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.