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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 2018)
Street Roots • Jan. 12-18, 2018 News PRISM, from page 9 . o . P H O T O BY LEE B R O W N Adam Smith, founder o f The Real Ju n k Food Project, looks over a platter o f lettuce being prepared fo r a catered dinner that night. FOOD JUNKIE, from page 10 experiencing homelessness but what’s the point because we would just be sustaining homelessness by allowing people to continue what they’re doing, and plenty of other great organizations are doing that anyway. “What we’re saying is let’s prevent that from happening in the first place. Let’s empower, educate and teach young people life skills so that whenever they might get into that position they can fend for themselves and provide for themselves and their families.” Smith is like a bullet train, high speed and streamlined. It would almost be rude to interrupt his stream of consciousness flow. “The problem is spiralling out of control. In the U .K ., we’re so heavily manipulated by the retail industry when it comes to supermarkets and the abundance of food. It’s completely inhumane to think that there are people who go without, alongside 20 supermarkets next door to each other in one street. It’s absolutely silly. “Why do we need avocados 24/7, 365 days a year - that’s completely unsustainable. Why are bananas being put into plastic wrappers with a date on it? A banana already has a wrapper - its skin! There is a really nonsensical approach to how we handle and behave around our food.” He is also under no illusions about where the fault lies, and he is not afraid to call out the perpetrators. “As consumers, we have been manipulated to foot the blame by the big corporations who benefit from people returning to their supermarkets and buying more and more food. They say this is what we want. But we don’t really have a choice. We’ve been exploited and manipulated to feel responsible for the way our food industry is run. “The situation we have is completely unsustainable. We don’t grow enough of our own food, we don’t teach young people about where food comes from. Kids are just manipulated into thinking that apples come from supermarkets in plastic bags. From what I ’ve seen and experienced in the past four years, on a national and international scale, things won’t start improving until these companies start losing profits.” Smith tells me about the growing exposure the project is receiving, with politicians starting to take notice, and how the project’s aims are now being spread on a global scale. “People are starting to look at the fundamentals of the project and what it’s trying to achieve. People are going to go away tonight full of nutritionally valued food, all sourced from produce that would have been thrown away. The environmental impact of that is incredible. “And yet, across the road from here there are probably families, children, who don’t get access to the kind of stuff that’s been wasted and reused today. That’s the paradoxical nature of our food system. What we are trying to do is expose that and tackle it head on in a very common sense way. This is the right thing to do in my eyes, and more people should do the right thing.” But for Smith the amount of cafés opened and the amount of people being fed is not a true indicator of his project’s success. “The fact that The Real Junk Food Project is still here is evidence itself to show that things haven’t gotten any better. The fact we’re growing I don’t see as a measure of success - I see it as a measure of the scale of the problem. The more we grow, the more that the problem exists. The more that we lessen our activities worldwide, the more that we’re not needed - that will show how much of a change that we’ve made.” Despite the gravity of the issue, Smith sees the work of the project as extremely simple to carry out, not revolutionary or ground-breaking. “The project has been seen as radical and all this nonsense but I ’m only feeding people. The only reasons people see us as radical is because they’re so far removed from the problem. “We need to stop focusing on funding and financing and coming up with increasingly elaborate ways to deal with problems. Just give me food and I’ll feed everyone.” . Courtesy o f IN SP n g o Page 11 people can access care. To use the sliding fee scale, patients have to be up to 200 tough questions at them, too. M y provider percent of the federal poverty level. If a didn’t bat an eye; he did not act surprised; patient is over that benchmark and doesn’t he was professional.” qualify for the sliding fee scale, Prism Chadwick-Saund said her provider offers a 10 percent discount of what the responded well to understanding the office would normally bill insurance. health side effects of abuse. And for her, Based on information from October this is important: “I don’t have time to be 2017, roughly 35 percent of Prism’s a survivor right now.” patients are on some sort of public health Chadwick-Saund knows what it’s like to insurance, such as Medicaid, and for some, come up against high barriers of medical this might be the first time they have ever care, to feel like it is “you against the had health insurance. world,” which can be a common Lack of insurance is a significant barrier experience for LGBTQ+ people accessing for attaining health care for the LGBTQ+ or trying to access medical care. community. Miguel Carreon, a nurse “It’s hard to pull yourself practitioner at Prism, said that out of that depression,” she he has patients lose their said. “There’s a reason, insurance due to their job statistically, queer people "Health ears la status or changing life suffer from depression this eauatry has situations and that they won’t more, especially because of a long way to g be able to return for care until the oppression that we and F rls» Is paw they have insurance again. This face.” type of inconsistency can have ing a path." It was 2015 when an a significant impact on a investigation opened AM C H A B W ttS A U ® , person’s health. P R IS M H E A L T H P A T IE N T focusing on a hospital in And more patients are rural Montana where traveling from outside of Chadwick-Saund sought Portland, even from care for pain-related neighboring states such as Idaho, to access medical symptoms. “She just brushed me care at Prism and to get prescriptions for off,” Chadwick-Saund said. PrEP. About 30 percent of Prism’s patients “People that wear those white coats - are on the medication, and more are being you want to believe them all the time, and prescribed and filled each day. A provider questioning their methods are really hard,” at Prism said that the LGBTQ + community she said. seems to be more aware of PrEP than Chadwick-Saund believes her case was other colleagues in the medical field. mishandled, and the hospital ended up “People will now do damn near anything paying part of her medical bill. to get it, if it’s important. People come “Health care in this country has a long from Idaho to get their PrEP, to get way to go, and Prism is paving a path,” she competent care with their PrEP. People said. come from Damascus, Eugene, Ferte and Prism staff are trained in Stevenson,” Ferte said. trauma-informed care, something at the forefront of being a care provider, especially for the LGBTQ+ community. “ T t was my dream to work here,” Carreon Staff attend training around cultural -Lsaid. “I myself am a gay male, and I’m sensitivity in the black community and also working with a population I care about.” white privilege. Carreon, like some of his patients, takes Ferte said that health care in the United PrEP. He said the community he provides States operates in an antiquated way and care to is more informed than his that the medical community needs to colleagues in the medical field about the progress and evolve with society. preventive medication. “It sounds like an easy thing to That’s not a big surprise, he said. understand, and it doesn’t happen - “Throughout the time I was on PrEP, I clearly, because Prism is here. Health care had three different care providers. None of is ever-changing, insurance is ever- them knew what the medication is,” he changing, everything about this business is said. “I had to take information to them, to ever-changing,” she said. tell them what labs I needed. I even ended Ferte does not like to assume anything up doing my own STD testing.” about anybody’s experience but stresses Before Carreon meets with any patient, that everybody is treated with an extra he considers how he wants to be treated at sense of sensitivity, because for a lot of a doctor’s office. His own experiences with patients at Prism, accessing health care on doctors left him feeling rushed through Belmont Street is their last resort. the visit. “We are always mindful and almost “I don’t want my patients to feel that assuming that just about anybody who way,” he said. “Instead, I’d rather they feel walks through our door has experienced comfortable opening up and discussing some sort of trauma (in the health care issues that concern them.” system) at some point in their life,” Ferte And for Brandon, that’s exactly how he said. feels coming back to Prism for a follow-up Since Prism opened in May, Ferte and appointment - comfortable and not other providers have seen folks from all rushed. walks of life. Patients range from 15 to 78 “I’m so grateful for this place, I can tell years old, and all carry with them a when I come here that they want you to magnitude of experiences within the feel safe. I have never once felt less-than health care system. here,” he said. “People come from all “People won’t be turned away,” said walks of life. They are going to accept you Ferte, who explained how Prism has here; they are going to take care of you. implemented a sliding fee scale in order to You get that here without any ifs, ands or have as many systems in place where buts.”
