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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 2018)
Street Roots • Nov. 16-22, 2018 Opinion Page 3 Street Roots I 211 NW Davis S t Portland, OR 97209 503-228-5657 Fax:503-227-3117 - www.streetroots.org news.streetroots.org Hours: 7:30 a,m.-3 p.m. Mon.-Fd., 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. and 7:30-1 p.m. Sun. ; if you would like to have something that you’ve written published in our pages, or would like to get involved as a < member of our reporting staff, contact Executive Editor Joanne Zuhi at 503- 228-5657, joarine@streetroofô.org. We ask that all submissions include the authors name and contact information, if available. Advertising Interested in advertising in Street Roots? Email AndrewHoganatandrew@streetroots.org . P H O T O BY COLE M ER K EL Vendors and volunteers consider vendor artwork fo r the Street Roots holiday zine, an annu a l publication o f Street Roots. Staff Exaurtl» «rector Kaia Sand kaia@streetroots.org Imagination is a powerful force for justice You might wonder where I’m going with this. Ideas have histories, including ideas about what everyone should have a right to, or only an exclusive pot to brew, drip by drip. One Street Roots vendor few. Housing should be the same. How do we make reminisced about visiting the shore in New York, sure that it*s j u st ^ m p iy a r^ h rtG ^ a^ V f^ afe'S T aD fe"’ m entioning she had nevej b e e n to th e soast. to u s ing in Oregon, th a t th is is who w e asp ire to be “I would love to see the ocean,^sne said. Other* Is a state? It’s a guiding principle, not a done deal vendors began to discuss how to get there - which with one fix. We aspire until it’s who we are. bus might take you where. It was a can-do crowd. There’s a lot about the midterm election that As we talked, the ocean shows we are swerving in the right direction. We broke its waves on the sand, passed the biggest regional housing bond in our as it always does, maybe a history with more than 59 percent of the vote, From blue sky day on the coast, a Austin to Bellingham to Charlotte, housing bonds seagull diving for a bit of crab passed across the country, as did a range of taxes to meat from a claw left on the support housing and services for people By Kaia Sand shore. I could see experiencing homelessness. it- We w ere The fact that Oregon’s statewide conjuring the Measure 102 passed means that towns ocean together, Let's keep and cities across the state can put bonds that place of peace and power. to the voters with expectations that the expanding our Imagination is a powerful force at vision toward a money for affordable housing will go Street Roots. I once asked a vendor why even further. Throughout the year, jnst city, one he writes poetry, and he said, “When life Street Roots has reported on the itself is really hard, imagination is a place where everyone statewide housing crisis from Lincoln I can go.” has a right to City to Ontario, Bend to Junction City, Life is hard for so many people safe, stable showing clearly the need for deeply struggling with poverty at Street Roots, affordable housing all around the state. housing. and people keep trying. California became a model for a I thought about the ocean much of the statewide housing bond, passing a $4 day. I’ve lived most of my life in Oregon, billion one. Former Street Roots but spent a handful of years in my 20s on executive director Israel Bayer tweeted out a call for the East Coast, where I was startled by how beaches an Oregon statewide housing bond in 2020. Yes, let’s weren’t necessarily pubhc, that some beaches were keep reaching. Housing for everyone. We don’t stop walled off for the wealthy. I began to dig deeper to until it’s a truth. understand how a couple of Oregon governors were Imagination is a powerful force for justice. Life is key to making beaches public - how Oswald West particularly hard for some, and that matters to us all. declared beaches highways in 1913 in order to Let’s keep expanding opr vision toward a just city transfer the land to the public realm, and how Tom and a just state, where everyone has a right to safe, ? McCall helicoptered onto Cannon Beach and drew a affordable, stable housing. This idea must inspire us, line in the sand to declare the edge where public strong as a pull of a tide, again and again. beaches begin, leading to the Oregon Public Beach Bill of 1967. - Please support our mission at Street Roots by This idea of beaches as a public space in Oregon contributing to our winter fu n d drive. We’ve stapled an has a history that involves several dramatic swerves. envelope into this edition so you can m ail in donations. It could have easily turned out differently. Developers could have made inillidns by parceling off Individual donations are the cornerstone o f our funding. Thank you! our beaches. Instead,.beaches are a public good. T T T e began the day talking about the ocean, l / l / huddled around the coffee station in the V V Street Roots vendor office, waiting for a new DIRECTOR'S DESK K a ia S a n d is the executive director o f 8 Street Roots. You can reach her a t kaia@streetroots.org. F o llow her on Twitter @ m kaiasand Executive Editor Joanne Zuhi liSIB Siil joanne@streetroots.org Vendor Program Director Cole Merkel cole@streetroots.org Deveiopment Director Andrew Hogan andrew@streetroots.org Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green . e m ily@ streetroots.org - - Vendor Coordinator DeVon Pouncey Administrative Assistant Kayla Jones Program Assistant Meghan Murphy, Jesuit Volunteer Vender Assistant Alex Gillow-Wiies Deveiopment Assistant Nina Lee Editorial Producer Monica Kwasnik Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilly Prado, Ellena Rosenthal, Amanda Waldroupe, Helen Hill, Jason Cohen, Stephen Quirke, Libby Dowsett Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown, Celeste Noche Canvasser Desmond Hardison Board of Directors Chair Rachel Langford . Vice-Chair Dan Jones Treasurer Heather Stadick Secretary Alison Hallett Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nels Johnson Volunteers 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, Danny Moran, Susan Maloy 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. : B » * B Br v / w
