Street Roots • June 17-23, 2016
Businesses key in city’s success in housing
Israel Bayer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach h im at
israel@streetroots. org
o r follow h im on
Twitter @israelbayer.
treet Roots was honored to receive the Portland
Pearl Rotary Club’s Community Vision Award last
V .xw eek.
Speaking to a room full of business representatives
and Pearl residents I was reminded that we all have a
role in providing people with a safe place to call home.
We could argue until we are blue in the face over tent
camping and what is the right strategy moving forward
when it comes to street homelessness. Saying that, we
shouldn’t paint all businesses with a
broad brush when it comes to
poverty and politics.
I think there is a common
MBICTCMTS
misunderstanding in our
B IS K
community about social justice’s
relationship to. business. For
By Israel Bayer
example, more than 200 businesses
donate in-kind goods or donations
to Street Roots every year.
The global tech company OMBU and open source
developers built our news site for free. Stumptown
Coffee donates hundreds of pounds of coffee each year
to keep Street Roots vendors warm and caffeinated.
Sock It To Me provides socks to all of our Street Roots
vendors. Frank Creative, a nationally recognized
marketing firm in town helps us with messaging and
donates design materials for all of our events and
promotional items. We aren’t in this alone.
Street Roots also works at more than 70 sales
locations throughout the county supporting vendors
selling the newspaper.
Street Roots wouldn’t be successful without our
partnerships with the business community. Saying that,
building authentic relationships in the business
community doesn’t mean we always have to agree.
Street Roots is both real and honest in the work we do.
Sometimes that means speaking truth to power and
backing up our editorial content and sharp opinions by
having authentic relationships and highlighting the
voices of people on the streets. We aren’t naive. .
St ill, the narrative in some circles that the business
community is against the homeless is false. The vast
majority of people working for or owning small
businesses in Portland care very deeply about the issue.
Why wouldn’t they? It’s not just the homeless
experiencing a housing crisis, it’s their employees that
are also experiencing housing instability.
When media outlets in town report that the business
community is against encampments or the homeless, I
always wonder what business community they are
Page 3
E d it o r ia l
talking about. Some business owners are loud, it’s true.
Others are pissed about homeless people in front of
their business. I get th a t Some have even joined a
lawsuit against the city over tent camping guidelines.
None of those things will curb homelessness or provide
answers to the housing crisis in our community.
Much of the business community is at a crossroads
when it comes to the issue of the housing crisis. It’s a
new era in Portland and many people are being left
behind. It’s real. The scale of people suffering or being
displaced is enormous. People’s wages are lagging and
the cost of housing is skyrocketing.
Here’s the thing. We need government to support a
civil society and that includes increasing investments in
affordable housing through new policies and yes,
enacting legislation that support tenants, many of which
are seniors and families. It’s just that simple. The good
old days of making money off of the free market and
housing without regulations is over. It should have been
over a long time ago. That doesn’t mean different
industries won’t still see record profits, but it’s time to
share the wealth and be open to change.
That brings me to the new proposal by developers
Homer Williams and Dike Dame. It’s a $100 million plan
to build space for 700 new shelter beds and create 700
beds in dormitory-style housing — $60 million of which
they have agreed to raise. The other $40 million which
would need to be raised by government.
I talked with Homer and consultants from San
Antonio for more than an hour last month about the
project. Is it a good idea? Seeing a major contribution
from the business community like this is a fantastic
idea. Saying that, the devil is in the details. Building
shelter that will eventually have to be funded by
government subsidies through a one-time private
investment is not viable solution. Having government
divert $40 million on the front end away from current
services is even more of a challenge.
Street Roots recommendation was that if the
business community wanted to truly commit to curbing
homelessness in our community several things needed
to happen. First, support the upcoming housing bond
measure in the November election. Second, come to
the table to help legislators in Salem increase their
investments in affordable housing. And third, provide a
major cash injection for permanent housing. It’s the
wisest investment.
It’s not so much that we don’t need more shelter. It’s
that right now we are bottlenecked by not having
enough housing available to support our most
vulnerable residents. Creating a mass shelter at this
very point in time might give some people on the
streets relief, but until we have more investments - and
I’m talking in the billions - we are stuck robbing Peter
to pay Paul. It’s simply not working.
I will wager to say that if we don’t create more
housing immediately that street homelessness will
double in the next decade. I said it. The reality is if we
can’t house people today, how we will house thousands
more who will join their ranks tomorrow?
My point is that the policies we enact today will have
huge impacts on tomorrow. Not to mention it is people’s
lives we are talking about. We have to be smart and
calculated and we can’t afford to be wrong.
So, my advice to Homer Williams and Dike Dame -
who I both know have huge hearts and care about this
issue — is to throw their weight behind the housing
bond on one hand and work to invest $100 million
dollars to provide permanent housing on the other. It
would not only be historic, it would be the wisest
investment we could make. It would be another example
of how the business community can rise above the
noise when given the opportunity and do great things.
Write In
/ v
■ y o u would like
■have
g m e lh in g
5
W
! l
/
/
\
\
\
__
« ty o iA ®
B itte n published
\
in our pages, or would
like to get involved as a
J
member al our reporting staff, ; '
œ ntact Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl at
503-228-5657, joanne@streefroots.org,
We ask that all submissions include the
author's name and contact information,
if available.
Street Roots
211 NW Davis St.
Portland, OR 97209
503-228-5657
Fax:503-227-3117
’
www.streetroots.org
www.news.streetroots.org
Hours: 7:30a.m .-3 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 7:30
a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. and 7:30-11 a.m. Sun.
Advertising
Interested in-advertising in Street Roots?
Contact Israel Bayer at israef@streetrooU.org
Staff
Executive Director Israel Bayer
israel@streetroots.org
Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl
¡oanne@streetroots.org
Vendor Program Director Cole Merkel
cole@streetroots org .
»
Operations Director Sarah Beecroft
Development Director Sarah Cloud
' Program Assistant Scott Jackson, Jesuit J
Volunteer
Development Assistant Ann-Derrick
GaiJfot
Reporters Emily Green, SuzanneZalokar,
Ann-Derrick Gailiot, Sarah Hansell, Leonora
Ko, JaredPaben, Amanda Waldroupe
Photographers Diego Diaz,'Joe Glode,
Ben Brink
Editorial Assistant Monica Kwasnik
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
Board of Directors
Chairman Brad Taylor
Vice-Chairman Rachel Langford
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Amber Biel man
Directors Bruce Anderson, Rich Rodgers,
Michael Anderson, Leo Rhodes, Nora Coon,
Marcus Swift
Volunteers
Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Stephanie
Holum, Anjali Rathore, Zoe Klingmann, Haven
Herrin, Dan Jones, Rob Shyrock, Dennis Hogan,
Tom Wright, Eileen Deerdock, Vince Waldman,
Judy Taylor, Karen Allen, Monica McKune,
Susan Wolfe, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell
Jr., Jeanie Lunsford, Yasmin Amirsoleymani,
Jason Cohen, Tom Ray, Doug Spangle,
Susannah Kamata, Jon Raymond, Hilary Smith,
Diana Richardson, Cherie Manning
If you are interested in volunteering with Street
Roots, please submit a volunteer application at
streetroots.org/volunteer. Or call our
volunteer coordinator for more information
at 503-228-5657.