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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2017)
Street Roots • July 21-27, 2017 O p in io n Page Summer brings old complaints and new opportunities very summer it’s a different neighborhood or area of the city being flooded with homeless people. One summer it was homeless punks with skateboards and their dogs downtown. The next summer it was the Park Blocks. Let’s not forget the dirty hippies from the Rainbow festival. Last summer it was the Springwater _____________________ Corridor. Apparently, this I l f 11 W W i t summer, it’s RVs and homeless campers in eastside By Israel Bayer neighborhoods. The frenzy is always the same. It cycles from neighborhood to neighborhood based up a changing economic climate and development throughout the city. The message is always the same: Homeless people are invading our community. What are the police doing? What is the mayor doing? Why is our system failing us? Of course many of the network T V stations have a field day with it all. It’s like watching reality T V with upscale, angry neighbors and destitute homeless people. “Tonight at 5, 6 and 10, homeless people and neighbors square off in a battle over public space. . . ” “I’m homeless and have no place to call home,” says one homeless person. E Israel Bayer is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach him a t israel@streetroots. org or follow h im on Tw itter @israelbayer. “H om eless people are puking in m y yard and I pay taxes,” says one neighbor. What exactly is the city doing about it? “We are doing everything in our power to give people access to shelter and housing,” says a spokesperson for the city. “It’s not enough,” chimes in another neighbor with an Obama T-shirt on. “Homeless people shouldn’t be allowed near our schools and parks.” No, wait. That’s an actual proposal by one neighborhood group in Laurelhurst. Can someone inform the group of the hundreds of Portland school children that are experiencing homelessness? Meanwhile, I’m getting messages from people saying, Israel, where do you live? Do you pay property taxes? I run a business. I own a home in Portland. How dare you defend these people? Been there, done that: The Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association wants the city to prohibit homeless people in a designated area, including its centerpiece, Laurelhurst Park. I’m just going to go ahead and take this time to make another public service announcement for Portlanders. We are experiencing a housing and homeless emergency. The federal and state government have abandoned their posts when it comes to providing adequate housing resources and protection for renters. Rents are skyrocketing. Poor people are now being evicted from their apartments by the scores, hundreds of families are caught in emergency shelters and thousands of people are being pushed to the edge of society. Now, I realize that we have problems, lots of them. Climate change, the refugee crisis worldwide, a war on immigrants and oh, by the way, Donald Trump is president. And yes, homeless people sleeping in our neighborhoods. Now I’m not going to say that we all have more important things to worry about, because the reality is worrying about the housing crisis is real - very real. But I will say pushing homeless people from one neighborhood to the next is not going to solve the poverty crisis in America, much less climate change or helping rid our country of right wing, bat-shit crazy people who believe people like you and me, regardless of how we feel about the homeless, should all go fly a kite. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that having angry Trump supporters receive unjust airtime on network T V and other m edia helped contribute to a toxic and divided environment nationally. In actuality, having angry liberals drive housing policy due to the same kind of unjust airtime has the potential to lead to the same kind of toxic and divided community over homelessness and housing. The reality is, we do know how to help end people’s homelessness. What we need is to all be heading in the same direction, regardless of our political bent. That direction is creating the political will and foundation to develop new and emerging policies to help end the housing crisis. Until that time, it’s all noise. Giving us story after story of the plight of the deserving vs. underserving homeless — all of which will need to find another neighborhood to sleep until further notice. israel@streetroots.org Executive Editor Joanne Zu hi joanne@streetroots.org Vendor P ro g ra m D ire c to r Cole M erkel cole@streetroots.org Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Editorial Assistant Monica Kwasnik Reporters 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 W olfe, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas I 8 I » » I Buell Jr., Jeanie Lunsford, Jason Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Del Shawn Davidson, Gillian Floren, M ark OIDani, Bianca Butler, Alex Cherin, Jenny Fames, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, M iranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Megan Smith, Luke Scheuermann, Annie Aube, Helen Hill, M ark Brown, Lily Krai, Mary Emerson, Adam Bruns, Brooke Anderson and Megan Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering w ith Street Roots, please subm it a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call fo r more inform ation at 503-228-5657.
