Street Roots • April 20-26, 2018
Page 3
O p in io n
Ground up and top down, let’s make good ideas succeed
oday only pigeons and geese wander
among the low puddles of the gravel lot
beneath the Broadway Bridge, but if
organizers of Harbor of Hope realize their
plans, this land will hold a structure for some
homeless folks to sleep, connect to medical
services, and,
importantly, access
shower and laundry
D1BECTORÌ
services.
After Harbor of
Hope organizers,
By Kaia Sand
alongside the mayor,
announced their plans
in a press conference
last week, I walked
along the Naito Parkway sidewalk along the
eastern edge of that city-owned lot, imagining
the possibilities proposed by this nonprofit
founded by developer Homer Williams.
A man trudged by, his backpack hanging
long and heavy. To the west, an Amtrak train
was boarding. And a bit further north and
plainly in view-the yellow-sided Residence Inn
developed by Homer Williams’s firm, Williams
& Dame.
Scuttle back five years, and Williams was
fighting the city from locating the Right 2
Dream Two under the west ramp of the
Broadway Bridge because it was too close to
that Residence Inn. Right 2 Dream Too is the
self-governed rest area designed by folks
experiencing homelessness to protect sleep
for people living on the streets. During the six
years it was sited in Old Town at Fourth
T
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
iove, the site in
2 west end o f the
'oadway Bridge
iere the nonprofit
arbor o f Hope is
oposing building
shelter and
wigation center
r people
periencing
vmelessness.
Avenue and Burnside, often 100 people a
night found safe sleep in its tents. The
location under the Broadway Bridge was one
of many locations the city, prodded by
Commissioner Amanda Fritz, tried to secure
for Right 2 Dream Too, after the city initially
challenged its existence on a privately owned
lot. Right 2 Dream Too eventually moved to its
current home on city land near the Moda
Center, an impermanent arrangement.
Since those contentious beginnings,
Williams has come to champion big responses
to homelessness, and part of this growth was
rooted in what he learned from Right 2 Dream
Too. He collaborated with Right 2 Dream Too
co-founder, Ibrahim Mubarak, who worked
with him on past Harbor of Hope plans,
administering a survey to assess needs for a
shelter.
One of the top concerns that emerged from
those surveys? A desperate need for laundry
facilities.
The deeper into the issue Williams got, he
explained to me, the more he realized the
need to support people experiencing
homelessness far and wide, all around our
city, and one "obvious site for this was not far
from the site I fought before,” he said to me,
deciding he had to “walk the walk.”
This is a powerful arc—the transformation
of a NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude to
YIMBY (yes in my backyard). It gives me hope
that many more such transformations are
possible. Williams advocates for big responses
to homelessness.
“Every citizen, every business, every
foundation has to get involved,” he said.
“Otherwise we will get overwhelmed.”
That history is not the only conflict that
informs this proposed navigation center. The
first $1.5 million investment came from Tim
Boyle, CEO of Columbia Sportswear, who last
November wrote a column for the Oregonian
declaring public safety concerns for his store
that included human waste and garbage on the
sidewalk. He called for more police. What
resulted was the mayor’s expansion of bans
against sitting on the public sidewalk in front
of the store.
Here’s one thing that’s clear: when people
complain about what amounts to
infrastructural problems (trash, human waste),
the cruel response is to criminalize the people
who are in desperate conditions.
This new response from Boyle nods in the
right direction. It’s constructive, providing
folks with services that make life easier.
I urge Harbor of Hope organizers to draw
from the good work that has been done on the
need for hygiene services for homeless folks.
Among those efforts is the extensive research
conducted by students and faculty of the
Portland State University School of Social
Works in partnership with Sisters Of The
Road. Without a shower or clean clothes,
people on the streets face additional health
struggles as well as stigmas.
And I’m hopeful that a navigation center
could hold a space for poor people in a region
that will see more development. Prosper
Portland will select a bid for the Broadway
Corridor Project in the coming weeks.
Business leaders among Harbor of Hope can
use their clout to demand that poor
Portlanders deserve support during the
transformation of this neighborhood, and all
our neighborhoods.
But key also is that the organizers of
Harbor of Hope listen to leadership and input
from people experiencing homelessness.
Mubarak - who is not currently working with
Harbor of Hope - described to me how the
innovations led by homeless people often
make spaces for other innovations to happen.
The very possibility for the more top-down
response of Harbor of Hope was opened up by
the ground-up work of Right 2 Dream Too, and
this is all part of our large, complex story as a
city. Let’s help good ideas succeed. There’s so
much that must be done.
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