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