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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 3, 2017)
Street Roots • March 3-9, 2017 New s Page 7 need Lack ofbasic hygiene access compounds difficulties of homelessness BY EMILY GREEN Ü I : ticketed due to lack of access to hygiene facilities. aryl doesn’t like waiting in line for . Nearly half the study’s respondents two hours to take a shower. indicated they typically shower at Transition Projects Inc., or TPI, The Day While he’d prefer to shower once Center’s capacity allows for 100 shower per day, he said that while living outside, slots and 48 loads of laundry daily. he’s able to shower only about three times “The need far exceeds our capacity to a month when he splurges on a motel meet that need,” said Christopher Sage, room. TPI’s Day Center manager. “But we’re Daryl is not alone. doing the best we can.” Long lines and time limits were among He said the Day Center opens each day the barriers to good hygiene, a recent at 7 a.m., and the shower list for the day is survey of 550 Portlanders experiencing full by 8 a.m.; although, if someone misses homelessness revealed. their shower slot, it gets filled with While there are homeless service someone else. JOIN offers 40 showers per providers and shelters that offer showers, day, five days a week, and vouchers for a bathrooms and laundry facilities or nearby laundry, according to the study. vouchers, hours and capacity are limited, “They need to give people more time, with demand greatly exceeding supply. especially being a woman - you need to From 2014 to 2016, graduate students at shave, said Dee, who said she’s spent Portland State University’s School of Social many hours waiting in line for a shower at Work practiced street outreach in various TPI, which allows 20 minutes for its areas of inner Portland to gather data to showers, including time to undress and illustrate what homeless advocates already dress. Now, she said, she showers at the know: Portland’s homeless population faces women’s shelter run by Salvation Army, hardships in accessing facilities to maintain SAFES, where the showers are longer and basic human hygiene, and suffering is often the lines are shorter. But the price of compounded as a result. operating the washer andi dryer can be a S tu d y lead Lisa Hawash, a professor of barrier,, she said., ....... practice with PSU’s School of Social Work, • “All we got is what’s on us,” she said. recognized access to hygiene facilities as a And she doesn’t like getting out of a major issue for Portland’s homeless shower only to put on dirty clothes.-When population when she worked at Sisters of she sees a long line for the showers at the Road. The nonprofit café caters to SAFES, she usually leaves. those who cannot afford a meal and The PSU survey found that for women, partnered with PSU for the study. there are many additional hygiene-related The survey exposes how poor hygierte challenges. “Feminine hygiene is a huge often adds to the difficulties of issue,” Hawash said. “If you have limited homelessness, leading to infections and access to showers during your cycle, that other health issues, as well as rejection and just feels awful.” Some women simply want to feel good harassment about themselves, she said. “Wanting to be Among survey respondents, 40 percent able to put their makeup on and do their reported medical problems that could be hair, and things like that, because that’s prevented with proper hygiene, such as important to them,” she said. staph infections, scabies, lice, open sores The study’s authors concluded and urinary tract infections. Additionally, homelessness must be addressed with an 22 percent indicated they’d been turned array of creative solutions, and the creation away from shelter for poor hygiene, and 21 of a community hygiene center could he ; percent said they have been denied access one approach that would meet the to food or services due to their hygiene. outlined in the survey. | “Another deeper question we were “I’m not being pessimistic, bht / exploring was the criminalization of the lack we’re not going to eradicatedJ B j of access,’’ Hawash said. “That was homelessness anytime soon in Portland/ something we have heard a number of times Hawash said, “and so this is one thing th - people getting tickets and fines and jailed can provide access to folks who^B| for using the bathroom outside, for living outside.” . 1 / ||S example.” . Police typically issuetoffensivé littering” | charges for this behavior. Multnomah Panel discussion County DistrictAttorney’s Office records show that in 2016, it reviewed 184 cases Sisters of the Road wifi host a involving offensive littering. Spokesperson addressing the lack of hygiene facilities for Adam Gibbs said he couldn’t determine Portland. The date and location are yet io how many were for failure to use bathroom members of the faith community and the facilities without a hand-check of each case, discuss how churches, businesses and but a random sample of 20 cases showed showering facilities might be able to open that 11 were issued for urine or feces. more long-term solution - also to be More than 200 survey respondents email Karissa Moden at karissa@si reported police or private security harassment, and 115 said th e /d been STAFF W R IT E R ■ Those surveyed were asked what they would need in a hygiene center. More than 80 percent said they would want laundry facilities. For about half, the center would need to be open seven days a week, and at least 12 to 14 hours per day. Accessible showers, bathrooms and supplies were also important to about half of respondents, and 255 said they would like to have a storage locker space for when they needed to go somewhere they couldn’t bring all their items to, such as a job interview. Hawash said health or first aid services could also be included in'a hygiene center. While she said she hopes to share the findings with local policymakers, government funding on all levels is uncertain in today’s political climate. It leaves a lot of questions about what could happen,” she said. The cost of such a center has not been projected, as it’s unknown who would operate the facility and what services it would provide. “Nobody wants people having to use the bathroom outside. It’s undignified, first and foremost,” she said. “Second, because it’s a public health issue.” In Seattle, the Low Income Housing Institute opened its third Urban Rest Stop in 2015. T hese hygiene centers offer showers, laundry and bathroom s, as well as overalls for patrons to wear while they wash their clothes. The downtown Seattle location also has on-site barbers and offers health education. Dee said she’s experienced homelessness in Seattle too. “I love the Urban Rest Stop!” she said when asked about it, “It’s much easier to get a shower in Seattle than it is here.” Due to the personal nature of this story, Street Roots changed the names of the people experiencing homelessness who were interviewed about WYDEN, from page 5 ■ than 40 sponsors in the Senate for supporting that legislation. I said, “We’re going to mobilize folks at the grass roots,” and five days before there was a vote on whether to override the hold block I had On this bill, 15 million Americans weighed in. So we’re going to make that kind of fight in opposition to any effort to roll back net " I said, W w neutrality. E .G .:/ wanted to talk about the Email Privacy Act. (This act would close a loophole that allows the government to access any email- or other form of digital communication that's more than 180 days old without a warrant). It passed the House unanimously, going fa mobi lise falls© at the grass roots/ a n < | I S mil® lion Americans weighed in. So we're going to snahe that hind o l lig h t in apposition to any effort to ro ll bach not neutrality/' O X SEN. RON W YDEN and it may be a tougher road in the Senate, but i f it gets through and becomes law, does that mean that our emails are actually protected? And, does its passing through the House give you hope that maybe Republicans unit work with you on privacy issues, such as what Pompeo is 'suggesting? - R.W.: Certainly, the Email Privacy Act is important because it’s updating rules that are basically from yesteryear, and the fact that the House has passed it unanimously is certainly a good sign. The challenge will be, particularly in the communications area, supposing a senator pops up - I won’t mention any names, but I can think of a couple who would want to attach a piece of legislation to gut net neutrality, and attach it to something like Email Privacy Act. I’m hopeful. It’s certainly positive news when you get something passed in the House unanimously, but we’re certainly not home free. E.G.: A t the end of the day, and perhaps your answer is “classified,” but are there any data collection programs currently being run by the National Security Agency that keep you up at night? R.W.: I can’t get into it, but I’ll tell you, the one I talked to you about is certainly one I’m very troubled about Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is coming up - I think as I indicated, as communications systems get more sophisticated and more integrated, law- abiding people are going to get swept up in these legitimate targets, and in the hands of the wrong people, that can really be pretty ominous. We can’t even get out of the government how many law-abiding people have been swept up in these searches, which leads me to believe it’s a larger number than people think. emily@streetroots. org
