Street Roots • July 20-26, 2018
Opinion
Homeless arrest investigation should focus on real solutions
alling a city a cesspool certainly grabs
uphold.
attention. That’s how Portland Police
Our questions must be not only about how
Association President Daryl Turner
homeless people are profiled - and that’s a
started his public Facebook statement on July
big one - but also, about how their existence
16, decrying the new Independent Police
itself is criminalized.
Review investigation into whether the
Right now, the suffering of the poor is
Portland Police Bureau profiles people who
conflated with the unnerving term
are homeless. He
“livability,” a term both the mayor and the
■
■
listed frustrations
police union president use. Livability for
around the work that
whom? Exactly.
the police do with
Really, it’s a combative term: it’s against
homeless Portlanders,
deeply poor people forced to live their lives
lobbing
much
of
his
ire
By Kaia Sand
in the public. What would it be like if we
at Mayor Ted Wheeler’
recalibrated the idea of livability to how
My fear is that such
livable the city is for the poorest of our
a moment becomes a
neighbors, and always acted from there? The
heated drama between
idea of livability could be connected, then, to
prominent people wrapped up in
the support of mental health and addiction
defensiveness and blame, when the people
services, shelters, and deeply affordable
who really matter are the people who are
housing.
homeless. Their voices are not at the center.
What if we were a city who were brave
Because here’s the real mess I’m
enough
to redefine ourselves according to
concerned aboift: the unforgiving tangle of
the success of our poorest
criminal justice problems
residents? What if we were a
for deeply poor people.
city in which, 10 years from
While the number of
now, people visited to learn
arrests that targeted
What if we were a city
about the courage we had in
unhoused Portlanders last
who
were brave enough centering our poorest
year was startling - 52
to redefine ourselves
citizens?
percent according to the
according to the
Because right now, the
Oregonian- it also confirms
the stories of people who
success of onr poorest mayor allows the system to
be complaint-driven in ways
struggle on the streets.
residents? What If we
Last week we ran a series
were a city In which, 10 that harm poor people. The
One P oint of C ontact system
of accounts of struggles
y e a rs f r o m n o w , p e o p le
is a place where enraged
with police by Street Roots
visited to learn about people can report campsites,
vendors, and we could
the courage we had In leading to camp sweeps.
easily run many more,
centering onr poorest Instead of allowing the
I would suspect that
loudest people to drive the
many readers would agree
citizens?
dialogue, the city could
that it is absurd and cruel
prioritize de-coupling
that on top of everything
garbage services from police
else unhoused people have
work, expanding the Clean
to deal with, they face far
more legal hurdles than the rest of us.
Start garbage pick-up service run by Central
Daryl Turner should not resist an
City Concern as a regular, reliable program.
investigation into whether the police are
Garbage services must be de-coupled from
profiling people based on homelessness,
the traumatic work of camp sweeps.
because such profiling is illegal by state law,
We need to let the mayor know that if he
and the numbers demand accountability. An
really centers the poor, lots of people have
investigation can lead to changes that help
his back, because he would have to ignore
the officers act legally and responsibly -
many angry voices. That’s why I co-sponsored
something a police union should be for.
the Petition for City of Portland to Adopt a
But if he bristles over the public discussion Compassionate Response to Homelessness,”
around the high arrest rates casting too
which in one week garnered 2,000
much blame on individual officers, well, I
signatures, and growing. Please, make your
agree. These are systemic problems, and half
voice heard.
solutions are not OK.
We need less politicking and half-solutions.
I think we need a much larger
We need to be all-in - and all-in for the right
investigation.
reasons. This should not be about
I urge Mayor Wheeler to launch an
appearances, but truth. If homelessness is
investigation not just into profiling, but into
visible - well, that’s because there are a lot
this whole epidemic of arrests that target
of people struggling with homelessness. And
homeless people.
for every tent and every person we see on
As I wrote last week, there are many areas
the streets, there are a host of others on the
to tackle - including how court fines and fees
target the poor and trigger more arrests; how cusp due to fragile economic, housing and
health conditions.
addiction should be treated as a public health
Let us take moral responsibility for poverty
- and not criminal - issue; and how many
in
a land of plenty.
activities that are legal inside houses are
Let Portland be a national leader in really
illegal when people are unhoused. We need
confronting how homelessness is
to take all of this on.
We need to go big. Because we need to not criminalized, and addressing it. To do this,
we need less blame, less defensiveness, and
only find out whether police activity is illegal,
but also, what is wrong with the law that they more courage.
B
DIRECTOR'S
DESK
Kaia Sand is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach her at
kaia@streetroots. org.
Follow her on
Twitter @mkaiasand
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