Street Roots • Dec. 29, 2017-Jan. 4, 2018
Opinion
Page 3
Together, moving forward, we can make lives better
ere we are at the turn of a new year.
While some are angered over the
Some of us will attend parties with
presence of trash, it serves us well to
glitter and clinking glasses. Others
remember that this is a structural issue.
will hunker in with families around board
With no home, no garbage service, no
games or a TV. Some will get away to the
public dumpster nearby, trash piles up. A
mountains or ocean or somewhere,
little creativity here would help. Neighbors
anywhere, that’s warmer than here.
can help neighbors, housed and unhoused.
Others of us will brave yet another night
In comparison to the more insidious
on the streets. Others still will expend an
trappings of homelessness, such as the lack
H
K a ia S a n d is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach her a t
kaia@streetroots. org.
Follow her on
Twitter @ m kaiasand
inordinate amount of
of health care and mental stability, the
energy securing a
ravages of addiction and vulnerability to
shelter bed for the
violence - the issue of trash on the
night, only to start
sidewalk is a relatively easy fix.
over the next day.
And we must never forget that 80 people
At the turn of this
died homeless on our streets last year. The
new year, we are in
average age of death was 49.
By Kaia Sand
the midst of another
So as we start our new year, let’s take
public conversation
stock of when laws target a class of people
about the presence of - in this case, people living in such poverty
homeless people bn our city sidewalks.
they lack shelter - and make a decision to
While the debate flares on phone screens,
focus on more constructive actions. The
people continue to huddle in tents and
American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon
under tarps.
has tallied 224 laws across Oregon that
This is not a new conversation, but
target people who are homeless. These
amidst tweets and news feeds, it can feel
laws, the A C L U points out, do not affect in
brand new.
the same way those who have access to
Some folks talk about homelessness as
private homes, regular hygiene situations,
an eyesore, but most of us can question why
and protected sleep.
a supposed visual offense looms so
Let’s reject laws that target people for
important when we are talking about human
their poverty, making it more difficult to
Jives. The ire over tarps, tents, pallets, and
escape poverty and homelessness by
cardboard - materials of our lives - is
webbing them into the criminal justice
misplaced.
system and furthering debt by leveling fees.
A desire to not see poverty by m oving
We know that our extreme shortage of
people along d o es not s e r v e us w ell. We are
one fabric of citizenry in our city. L e t’s not
forget that for som e of u s, shelter itself is
an impossibility. W hen som eone erects
some semblance of shelter - a tent for a bit
of privacy and a wind block from the
elements, a car or RV to sleep in - this is a
precarious position, and that person
endures the stress of knowing they must
move along. People wear down from
disrupted sleep and vigilance for their
safety.
T h e a d a g e “ o u t o f s i g h t , o u t o f mind”
holds truth; “sweeping” away people who
are homeless summons amnesia. If some of
us - thousands of us - live without secure
shelter, it serves us all well to know this.
In our sight, on our mind.
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.
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Joanne Zuhl
joanne@streetroots.org
V endor P ro g ra m D ire c to r Cole Merkel
affordable housing dem ands an
extraordinary response, but as we w ork on
cole@streetroots.org
D e v e lo p m e n t D i r e c t o r A n d r e w H o g a n
t h is , w e c a n a lso s tr iv e to g e t p e o p le in fr o m
S en io r S t a f f R e p o rte r E m ily G r e e n
O perations D ire c to r Sa rah B e e c ro ft
the cold, m aking sure they have the shelter
beds to save their lives, and we can also
address hygiene struggles (access to toilets,
showers, laundry, garbage disposal) that
lead to some of the actions often
criminalized. We can also champion creative
organizational leadership among people
who are homeless.
P ro g ra m A ssistan t Caelin Miitko, Jesuit
Volunteer
Vendor Assistant Scott Jackson, AJex
Gillow-Wiles
Development Assistant Rosemar
R e p o r t e r s Sarah Hansen, Leonoia i\u , l iiiih
•*» Ppt’c; not rehash artempfs to c r im in a liz e
Prado, Jared Paben, Amanda Waldroupe,
Stephen Quirke, Helen Hill
Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
the survival of people on the streets. That’s
taking three steps back.
In 2018, let’s measure our actions against
what makes lives better for those among us
who are homeless. Let’s be hospitable to
their health, rest and potential to thrive.
Board of Directors
Chairman Brad Taylor
Vice-Chairman Rachel Langford
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Dan Jones
Directors 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., Jason Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah
Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and
Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Brooke
Anderson, Gillian Floren, Mark Oldani, Bianca Butler,
Alex Cherin, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber
Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan,
Megan Smith, Helen Hill, Mary Emerson, Brooke
A person sleeps on
the sidewalk in Old
Town Chinatown.
E
Anderson, Kathleen McFall, Robb Hengerer, Bronwyn
o
Miles, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Bridget
d
Brown, Faye Powell, Jon Raymond and Megan
w
Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering
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| '
with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer
application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can
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call for more information at 503-228-5657.