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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 30, 2018)
Street Roots March 30-Apnl 5, 2018 O p in io n We must plan a future for all, not just some olding out a lime-green lava lamp and a connects Old Town and the Pearl District. It brown belt, a man asked whether encompasses Union Station, which in the Street Roots vendors might be able to early 20th century anchored a vibrant African use these items he found discarded on the American neighborhood. The Golden West sidewalk. He couldn’t use the lava lamp, he Hotel, for example, was launched by an explained, because he was homeless himself, African American entrepreneur named W.D. so he didn’t have access to an outlet. And the Allen; a window display along Northwest belt, well, the belt was in good shape, surely Everett and Broadway now recounts this someone could hitch history. their pants with it? Prosper Portland has winnowed the DIRECTOR' I set the belt on a proposals down to three and will soon make a free table in the vendor decision. What will this development bring to office-hesitating with By Kaia Sand the lava lamp, I’ll admit, these northwest Portland streets? Will a festive, quality plan include the poor? fearing that rain may We must insist on plenty of housing that’s have shorted its wires - affordable to people experiencing poverty. and marveled at the And also, with this and every development generosity that this man showed. He found around our city, we must insist on maintaining some items of value, and he wanted to share them. that low bar, too, that life not grow more difficult for those for whom it is already so Generosity walks by our door day after day. difficult. I see folks living on the streets who gather needles from the sidewalk, lest anyone injure In other words, if neighborhoods are themselves. After an upset, confused passerby developed with shiny, glossy futures, the kicked our garbage can over, people whose struggles are not another man, possibly shiny and glossy must be homeless himself, quietly welcome, too. What w ill this picked up the bits of This so often does not happen. development bring dislodged garbage, combing to these northwest I think of the extra pressure on the sidewalk for even the Old Town now, for example, after Portland streets? small bits of debris, almost the handmade, self-governed W ill a festive, like one might comb the space of Right 2 Dream Too - beach for shells. quality plan include with its brightly painted doors Yes, garbage piles up near the poor? We must lining Northwest Fourth Avenue some encampments because insist on plenty of and Bufnside - was relocated to there is no infrastructure to land across the river 10 months housing that's rid that garbage, but there affordable to people ago. More than a 100 people each are also many caretakers of night lost that safe, protected experiencing our city who live on its sleep in Old Town to development streets. poverty. plans for the area. I am glad to A Street Roots volunteer hear reports of how the Lloyd recently said to me that she District has embraced Right 2 returns to Street Roots each Dream Too in its new location. Still, I miss its week because she is moved by these many vibrant contribution to Old Town as a haven acts of kindness between people who have where the poorest among us are valued. very little. I agree. It’s enough to break your I recently talked with a group of high school heart and sew it back together all at once. It students who expressed dismay over how can be really, really big, this human spirit. human lives are devalued because the Some people suffer so much and still care for trappings of poverty are deemed an eyesore, each other. as does happen, if we are honest about it, And likewise, I hear from readers who look out for Street Roots vendors. All of you Street again and again. As they spoke I was reminded Roots supporters who insist that the fates of that the leadership of our teenagers is our lives are necessarily intertwined, you give profound and hopeful, clearly evidenced in the me hope. inspiring movement around a March for Our I will return to this notion again and again Lives. in this column: we must make life better for If society regards homelessness as an folks suffering homelessness, and we must not eyesore that’s bad for business, then the make life more difficult. That second part homeless are vulnerable when neighborhoods seems like a low bar, but it’s one we often do polish their storefronts. This should not be so. not meet. We must fight again and again so that the Between 2003 and 2009, courts twice poorest among us have a space in the civic life struck down city ordinances that banned and public sphere of our city. people from sitting or lying on the sidewalk- We must guard against any expansion of laws that primarily targeted homeless folks. sidewalk laws that target our friends who What we have now results from a 2010 scavenge lava lamps and belts, who suffer wet sidewalk management plan, a much smaller sleeping bags and hailstorms, who try to assortment of downtown blocks marked as muffle out the shouts of nightclub revelers Pedestrian Use Zones. while they sleep in door stoops, who simply It was clear last November that this is not a static zone after the mayor’s office extended it have the least resources in a land of plenty. When our city plans for beautiful spaces, to the front of Columbia Sportswear. that beauty must be available to the poorest of Ever since, I am watching, ready to write our citizens; it certainly should not be cause should the city extend these blocks further. This is on my mind as I follow the proposals for their exclusion. Whatever we do, let the poorest of our neighbors be included. That’s for developing what Prosper Portland calls the the kind of city I want to live in. Broadway Corridor, a fan-shaped area that Page ; « _ » 5— ^ •' . ' ..... . ' ' s ' 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 Tw itter @ m kaiasand in our pages, invok member of our reporting staff, 503-228-5657, joannei Street Roots 211 NW Davis St. Portland, OR 97209 503-228-5657 Fax:503-227-3117 Hours: 7:30 a.nu3 p.m. Mon.-FrL, 7:30 a.m.-2 p jix Sal, and 7:30-1 p.m. Sun. Staff Executive Director Kaia Sand Executive Editor Joanne Zuh! Vendor Program Director Cote Merket cole@streetroots.org lirector Andrew Hogan aRdfew@streetroots.org Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Program Assistant Caelin Miltko, Jesuit Volunteer Vender Assistant Scott Jackson, Alex Gillow-Wiles Editorial Producer Monica Kwasntk Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilfy Prado, Jared Paben, Amanda Waldroupe, Thacher Schmid, DeVon Pouncey, Helen Hill Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown, Celeste Noche Canvasser Desmond Hardison Board of Directors Chair Brad Taylor Vice-Chair Rachel Langford Treasurer Heather Stadick Secretary Dan Jones Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nets Johnson and Alison Hallett Volunteers Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Dennis Hogan, 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, Camber Hansen- Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Helen Hill, Mary Emerson, Brooke Anderson, Kathleen McFall, Robb Hengerer, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Faye Powell, Jon Raymond, Danny Moran and Megan Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call for more information at 503-228-5657.
