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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 2017)
Street Roots • April 7-13, 2017 E d ito r ia l Time to revamp Oregon’s destructive drug laws he travesty of the so-called War on Drugs plays on a in-time behavior, a category of offense or punishment. It’s is constant loop, destroying lives, families and attached to one’s identity for a lifetime. A felony shuts communities, and starting over with each generation. people out of housing and employment options. It can It continues, seemingly on autopilot, despite decades of jeopardize future access to critically needed services, even evidence showing it be a social, economic and food stamp assistance. It is a sentence that is far more environmental disaster. likely to aggravate a person’s addiction or drug use than And most people get that. Which is correct it. why it’s no surprise that a poll of 600 Indeed, serious crimes should have consequences, but registered voters in Oregon, funded let s repeat: One in three of those new felons have no prior by ACLU of Oregon, found a vast criminal record. majority - 73 percent - favored making simple drug Oregon lawmakers have the opportunity to correct this possession a misdeameanor with access to treatment, destructive practice with HB 2355, which would de-felonize rather than a felony. low-level drug possession charges, reform sentencing As it stands now, felony charges for possessing even the policies, and emphasize public health and safety. Large, most trace amount of drugs can carry stiff penalties and commercial quantities of drugs would still be felony years, even decades, in prison. For about 1,500 Oregonians offenses, but user-quantities of drugs would be treated as every year, drug possession charges are their first felony misdemeanors. The bill also gives the state critical data to conviction, and one out three of those new felons have no identify patterns in profiling, along with training on prior criminal record, according to the Oregon Criminal identifying implicit bias. Justice Commission. Oregon needs this law. Its policies advance years of work And Oregon’s African-Americans are disproportionately in Salem to correct drug laws and the racial disparities they ensnared by felony drug possession laws - more than create. double the rate of whites in 2015, all to preserve a relic of We waste too many lives and spend too much money political posturing. creating felons in our society. Let your local representative The gravity of a felony conviction goes far beyond a point- know you support HB 2355. T EDITORIAL Page 3 Write in If you would like to have something that you’ve written published in our pages, or would like to get involved as a member of our reporting staff, contact Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl at 503-228-5657. joanne@streetroots.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: 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. and 7:30-1 p.m. Sun. Advertising Right to Rest bill’s end leaves people’s lives in the balance newly released ACLU of Oregon report, “Decriminalizing Homelessness: Why Right to Rest Legislation is the High Road For Oregon,” finds that there is an entire legal infrastructure in Oregon that makes basic survival in public spaces illegal. The report analyzed local laws in 69 communities and cities throughout Oregon w ith populations above 5,000, and fohnd that there are 225 laws that create clear barriers to life- sustaining activities and legalize unfair and harmful treatment of people experiencing homelessness. The report outlines that By Israel Bayer beyond the approximately 125 laws that outlaw some form of sleeping in public spaces throughout Oregon — restrictions extend to those who have security of a car, bus, trailer or RV. Thirty-one cities in Oregon restrict sleeping in one’s vehicle even if it’s in normal parking place and posing no safety hazard. There are 11 communities in Oregon that ban panhandling, and another 48 communities and two counties have laws against sleeping or sitting on sidewalks. Anti-homeless or poor laws have existed for centuries. Oregon is no different. It used to be illegal to live in idleness or without employment or having no visible means of support in Oregon. In many ways, not a lot has changed. The reality is if you’re homeless in many communities throughout Oregon, you’re driven into urban environments. For one, there are little to no services available in many of rural or suburban communities. Secondly, as the report clearly outlines, if you’re homeless, you’re clearly not welcome. The times are a changing in Portland, or are they? For nearly 40 years of modern-day homelessness, Portland has grappled with how to handle homelessness through a public- safety lens. We’ve covered all of the bases in that time - from a more lenient harm-reduction approach to the flat-out criminalization of the people on the streets through sidewalk laws and heavy enforcement. I like to remind people that it’s not that there are more homeless people in our neighborhoods than anytime over the past couple of decades. It’s simply that our neighborhoods have changed. The Pearl and the inner Eastside of Portland used to be areas of town that people experiencing homelessness could bed down. The Pearl was an empty warehouse district and the inner Eastside had not yet seen development. Today, both of those neighborhoods are off limits. More so, Old Town is gentrifying rapidly. A Israel Bayer is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach him at israel @streetroots. org or follow him on Twitter @israelbayer. The result is tent camping that is dispersed throughout the city. Our parks that have become a last refuge. The mayor has said that he’s not for tent camping, but the reality is there’s not a lot the police and the city can do about it. After all, we are experiencing a housing crisis and are on th e verge of facing m assive funding cuts by both th e state and federal government. While, creating more and more shelter beds is costly, enforcing laws that make homelessness illegal is even more costly. Advocates and city officials should avoid going back to an era where fighting over these laws was commonplace. We should all be working toward affordable housing and leveraging resources to support people having a safe place to call home. A fight over criminalization in Portland would be disastrous and one that I wouldn’t look forward to having. The reality is Portland is working to thread the needle. It’s not perfect, but we’re trying to find the right balance. Unfortunately, the Right to Rest Act (House Bill 2215) did not get a chance in Oregon. The Right to Rest Act sought to end the criminalization of rest and accompanying violations of basic human and civil rights for all people. This legislation would have protected the following rights and prohibit the enforcement of any local laws that violate these rights: ■ Right to move freely, rest, sleep and be protected in a public space. ■ Right to-rest in public spaces and protect one self from the elements in a non-obstructive manner ■ Right to reasonable expectation of privacy of your property in public spaces ■ Right to occupy a legally parked vehicle. ■ Right to share food and eat in public. Of course, in a time when the poor are demonized for being poor and the homeless are increasingly seen more as a burden than human beings or Oregonians — it’s not surprising. “At the end of the day, this bill deserved a hearing,” said Paul Boden, Director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project. “The practice of law-enforcement targeting people experiencing homelessness has to be stopped. These laws have to become a part of the past. People’s lives are depending on it.” It’s true. People’s lives are depending on it. In a time when our community can’t provide affordable housing, mental health services and stability for its own residents — the idea of criminalizing people that fall through the safety net seems cruel. And it is. It’s downright cruel. Interested in advertising in Street Roots? Contact Israel Bayer at israel@streetroots.org Staff Executive Director Israel Bayer I joanne@streetroots.orq V en d o r P r o g r a m D ir e c to r Cole Mevke\ Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Development Director Sarah Cloud Program Assistant Meghann Van Pelt, Jesuit Volunteer Patricia Romero Monica Kwasnik Emily Green, Suzanne Zalokar, Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Jared Paben, Amanda Waldroupe, Stephen Quirke Photographers Diego Diaz, Joe Glode, Arkady Brown Canvasser Desmond Hardison * Board of Directors Chairman Brad Taylor Vice-Chairman Rachel Langford Treasurer Heather Stadick Secretary Dan Jones Directors Rich Rodgers, Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nels Johnson and Alison Hallett Volunteers Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Zoe Klingmann, Dan Jones, Dennis Hogan, Monica McKune, Susan Wolfe, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jeanie Lunsford, Yasmin Amirsoleymani, Jason Cohen, Tom Ray, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Cherie Manning, Paul and Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Del Shawn Davidson, Gillian Floren, Mark OIDani, Meg Holden, Bridget Brown, Cody Travels, Bianca Butler, Robb Hengerer, Alex Cherin, Tom Vandel, Grace Gallagher, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan and Helen Hill. If you're interested in volunteering with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call for more information at 503-228-5657. J 4
