Street Roots • April 22-28, 2016
E d it o r ia l
Lawsuit punctuates fight to sleep in peace
C*
all it irony, or possibly a simple twist of fate
that Jack Tafari, an iconic leader who
V / 1 helped co-found Dignity Village and fight
against Portland’s camping ban, passed away on
the same day that Portland Business Alliance and
others filed suit against the city of Portland for
camping policies that allow for tent camping.
Besides co-founding Dignity Village, Jack Tafari
was one of the original
10 Street Roots vendors,
a poet and writer, an
organizer and more than
anything, a friend to the
poor.
Jack touched many
By Israel Bayer
people’s lives around
the world and was one
of my first mentors on
the streets.
Here, Jack describes the emergence of
Portland’s first city-sanctioned tent city.
“On December 16th of the year 2000, a group
of eight homeless men and women pitched five
tents on public land and Camp Dignity, later to
become Dignity Village, was born. We came out of
the doorways of Portland’s streets, out from
under the bridges, from under the bushes of
public parks. We came armed with a vision of a
better future for ourselves and for all of Portland,
a vision of a village where we can live in peace
and improve not only the condition of our own
lives, but the quality of life in Portland in general.
We came in from the cold of a December day and
we refuse to go back to the way things were.”
Fifteen years later, the fight continues.
Jack’s work, along with others including Right 2
Dream’s Ibrahim Mubarak, to fight for the rights
of people to have shelter through tent cities has
provided safe shelter for thousands of people on
the streets.
It’s also provided activists and government
leaders, whether they know it or not, a roadmap
for camps that exist today in the city.
“Jack was the hardest working homeless person
in the city,” said community leader Marshall
Runkel.
As many of you know, last year, Portland Mayor
Charlie Hales declared a homeless emergency, a
topic I’ve dedicated a lot of coverage too.
Among the many things the mayor has done
beyond his push for more funding for affordable
housing and homeless services along with policy
change around the issue of housing, was to create
camping guidelines that allowed the city to be
flexible in its approach to working with people
experiencing homelessness, including allowing for
tent camping in some cases.
The mayor and others have also become
staunch supporters of two camps in particular,
Right 2 Dream Too and Hazelnut Grove — both
tent cities in Portland that have faced massive
resistance from the very groups also suing the
city - the Pearl and Overlook Neighborhood
Associations.
. Is it perfect? Of course not. Nothing is on the
streets.
To say that Street Roots is disappointed the
Portland Business Alliance and others have
chosen to sue the city over the current camping
policies is understatement.
Human suffering is not pretty. It’s raw and
uncomfortable. So is being homeless.
In a perfect world, of course we would have
adequate housing and shelter available for people.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world.
Making homelessness and tent camping a crime
M B IC T O O
Iliff
Israel B a yer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach him at
israel@streetroots. org
or follow h im on
Twitter @israelbayer.
is no solution. It only serves to punish people for
experiencing the hell that is homelessness.
The Portland Business Alliance and others
know this. It appears they simply cdn’t stay away
from controversy. Just last month the organization
launched a public relations campaign geared
toward addicts and panhandlers that received
major backlash from the community. Like this
lawsuit, the campaign was short-shorted and will
ultimately prove to be ineffective.
I find it hard to believe that any court is going
to err on the side of any business group or
neighborhood association for simply not being
happy about the way a particular city is enforcing
its camping guidelines.
Street Roots reported last August that the
Department of Justice released a statement in the
case of Janet F. Bell v. City of Boise stating, “If
the Court finds that it is impossible for homeless
individuals to secure shelter space on some
nights because no beds are available, no shelter
meets their disability needs, or they have
exceeded the maximum stay limitations, then the
Court should also find enforcement of the
ordinances under those circumstances criminalize
the status of being homeless and violates the
Eight Amendment to the Constitution.”
Like it or not, the statement supports the city’s
argument to try to find a way to enforce camping
policies that are humane.
Beyond the legal ramifications, the lawsuit is
divisive and ultimately a huge waste of time and
city resources. It does more harm than good by
dividing our community even more and ultimately
doesn’t help our larger .goals of trying to find
people a safe place to call home.
The latest round of actions also calls into
question why the Portland Business Alliance
deserves to be the executive committee of a
Home for Everyone — a decision making body
overseeing the our local plan to end
homelessness in our community.
It’s all a mystery to me.
I’m sure it’s still a mystery to Jack too,
wherever he is today.
“Jack was always able to see beyond his own
exigencies to the greater good of others and the
whole community,” said Runkel.
I wish we could say the same about the
Portland Business Alliance relationship to
homelessness in our community.
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S ta ll
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isradtoeeftoofs.org
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tfendor Program Director Çole N tefkd £
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Jack Tafari