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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 13, 2018)
Street Roots • July 13-19, 2018 We must separate homelessness from criminality ometimes it feels like we’ve been given different maps to the same city. When your map has no residence that you rent or own, your city looks dystopian, one where your very existence is illegal, again and again. Do you need to chart your next meal? Where you are less likely to be harassed if you camp? Do you map the city according to what helps you avoid arrest? DIRECTOR'S This is a big moment. The Oregonian reported that the majority - 52 By Kaia Sand percent - of the arrests targeted people who are struggling with homelessness. How we respond to this moment defines us. So far, Mayor Ted Wheeler has not stepped up, quibbling instead about statistics rather than acknowledging that the criminalization of unhoused Portland compounds the problem. It’s not about whether or not you have solved homelessness, Mayor Wheeler. Many, many of Us will energetically defend your point that this is a national problem, highlighting the brutal defunding of deeply affordable housing since the 1980s. Of course, you haven’t solved homelessness in Portland. It’s not yours alone to solve. We all need to be led to our better selves on this matter. But we don’t need spin. We need commitment. Here’s the thing: if you say that the oqlyway S K a ia S an d is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand Page 3 Opinion perceived homelessness is illegal under state law. It’s an easy way for police to get arrests, a lot easier than fishing for warrants in gated communities. 2. There are plenty of activities that are legal inside our houses that are illegal if we are unhoused. Sleeping. Going to the bathroom. Portland ordinances target loitering, sleeping, camping, urination, and curfew. We need to get people housed, but when the reality is they aren’t, they need to be able to camp safely and legally. Many unhoused people know how to organize, and they must have spaces to do so, just as they have done with Dignity Village, Right 2 Dream Too, and Hazelnut Grove, among others. Otherwise, their existence is illegal. And in that case, we are equating homelessness and criminality. 3. Drug addiction is a public health issue. People in houses tend to their addictions in private; unhoused people in the public, where they are subject to a rre st They need safe places to go. Canada has led the way with safe injection sites. There’s movement afoot across the United States - from Philadelphia to San Francisco, Seattle to New York - to make this happen. This approach looks at the trauma, despair and brain chemistry of addiction, and focuses on saving lives. Less criminality, more humanity. 4. Court fines and fees extract money from the poorest among us. And the more people are fined, the more they have to make desperate choices, The more their problems t o iSrm^^L^ e ^ ^ m ib e r s of a rre sts down is to ^ compound. It’s among th e m ost ironic end homelessness, then you are equating homelessness and criminality. Instead, we must unflinchingly evaluate what these arrest numbers reveal. Here are some of my thoughts as we ah grapple with our way forward, and I’ll expand on these points in upcoming columns: , 1. People struggling with homelessness should not be profiled by the police. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon demanded an investigation, and Police Chief Danielle Outlaw responded by calling for an inquiry by the Independent Police Review, and for this, I applaud them. In the letter to Mayor Wheeler and Chief Outlaw, the ACLU of Oregon described receiving reports of police “stopping and questioning people on the street, running warrant checks, and searching their tents and personal belongings without reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime has occurred.” Profiling people based on examples of these failed policies, and when factoring in the wasted time and money from police and court processing, it’s taxing all of us. 5. Housed Portlanders need to stop fueling the criminalization of homeless people. The Mayor said that he receives many calls to this point. Over the past five weeks, more than 3,000 people reported campsites through the city’s online system. Yes, it can be painful to see camps. But one person’s short-term discomfort should not worsen another person’s long-term pain and trauma. Please flood the Mayor’s office with supportive phone calls for unhoused neighbors and the vital services needed to help them rise above. Let him know that we do not want to police people into greater despair. If we really do want to separate out homelessness from criminality, we need to m ap a new way forward. Write in « ip hâve ¡favaBabk Street Roots ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ Portland, OR 87209 503-228-S657 Fax: 5(0-2274117 www.news.streetroots.org ' 1 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. Advertising B IB H Interested in advertising in Street Roots? Email Andrew Hogan at andrew@streetroots.org Staff Executive Director Kaia Sand kaia@streetroots.org Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl joanne@streetroots.org Vender Program Director Cole Merkel cote@streetroots.org Development Director Andrew Hogan andrew@streetroots.org Senior Staff Reporter tonify Green Operations Director Sarah Beecraft Program Assistant Caelin Miltko, Jesuit Volunteer Vendor Assistant Scott Jackson, Alex Gillow-Wiles Development Assistant Rosemary Wilson Editorial Producer Monica Kwasnik Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilly Prado, Ellena Rosenthal, Amanda Waldroupe, Thacher Schmid, DeVon Pouncey, Helen Hill Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown, ' Celeste Noche Canvasser Desmond Hardison Board of Directors Ghair Rachel Langford Vice-Chair Dan Jones Treasurer Heather Stadick Secretary Alison Hallett Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John.Brown, Nels Johnson Volunteers 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 Fl'oren, 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
