of Street Papers. Old Town neighborhood, who have managed to collectively pull themselves up fry the bootstraps and achieve some amazing feats. How about giving hundreds of people on the streets a safe placé to rest for pennies on the dollar. I mean, we’re not even talking breadcrumbs here. More so, the group has held its head high, while being ridiculed and undercut, sideswiped and pushed down by some of the most powerful downtown interests in this city. That’s what I call some big-time resilience. So what about Police Chief Mike Reese dropping a pretty big surprise on Portland ' this week, when the mayor was out of town? / Not many people saw that coming. In case you missed it, Chief Reese unveiled a plan to tackle downtown homelessnésS using a range of services — for the most- part supported by the community, but led fry law enforcement Before I even start. I have a lot of respect for Chief Reese. I’ve watched the man de-escalate some pretty serious mental-health crises with my own two èyes. I’ve also been involved in different processes with him to ' deliver real outcomes in the community for people on the streets. The man has heart. That’s why I was a little taken aback when he laid out “Portland Prosper,” a complex strategy to curtail homelessness downtown. A lot of what was presented has been worked and reworked for years. What made this proposal different is that it comes at a time when thére have been a range of different / processes taking place to try to come up with these same solutions. Let’s step back for a minute. First, it’s my assumption that the Portland Business Alliance and some folks downtown are mad as hell. They may not say it publicly, but let’s be honest They haven’t bèen able to Volunteers Street Roots vendors buy the newspapers for 25 cents each and sell them for $1, keeping the 75 cents in ' profit for themselves. In order to keep the cost low to our vendors, we receive additional support from donations and in-kind contributions. Jan Bayer, Lisa Waldo, Elizabeth Tierney, Rob Shyrock, Ann-Derrick Gaillot, Stacey Heath, Vinnie ‘ Kinsella, Michelle Breslau, Paula Cracas, Sharron Thompson, John Barker, Mary Locke, Lucas Manfield, Jessie Carver, Cherie Vedal, Sam Bouman, Alana Kansaku-Sarmiento, JohnYohne. Street Roots Rose City Resource Street Roots publishes the Rose City Resource, a comprehensive booklet o f services for people' experiencing homelessness and poverty. To inquire about getting guides, call 503-228-5657. Resources aré also available-online at www.rosecityresource.org. 75 ' ? ? / goes directly to the vendor w ho sold you the paper 25 c goes toward printing costs Vendor orientations are at 1 p.m. every Monday, W ednesday and Friday at the Street Roots office.
