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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (May 5, 2017)
Street Roots • May 5-11,2017 O p in io n Page The energy exists to fuel something powerful e’ve lost the general public’s Homelessness is going to be a part of our support and political will on community until we have the necessary homelessness. resources to solve it. That doesn’t mean we I’ve been hearing these sentiments a lot as a community or government can give up. lately in political circles. In fact, it’s the opposite. That’s nonsense. That’s why I believe the city and county It’s true that many people are upset will both get to a place of funding our about homelessness homeless efforts equally. The budget in our community. It process is just that - a process. There will is also true that many be weeks of discussions and consideration people are upset of our needs, our priorities and our about a whole range responsibility. Now is not the time to get of problems facing into a fight over semantics. our city, region and Saying that, I hear a lot of talk of the world. That homeless sweeps and how the community . doesn’t mean we’ve believes that in order to get ahead of the lost people’s will to support folks having a problem we have to clean the city up. I’m safe place to call home. not sure what that means. When you have I hear politicos say that they receive thousands of people displaced, moving more complaints about street homelessness them from one park to another or one in our community than any other subject. freeway underpass to another or one part of Fair enough. But if Street Roots and other the city to another is simply a fool’s game. organizations wanted to organize campaigns The reality is that Portland does care to flood City Hall with about people experiencing phone calls and emails, we homelessness. Tens of could. thousands of people donate to To accept such a narrow nonprofits and foundations narrative as truth is every year to help the Homelessness Is unsophisticated. It doesn’t homeless. Teams of paint the entire picture. going to be a part of volunteers, churches, While we respect our our community until businesses, politicians and partners in the business we have the neighbors work tirelessly to community and many necessary resources give people both shelter and neighbors that are empathy in the storm. to solve It. That frustrated and organized T h e question before us now doesn't mean we as around the issue — most is not how we are going to poverty advocates are a community or clean up our city. Our city is choosing to take the high government can beautiful and thriving. The road. give up. question is how are we going Nobody wants to fight to take the energy over the idea of prioritizing surrounding homelessness housing and people and move our city into the experiencing homelessness. direction of doing something It’s something that we all about it. agree upon. How about a one cent coffee tax for every Instead we are focused on solutions and cup of coffee sold in the city to go towards doing the work. rent assistance? With the right people Each week, Street Roots vendors sell around the table we could make something about 10,000 copies of the newspaper to like this happen. the general public. I would argue that the If the hotels and motels and the tourist vast majority of our readers don’t believe industry want homelessness out of homeless people should be swept out of the downtown — they should bring it. There’s public eye without any alternatives in place. money on the table. We’re listening. The cold hard reality is if government That’s just two examples of the efforts and the public can’t provide housing for we could be working on. people, then moving people around and Right now we’ve a patchwork of Band- sweeping camps is nothing more than cruel. Aids created by what little resources we do I’ve written a lot about the compassion have and the good will of the people of fatigue on the streets - the idea that no Portland. matter what we do to scale up to solve the In order to take the next steps and make problem of homelessness, there are still the big lift we will need vision. We will need homeless people. People begin to think that action. We will need sophisticated thinkers the problem can’t be solved. and doers and strategists working at a level Here’s the thing: Every mayor since the Portland has never seen before. early 1980s has been faced with the I believe we can get there with the overwhelming task of balancing how to leadership we have in place. I don’t believe support thousands of people experiencing we will get there by bickering over camp homelessness in their community, political sweeps or succumbing to the distraction of will and public safety for all. squeaky wheels. The reality is, given the Oregon Let’s take that energy and turn it into Legislature’s measly investments on something powerful. Something that gives housing and upcoming federal cuts, it’s thousands of people a safe place to call probably going to get worse before it gets home. Something we can all get behind. better. There is nowhere to run. W Israel Bayer is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach him at israel@streetroots. org or follow him on Twitter @israelbayer. if available. Street Roots 211 NW t a k a 503-228-5657 Fax:503-227-3117 www.streetroots.orq Hours: 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. -Fri., 7:30 a.m.~2 p.m. Sat. and 7:30-1 pm . Sun. Interested in advertising in Street Roots? Contact Israel Bayer at israel@streetroots.org Staff Israel Bayer ■ '' israel@streetroots.org M anaging Editor Joanne Zuhi joanne@streetroots.org Vendor P rog ram D ire c to r Cole Merkel cole@stfeetroots.org Operations D ire c to r Sarah Beecroft Developm ent D ire c to r Sarah Cloud P rogram A ssistant Meghann Van Pelt, Jesuit Volunteer Patricia Romero Emily Green, Suzanne Zalokar, Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Jared Paben, R eporters Arkady Brown Board of Directors Chairm an Brad Taylor T re a s u re r Heather Stadick Dan Jones D irectors Rich Rodgers, Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nels Johnson and Alison Hallett S e cretary 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, Bridget Brown, Cody Travels, Bianca Butler, Robb Hengerer, Alex Cherin, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Megan Smith, Luke Scheuermann 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.
