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
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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.