oireei Moots
Aug. 26-Sept. t,'2O16
E d ito r ia l
Housing is not the only social justice issue
Write in
to have
s
"omelessness.
Housing. Crisis.
Those three words have become
i
-commonplace in our city over the
past three years.
It s for good reason too. The skyrocketing
their philanthropy programs while
maintaining record profits in the tens of
millions? The list is long.
The reality, my friends, is the game is
rigged. Anyone who’s got any skin in the
game knows this. If you’re a person of color,
losing their housing.
you’ve known it from the day you were born.
Thousands of people
We like to think of ourselves as a
continue to suffer on our sophisticated city, but the reality is we live ih
streets. There is no end
ah environment where everyone knows
in sight. It is a crisis. No
everyone and there’s limited resources,
question.
capacity and political capital to go around.
B y Israel Bayer
Saying that, it doesn’t
In short, it’s hard to create social change
■ m h h m m h
mean housing is the
on multiple fronts at any one time. Step out
only social justice issue
of line o r upset the wrong person or group
that should be deserving and there goes your ability to raise money
of our attention or the media’s watchful eye.
and to have the political capital to influence
A colleague of mine recently
good policy. It’s these very dynamics that
communicated that with the amount of
stunt social change or reform in our city and
attention being focused on housing in our
our state.
community, we are losing an opportunity to -
During the recession it was most apparent
connect the issue itself to the larger social
when you would see large corporations, like
justice movemfent. Other issues that are
banks, force local housing and homeless
equally important and ultimately connect
agencies to provide photo ops for $5,000
with the issue of housing are being drowned
donations, when in fact it was those very
o u t It’s true.
national banks that helped create the housing
For example, why are we more focused on
crisis. IPs humiliating.
the issue of a homeless shelter than the fact
Our system is riddled with these kinds of
that mentally ill people are being warehoused realities.
in our county jail? Why are we talking about
None of this is to say that great work isn’t
homelessness without talking about the fact
being done in our community. It’s to say that
that the lack of criminal justice reform in our
to be able to get ahead of many o f the
H
■
MBBCTOB'S
DESK
Israel Bayer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach h im at
israel@streetroots.org
or follow him on
Twitter @israelbayee
community continues to create more
p ro b lem s th a t fa c e o u r co m m u n ity , e s p e c ia lly
homelessnessi.It’s.ope; thing Tor.goyerjaraent
to highlight these issues in a report or offer a
recommendation. It’s another thing all
together to actually do something about it.
It’s easy for government, nonprofits, the
business community and neighborhoods to
call fof more revenue and policies to support
housing and homeless, services. The house isn
on fire.
It’s a lot harder to call for radical reform at
the Multnomah County District Attorney’s
Office, to end racial profiling or to hold the
Portland Police Bureau accountable to its
residents.
What about focusing on the fact that
TriMet should be offering low-income bus
fare region-wide, or asking that hospitals
offer more than window dressing through
in the context of poverty, we’ve got work to
'do. .
In a time when there is a growing divide
between government and the realities playing
on the streets it’s important for all of us,
including myself and Street Roots, to connect
the many social justice issues. We can alt do
a better job. We will.
' There’s no shortage of work to be done
from the environment to early childhood
education, from tax reform to police
accountability, from transportation issues to
criminal justice reform. We’re all on this
planet together, and we all have a
responsibility to make our community the
best it can be. We have to support one
another.
a
if you would like
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like to get involved as a
'
member of our reporting staff,
contact Managing Editor Joanne Zohl at
503-228-5657, joanne@streetroots.org.
We ask that all submissions indude the
author’s name and contact information,
if available.
Street Roots
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Portland, OR 97209
503-228-5657
Fax:503-227-3117
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Staff
Israel Bayer
israel@streetroots.org
E x e c u t iv e D i r e c t o r
Managing Editor Soanne ZuW .
5oanne@sheetcgotsorg
Cofe M erkel
cbfe@ streetroots.org.
O p e r a t i o n s D i r e c t o r Sarah Beecroft
V e n d o r P r o g r a m D ir e c t o r
D e v e lo p m e n t D i r e c t o r Sarah Cloud
P ro g ra m A s sis ta n t Meghatm Van Pelt
Jesuit Volunteer
Development Assistant Patricia Romero
Reporters Emify Green, Suzanne Zalokar,
Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Jared Paben,
Am anda Waldroupe, Stephen Quirke
Photographers Diego Diaz, Joe Giode,
Ben Brink
Editorial Assistant Monica Kwasnik
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
Board of Directors
Chairman Brad Taylor
Vice-Chairman Rachel Langford
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Marcus Swift
Directors Rich Rodgers, Michael Anderson,
Leo Rhodes, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Dan
Jones
Volunteers
Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali
Rathore, Zoe Kltngmann, Haven Herrin, Dan
Jones, Dennis Hogan, Tom Wright, Judy Taylor,
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Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jeanie
Lunsford, Yasmin Amirsoleymani, Jason Cohen,
Tom Ray, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon
Raymond, Hilary Smith, Diana Richardson,
Cherie Manning, Paul and Madeline Gefroh,
Mary Ann Joyce and Faye Powell.
If you're interested in volunteering with Street
Roots, please submit a volunteer application at
streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call our
volunteer coordinator for more information at
503-228-5657.