Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 2017)
Street Roots • Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2017 Page 3 O p in io n New solutions for those living in natural areas urbing climate change, protecting our natural natural resource managers came together this past environment and ending homelessness. In a week for a daylong training on homelessness and world gone mad, these challenges sometimes the environment hosted by the Bonneville feel so enormous that people don’t have a clue on Environmental Foundation (See “Advocates, park where to begin. workers seek solutions to illegal camping,” page 7). More so, what do we, as a community, do when The goal was to educate the environmental for some of people experiencing homelessness, the community and natural resource managers on the history and trauma of people experiencing only options for camping homelessness, while also thinking about solutions to are on those very natural the challenges that we face collectively. It was a resource areas we are trying to protect? great first step. I have long believed that with a shift in thinking I’ve written before and funding, we could actually be utilizing people about why some people’s experiencing homelessness to help maintain our only options for sleeping By Israel Bayer natural areas. More so, people on the streets could outside are parks, be utilized to help clean up trash around the city on wetlands and other a larger scale. wooded areas around our With the right kind of investment, we could offer region. The city is booming. New developments, a both work and educational programs geared toward robust economy and a growing population have giving people a hand up, while also helping solve created neighborhoods that have less tolerance for what’s at the heart of making our community so people experiencing homelessness. angry. I’ve long said, it’s not homeless people Just this week, the Portland Mercury reported themselves that make the general public believe that some members of the Piedmont neighborhood they are subhuman - it’s the trash that goes along are looking to slap a new label on any property with the ongoing struggle of living outdoors. owner who helps a homeless camp or shelter to There’s no reason we couldn’t be thinking about spring up without a formal O K from nearby new programs that are not so different from Street residents as “bad neighbors” - threatening not to Roots, with individuals working to clean up natural cooperate with such a neighbor for up to five years. areas in the region and also learning about the It’s the latest in a long line of disagreements benefits of supporting our bird and animal between people on the streets, advocates, sanctuaries, wetlands and parks. government and neighborhoods around the city. We have both the expertise and the desire to do Hence, more and more homeless campers are it. What we need are a shift in thinking around being forced from downtown and neighborhoods due economic development strategies and political will. to g e n trific a tio n an d moving their camps to natural What we need is cold hard cash. areas and parks throughout the city and region. It’s my opinion, that if such a nonprofit was It’s my belief that the vast majority of Oregonians created, people would flock to support it. Maybe care about the homeless and more so, care about business leaders, government and investors should the environment and curbing climate change. People be thinking about ways to create and maintain simply don’t know how to respond to these organizations to solve the problems we have right in enormous challenges outside of giving to nonprofits front of us, instead of simply investing in companies and doing their part to recycle and become more whose sole purpose is to make a profit. In the conscientious consumers. meantime, we’re working on building the foundation What do we do? for such an effort. Stay tuned. Poverty and environmental advocates along with C DIRECTOR'S Israel Bayer is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach him at israel @streetroots. org or follow him on Twitter @israelbayer. 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, Jason Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Del Shawn Davidson, Gillian Floren, Mark OIDani, Bianca Butler, Alex Cherin, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Megan Smith, Luke Scheuermann, Annie Aube, Helen Hill, Mark Brown, Lily Krai, Mary Emerson, Adam Bruns, Brooke Anderson and Megan Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering L a st winter, Sisters O f The R oad provided people experiencing homelessness with photography classes a n d disposable cameras so that they could docum ent their lives fo r a project called “Through O u r L e n s " T his photo depicts the campsite o f a participant, Phoebe 0 ., who was sleeping in a wooded area o f Southwest Portland. She is also a Street Roots vendor. with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call for more information at 503-228-5657.
