2
street roots
Feb. 28, 2014
O
Housing equals opportunity equals real success
f l f
A"
City should sieze the potential
o f low-income housing request
A | 'Xhe Street Roots office was noisy Wednesday
morning, filled with a happy and boisterous
conversation. A group of vendors were chatting up
another who had just gotten into housing. He is, a
Vietnam veteran who has been homeless for the past six
months, selling Street Roots to keep sane, safe and sober.
, You can read more about William Howard’s story on
Page 6. This week he got his key. He joins many others
who have passed, not just through our doors, but also
through others where the opportunity of a safe home is
actually a reality to work toward. It’s sometimes easy to
forget, amid the sensationalized news and one-hit
wonders, that people are getting back on their feet; that
they’re worth investing
in and it’s paying off.
Regardless of the
But keys, it seems, •
quality of social
don’t grab headlines,
services In this town,
yon can't move into an and fear has always
apartment that doesn't been more compelling
than hope.',
exist.
__________________________
What gets lost in the
fractured lens of fear
and blame — from punitive measures to random camp
sweeps to the wholesale dismissal of institutionalized
inequality — is the necessarily cooperative front to bolster
the solutions we know exist.
The reason you see affordable housing advocates
relentlessly calling for more long-term support of low-
income housing is because it works, and in its absence
people suffer. Pure and simple. The stumbling block for
people trying to get off the streets is not that there isn’t a
door to walk through where someone,cares and wants to
help. It is that regardless of the quality of that service,
you can’t move into an apartment that doesn’t exist 7
“ XlSSWmgto tne
year rents rates in Portland have risen by nearly 7
percent, with market conditions prompting more high-end
rental options that have some neighborhoods seeing
double-digit increases closer to 30 pereeiit.
, That’s why the bureau is making a $3 million request to
build affordable housing. It’s money to be leveraged four
to one in terms of public and private funds. Twelve
million dollars is a vital step toward making
neighborhoods affordable, and it will be essential as the
city’s other ongoing source of low-cost housing begins to
trickle off. But unlike the boundary-burdened urban
renewal district funding now in place, this money could
be applied anywhere in the city.
The bureau is also requesting $1 million in ongoing
funds for housing placement and rent-assistance to
connect vulnerable populations to services that can get
them off the stfeets. Both of these resources are critical
to helpingpeople recover from homelessness and should
be supported in the upcoming city budget hearings.
Because we know this works. Is it an end-all solution? :
Of course not. The machmery of inequality and poverty is
still in motion. But n o solution can be devoid of housing
for people now homeless.
So let the conversation swell. Let’s get boisterous about
housing. William got his key this week, and many, many
more are still waiting.
JL
Our mission
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 two weeks, launching
on Fi ¡days, and is available exclusively through our
street vendors or by subscription. W e are proud
members of the International Network o f Street
Papers.
Street Roots
211 NW Davis St.
Portland, OR 97209
503-228-5657
Fax:503-227-3117
streetroofs.org
news.streetroots.org
o
good friend of mine told me last
week that he had read that Utah is
nding homelessness. He read it all
over the Internet.
Oh boy, I thought to myself.
After reading more and talking to
advocates around the
country; it was clear
that the public was
being bamboozled.
Utah was not on the
verge of ending
homelessness,
regardless of how
many liberal bloggers
might think so. In fact, overall
homelessness in Utah has grown in the
past decade.
Utah is having success at ending
chronic homelessness. What’s that? No,
it’s not a super strain of marijuana named
after homeless people. It’s a method
developed by the federal government as
part of their 10-year plan to end
homelessness. The focus was on housing
individuals who have been homeless for
more than a year.
According to our sister paper In
Seattle,-Real Change, who actually
followed the numbers, Utah’s baseline
homeless population grew by nearly 1,300
people from 2007 to 2013. What
decreased was the “chronic” homeless
population.
It’s all so confusing, right? It’s just one
example o f both the mainstream media
and citizen journalists believing the hype
on homeless issues without fact-checking.
The reality is our country has a long
history of putting Band-Aids on the
problem of homelessness and calling it a
new plan to end the problem.
Since 1980, the federal government
has had four mandated plans to end
homelessness. Within tljose plans, comes
any number of changing requirements,
community planning processes, data
requirements and priority populations
that will be served.
What they don’t tell you is that during
that same time the federal government
has defunded low-income housing by
more than $40 billion.
Currently, the Obama administration
and federal officials are saying that by
2015 the U.S. will end veterans’
homelessness. Uh-huh. It’s my educated
guess that after spending 15 years
engaged in war overseas and currently
being involved in any number of shadow
campaigns around the world, that we’ve
only seen the tip of the iceberg when it
comes to veteran homelessness. I hope
I’m wrong.
Slogans and campaigns to end
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach him a t
isrdel@streetroots.org
or follow him on
Twitter @israelbayer.
WHAT DO
YOU THINK?
Send letters to the
editor to the Street
Roots office, 211
NW Davis St, I
Portland, OR 97209,
or e-mail to joanne®
streetroots.org
homelessness are good for both
re-election campaigns locally and
nationally, and serve as a mechanism to
rally nonprofits and the general public
toward creating political will to tackle the
problem.
It’s not so much that the plans are
flawed. It’s the fact that local
communities are handed down mandates
by state and federal officials and then
given crumbs to solve the problem. It’s a
joke.
Local governments are then forced to
carry the load. Depending on the local .
government, the political climate on any
given day and the hard realities of seeing
thousands o f people sleeping outdoors,
communities are then caught between
public opinion, outside fprees and having
to manage the problem instead of solving
it.
It becomes a cat-and-mouse game
between local business interests, non
profits, law enforcement and the general
public; using the homeless as a political
football for any number of social ills.
Compassion fatigue sets in and people
start to really believe there isn’t a
solution.
The result is criminalization in public
Spaces, mostly targeting the homeless
and people of color, and competing
interests among local nonprofits and 1
politicians for funding and controlling the
message of the day. Solving homelessness
becomes political theater.
The great journalist Edward R. Murrow
once said, “Our major obligation is not to
mistake slogans, for solutions. ”:
.
UnfortunateiyTwTien it c o m e s to
homelessness we have both the slogans
and the solutions. We just don?t have the
support from the state and federal
government to prioritize the harsh .'
realities of poverty in America.
Don’t get me wrong. We do heed a
plan, right? Well, of course we do.
Housing in America is complex.
I’m not giving up and more
importantly, readers shouldn’t give up.
Being a critic is easy, but actually creating
real change in th e community is very real
and achievable.
People experiencing the trauma of
homelessness shouldnot be punished for
the shortfalls of a nation. We see it
collectively, in the individuals and families
who are unable to obtain housing. To
ignore the problem would be
catastrophic. We must continue on,
because the reality is that housing does
in fact equal opportunity, especially when
there’s a safe place to call home involved.
Staff
Board of Directors
V o d e rs
Executive Director Israel Bayer < '
Bruce Anderson (Chairman), Michael Anderson (Vice-
chairman), Heather Stadick (Treas.), Eddy Barbosa (Sec.),
Rich Rodgers, Brad Taylor, Leo Rhodes, Nora Coon,
Darren Alexander, Amber Bielman
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
Volunteers
donations and.in-kind contributions.
israel@streetroots.org •
Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl
joanne@streetroots.org
V e nd or C o o rd in a to r Cole Merkel
cole@streetroots.org
Office Assistant Am ber Bielman
Jan Bayer, Lisa Waldo, Elizabeth Tierney, Rob
Shryock, Ann-Derrick Gaillot, Stacey Heath, Vinnie
Kinsella, Michelle Breslau, Paula Cracas, John Barker,
Mary Locke, Lucas Manfield, Jessie Carver, Cherie
Vedal, Sam Bouman, John Yohne, Isaac Hastings
Hauss, Emily Green
Reporters Jake Thomas, Alex Zielinski, Nathan
Street Roots Rose City Resource
Operations Director Sarah Beecroft
Program A s s is ta n t Grace Badik, Jesuit Volunteer,
grace@streetroots.org
D evelopm ent D ire c to r Sarah Cloud
Gilles, Sue Zalokar, Ann-Derrick Gaillot
Photographers Kristina Wright, Christopher
Onstott
Street Roots publishes the Rose City Resource, a
comprehensive booklet of services for people
experiencing homelessness and poverty.
To inquire about getting guides, call 503-228-5657.
Resources are also available online at
www.rosecityresource.org.
7SC
........ 25 c
goes directly to the vendor
who sold you the paper
goes toward
printing costs
Vendor orientations are at 1 p.m. every Monday,
W ednesday and Friday at the Street Roots office'.