A site of the times: New Rose City Resource Guide Web site

Street Roots is proud to announce the next evolution in the Rose City Resource Guide, a new Web site that will revolutionize the way people experiencing homelessness and poverty and social workers access services in the metro region.

The new Web site  — www.rosecityresource.org — is user-friendly with the most updated list of services and information for people living in crisis in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.

After clicking on each service you will find mapping functions, bus lines, hours, and what specific services are offered from that each agency. Each service is displayed with easy printing functions.

(The Rose City Resource offers the latest information on clothing, counseling and mediation, dental, domestic violence, employment and training, financial assistance, food boxes, food stamps, GLBTQI services, health care, hospital emergency rooms, hotlines, legal services, leisure and entertainment, meals, pet care, public restrooms, recovery services, renters resources, shelters, syringe exchanges, transitional housing, utility assistance, veterans and youth services.)

All of the services on the site are also available in Spanish.

And that’s not all. When Street Roots began this project we looked at many Web sites that offer listings of services about poverty and homeless in Portland and across the country. While many groups offer specific information about services, none had developed a centralized place for education and empowerment. How could we create a Web site that wasn’t just a hand out, but instead offered a deeper perspective on the issues of homelessness, poverty and civil rights? We wanted to dig deeper, so, we did.

Under the “Policy” section, we offer a place for students, researchers, journalists, community organizers and others to access information about homelessness and poverty. You will find annual reports for each year of Portland’s 10-year plan along with reports on affordable housing, the latest reports locally and nationally from institutes and think-tanks on the issue, and the latest thinking on messaging and talking points. If you care about the homeless and poverty issues, and are a policy geek, this is the place for you.

Under the “Know Your Rights” section readers and organizers will find the latest laws affecting homelessness and poverty, how to appeal those laws/legal services at people’s disposal. The goal of this section is to be a centralized location for homeless folks, social services workers, and community organizers to have quick and easy access to the latest information on laws commonly directed at people living in poverty. It’s also a bonus for researchers and students.

Link to us! On the home page you will find our logo and HTML code for organizations and media outlets to link to the Rose City Resource Guide. We encourage your group to use this!

For Street Roots, the Web site serves site as a database to update information and extract it directly into our layout programs for the print guide. We now have the ability to update the information in real time with the help of services themselves. On the homepage you will find a link with a form that goes directly to our resource specialist if updates are needed.

The popular print guide will continue to be printed and distributed throughout the region. In the past two years more than 120,000 English and nearly 20,000 Spanish guides have been distributed to more than 300 public/private and faith-based groups working with people on the streets.

The guide has been overwhelmingly successful, cutting down on staff time for agencies creating makeshift lists. More importantly, it’s a tool for relationship building, education and accessing up to date information on services available to people in need.

Sincerely,

Israel Bayer
Street Roots Executive Director

Help us continue to serve the community by donating to the Rose City Resource via a secure link through our friends at Democracy in Action. Donate today!

Partners and kudos:
- Street Roots partnered with volunteers from the City of Gresham Maps and Data Services Program, Americorps NWSA, and a slew of local open source web developers and local businesses including Metal Toad Media, Incite Development, OpenSourcery,  Shomeya Inc., happy, inc., Evoltech, drewish.com, and numerous other community developers from the Portland Drupal User Group to make the site a reality. Also on the team, donating her time long-distance via the interwebs, was Austin TX designer Andrea Couch from Creative Pickle.

- Sarah Beecroft, a local Web page designer, should be thanked profusely for driving the entire project and connecting Street Roots to the many groups that helped make this project possible.

- The print edition of the Rose City Resource is made possible through the partnership of Street Roots, the City of Portland, 211 Info and the United Way of Columbia-Willamette.

Rose City Resource web team has a party

Street Roots along with all of our partners held a party hosted by OpenSourcery in March to celebrate the making of the Rose City Resource Web site.

Act Now! Preserve the 30 percent TIF set-aside for affordable housing in the Urban Renewal Areas

The City Council is currently considering relaxing the set aside for the Lents Urban Renewal District in order to fund a $42 million minor league baseball stadium. This stadium proposal is the first big test for the set aside. Please take action by contacting all five members of Portland City Council.

Extra! Extra!

Quick! Grab your Street Roots and head to the park! Summer time is here and it always seems to vanish before we really get to enjoy it. Your vendor knows it too, and they all have their summer sales hats on, with new papers in hand starting Friday morning. Here’s what’s on tap:

Shock waves: The number of veterans hittings the streets is on the rise- but not necessarily who you might expect. Older veterans, from conflicts long past, are falling through the cracks now widened by even more wars and economic priorities. Mara Grunbaum reports.

Community’s heart for Vision into Action beats loud and clear: The city pulled the financial plug on Visions into Action, but people are rallying to spread the word on how important the cultural empowerment program is to Portland’s minority communities. Rebecca Robinson reports.

Out and down: After serving time, many former inmates find that the real trial begins upon release.

The Latino Obama?: Rafael Correa won a landslide second term as president of Ecuador in a “citizens’ revolution,” but he faces huge challenges in realizing his election manifesto and placating a demanding electorate.

The paper is just packed, but it doesn’t hang around long.  When they’re gone – they’re gone. Just like summer!

Posted by Joanne Zuhl

Street Roots chimes in on baseball in Lents

Street Roots editorial coming out in the May 29 edition.

The city of Portland is pushing the idea of using $42 million – mostly from Portland Urban Renewal funds — to build a minor league baseball stadium in Lents. Bad idea.

The citizens of Portland already are on the hook for $30 million from the last stadium. How can the city justify spending another $42 million on another stadium? We can’t.

The Portland Beavers play 72 home games a year. Each game lasts two to four hours. That’s an average of about 216 hours a year. That equals about one full workweek a month for five months. And most of the jobs at the stadium are low-wage jobs. Hardly an investment in the local community. It’s a slap in the face to average Portlanders to serve a man who doesn’t even live here. Urban renewal investments need a better payoff for Portland than a baseball stadium.

The city of Portland is currently considering relaxing the 30 percent set aside policy for the Lents Urban Renewal District in order to fund the stadium.

Whether or not readers support baseball in Lents, taking the funds slated for housing for families and seniors does not make sense. Considering Portland’s long history of gentrification, this deal would almost certainly drive poor and working folk out of the neighborhood.

The new light rail that will help bolster east Portland will improve Lents and many neighborhoods that traditionally have not been prioritized by Portland’s elite. Lents has the chance to become one of Portland’s coolest neighborhoods – much like the University/Portsmouth, Concordia and Mississippi neighborhoods in North and Northeast. If the Beavers move to Lents, the stadium will actually become a symbol of what is wrong with the neighborhood.

If we are investing public funds in Lents and surrounding neighborhoods, we should be investing in local affordable-housing efforts, small business start ups and improvements. Helping attract a grocery store such as New Seasons, for example, would do more in the short- and long-term for the neighborhood than a baseball stadium.

Street Roots is not against baseball being in our region. Possibly our neighbors in Vancouver or Beaverton would benefit from such a deal. We just can’t see spending $42 million on something that doesn’t pay off and isn’t really wanted by the majority of Portlanders.

Street Roots supports much of the great work that the city of Portland, the Portland Development Commission and other interest groups have done to make Portland a livable city. Saying that, we also know that the same engine that has created a livable city for some has affected poor folks and minorities over the years in a negative way. We can’t let the latter happen again, especially in a time when Portland needs long-term sustainable jobs and innovative ideas to lead us out of the economic downturn we all find ourselves in. Baseball in Lents is not one of them.

Enviros charge up to challenge coal

Cesia Kearns and Robin Everett with Oregon’s Sierra Club.

From the May 15 edition of Street Roots

Cesia Kearns and Robin Everett came to Oregon with a purpose: to scrub the state clean of coal power. Coal-burning plants provide about half of the country’s energy — in Oregon it’s just over 40 percent. Though it’s relatively abundant in the U.S. and often costs less than other energy sources, burning coal releases high levels of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. The Sierra Club hopes to see more renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power, take the place of coal nationwide.

Though they’re new to Portland, both Everett and Kearns have a history of environmental activism. Everett started as a volunteer for the Sierra Club and has worked for the organization for two years, most recently helping to fight the planned construction of a toll road through a state park in California. After a lengthy legal battle, the project was blocked in December.

Kearns worked for over four years for the Sierra Club in Minneapolis, where she focused on energy issues. Among other projects, she worked to prevent the expansion of the Big Stone coal plant on the Minnesota-South Dakota border. That proposal is still up in the air.

Trying to reshape Oregon’s energy picture will take time, but Kearns and Everett have an immediate agenda too.

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed that the emissions that cause climate change — carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases — directly threaten human health and safety. That may not seem like breaking news to entrenched environmentalists, but if the EPA’s findings are adopted, the agency would have authority to regulate the gases more strictly as pollutants.

Before the proposal can move forward, the EPA is holding two public hearings, where they will take comments on their plan. One hearing will take place in Arlington, Va., on May 18, and the other will be in Seattle on May 21. Kearns and Everett hope to bring busloads of Oregonians to the Seattle hearing to testify and rally in support of the EPA’s plan.

Everett and Kearns recently sat down with Street Roots to discuss their coal campaign and the atmosphere for environmentalism today.

Another Dignity Village? Why Not?

Street Roots editorial from May 15, 2008

Dignity Village II? Why not? It would take a special set of circumstances to create another tent city or semi-permanent, off-the-grid community, but it’s not altogether out of the question.

The Dignity Village model has been heralded as a success by many, and communities nationwide have looked to it as a model to emulate. Critics say the village is dangerous because it doesn’t always meet housing and fire codes, but the idea that homeless folks are safer sleeping alone in a doorway or under a bridge is disturbing.

City Hall says all options are on the table for providing housing and helping people experiencing homelessness, but we all know that’s political speak. The chance that the city, left to its own devices, would duplicate a community like Dignity Village is slim to none.

It’s not that our current city council wouldn’t have the heart to put together such a package. It’s more that they don’t have the capacity to deal with the public relations blowback that would occur.

As one city official told Street Roots anonymously, “Finding a place to put a large group of homeless folks is a nightmare. There’s the neighborhood groups and businesses that don’t want public housing in their area, much less a homeless camp.”

Plus, the local media would most likely turn such an effort into a circus. Most newspapers in town didn’t support the first Dignity Village, and Street Roots assumes that hasn’t changed. Nationally, every newspaper from the New York Times to USA Today would flock to Portland to cover a duplication effort.

It might seem logical for our elected leaders to think outside the box and be progressive on these issues, but the risk is too high. They’d face accusations that Portland is too soft on the homeless, or that they’re enabling poor people.

But if the city won’t do it, maybe a steadfast group of concerned people should plant a new tent city themselves. If they harness the media attention and are on-target with their messaging, they could force Portland to become not only the nation’s first city to sanction a semi-permanent community for the homeless, but the first to duplicate it.

The atmosphere is ripe for such a move. Arguments over the sit-lie ordinance have distraced from the larger issue: the civil rights of people experiencing homelessness. Not that we think sit-lie isn’t a civil rights issue, because it is. It’s just that the conversation today is being played out more in the media than on the ground. At the same time, thousands of park exclusions continue to be given out by private police, the camping ordinance is still in motion and the police sweep neighborhoods at will — and there’s little anyone can do about it.

Instead of playing defense, maybe concerned citizens, community organizations and people living on and off the streets should assert their own rights. Considering the current economic climate, Street Roots could see people rallying behind another Dignity Village. Why not?

Photo by Ken Hawkins

Miracle theater takes community on a cultural journey

‘!Viva Pancho Villa!” shouts Pedro Gonzalez, relating the story of the Mexican Revolution to his son Albert Alcazar.  Photo by Russel Young

From the May 15 Street Roots.

Fifteen years ago, when Miracle Theater made the commitment to become a Latino-focused playhouse, its organizers worked to overcome the misconception that its productions were only in Spanish. In fact, the plays the small troupe produced from its earliest days were all in English, because that was what the Portland audience was prepared for.

Portland, and the audience, soon changed.

“It went from, ‘It’s in Spanish, we can’t come,’ to ‘Why isn’t it in Spanish?’” says Jose Eduardo Gonzalez, Miracle’s co-founder and executive artistic director. Today, 25 years into Miracle’s existence, the nonprofit theater is a platform like none other in Oregon that showcases the work of Latino playwrights, advancing a greater understanding to an audience eager to see original, compelling art.

“We saw back in the early 1990s how suddenly the demographics changed overnight. In the 1990 census, Latinos became the largest minority in the state,” Gonzalez says. “So we were very conscious that the community was changing. But there was no interpretive situation going on. It was just happening. So we thought this was a means of introducing that change to the community by showing the work of Latino artists and their ideas and sensibility on stage — that change that’s always influenced the way people thought.”

It is also a learning center for social issues that transcend geography and ethnicity. On the main stage now is “The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa” by the award-winning playwright Luis Valdez.
“It’s a crazy, crazy comedy about Chicano identity and whether you have to sell out to survive, or have to become a thief and a rebel to survive to maintain some dignity,” says Olga Sanchez, Miracle’s mainstage artistic director. “And neither path is true. There’s got to be a third path. But in 1961, when the play was written, it didn’t look like there was any path. This path, as funny as it is, is a really strong issue that is still maintained.”

Sanchez is using the context of the play as an opportunity to reach more young adults, particularly in the Latino community, where the issues of teen pregnancy and an alarming high school drop-out rate — some estimates have put it as high as 50 percent — are major concerns. She and the theater are making a push for high school students to come see the play.

“It’s funny. It’s entertaining,” Sanchez says. “I don’t need them to walk away just saying, ‘I’m empowered.’ They will be empowered by watching this play. This is the kind of play that you watch, and you get it, and you’re still laughing your head off.”

Miracle takes it beyond the stage. In connection with the production of “Pancho Villa,” the theater is hosting a series of lectures entitled “Seeds of Chicano Identity,” sponsored by the Oregon Council for the Humanities.

Dignity Village today

Dignity Village has battled through a turbulent past to arrive where it is today. Starting as a group of eight men and women who pitched five tents on public land nearly nine years ago, the village today is a far cry from a tent city that came to symbolize the struggle of people experiencing homelessness — not only in Portland, but around the country.

“I wouldn’t call them a tent city,” says Sally Erickson, who oversees Portland’s 10-year plan to end homelessness with the Bureau of Housing and Community Development. “I would call them a community.”

“I think it has been a social experiment that illustrates what people with little to no resources were able to pull together to create a healthy and functioning community,” says Wendy Kohn of Kwamba Productions, which is putting together a documentary about the group over the past decade.

“At so many points along the way, they could have failed,” Kohn goes on to say. “It could have flamed out and become an example of a group of people trying to do something positive and coming up short — like so many times throughout history. Instead we see, over a ten-year period, a group of people who haven’t failed and are still recreating themselves through a democratic process.”

News organizations around the country reference Dignity Village as a sidenote when they write about the growing number of tent cities in the United States. Typically summed up in a sentence or two, the village is described as a success. To the local public in Portland, however, Dignity Village has seemed fairly quiet — yet that’s a far cry from the truth.

Last year alone, the village had more than 1,000 visitors — mostly housing activists, students, faith-based community members, policy wonks and politicians from five continents and eight countries.

Erickson says she takes calls from all over the country from city governments and other parties interested in the village.

Erickson points them to the Tent City Toolkit, an interactive DVD the village created with Kwamba Productions. The toolkit takes individuals on the streets through the step-by-step process of turning a tent city into a semi-permanent community through direct action. That a city official would promote tent city information at all may mean that even at the government level, our city is more progressive than most.

“I tell them Dignity Village was and is unique,” says Erickson. “It wasn’t like the city just created a tent city. (Dignity Village) fought for everything they have, but they also created a non-profit after realizing the political dynamics involved and overcame many obstacles. Dignity Village should be proud of what they’ve accomplished.”

Kohn agrees. She says Portland is lucky to have had the personalities on the streets that it did when the village was born.

“(The organizers) were politically and socially sophisticated,” says Kohn. “After the city realized they weren’t going away under any circumstances, (the city) began to create an absence of barriers, so to speak, and waited to see if the village would fail or be successful. Today there’s a new generation carrying that same spirit on and (they) are doing remarkably well.”

Officer’s shove puts Seattle man in coma

A Seattle man is in a coma  with a fractured skull after he was forcibly knocked into a wall by a sheriff’s deputy, who mistakenly thought the man was involved in a nearby bar fight.

The Seattle Times reports that Christopher Harris, 29, was pursued by officers in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood on May 10 because a witness identified Harris as having been involved in a bar altercation. Officers later determined that Harris had not been part of that incident.

To stop Harris, Sherriff’s Deputy Matthew Paul, 26, shoved him toward a concrete wall eight feet away. A surveillance video shows Harris’ head hitting the wall and Harris slumping over, unconscious.

The King County Sheriff’s Office says the force used on Harris was within legal boundaries, and the outcome is “a tragic accident.” A spokesman said officers had identified themselves to Harris, but Harris pulled a hoodie over his face and ran from them.

Harris has been unconscious since the incident and is listed in critical condition.

The sherriff’s office will continue to investigate whether the incident violated protocol, and the county prosecutor will decide whether it warrants criminal charges.

In Portland, the District Attorney recently declined to prosecute the officer who roughly tackled 42-year-old James Chasse during a stop in 2006. Chasse died in police custody with 26 fractured ribs and a punctured lung.

Posted by Mara Grunbaum

The International Network of Street Papers celebrates 15 years of advocacy and engagement

The faces of street papers from around the world. This is us, in the city center of Bergen, Norway, for the 14th Annual INSP conference.

By Joanne Zuhl

We are not alone.

Yes, Street Roots is a unique publication in Portland, but we are part of a global movement of alternative and advocacy journalism called street papers.

Earlier this month, street papers from around the globe conferenced in Bergen, Norway, celebrating the 15 anniversary of the International Network of Street Papers. On every continent on earth, street papers are providing local poverty solutions just like Street Roots, with vendors earning a dignified, flexible income through sales, writing and participation. But equally important is the work each paper is doing to inform readers about economic and social inequality, and bringing people together to create a more just environment for everyone.

Oregon DOJ receives $1.9 million grant to combat violence against women

According to the Oregonian, Attorney General John Kroger announced today that the Oregon Department of Justice has been awarded a $1.9 million stimulus grant by the federal Office on Violence Against Women.

The grant’s purposes are to provide funds to nonprofits so they can hire new staff or keep hired victim service workers, and to fund efforts by local law enforcement agencies and courts to prosecute those who commit violence against women. The job creation element aligns with one of the key objectives of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Given recent patterns of violence and sexual assault against women on Portland’s streets (see Street Roots’ “Sending Out an S.O.S” for in-depth coverage), news of the federal funding should come as a timely relief to local agencies working to combat violence against women.

The Department of Justice will decide how to use the funds based on the requests it receives from agencies who apply for the grant funding. For more information on the application process and to apply, visithttp://www.doj.state.or.us/about/grants.shtml.

Posted by Rebecca Robinson

Jobs will be scarce for years, says OCPP

Oregon’s swiftly rising unemployment rate has leveled off for now, according to the state employment department, which reported yesterday that the unemployment rate for April was 12 percent to March’s 11.9. But even if the losses stop, jobs will be scarce for years to come, according to a new analysis by the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

The OCPP, a non-partisan economic research institute, calculated that there are currently only about 67 jobs available for every 100 working-age Oregonians. Based on the state’s economic forecast, OCPP predicts that number will fall to 65.7 in 2010. Then, they say, jobs will start coming back, but it will take years to catch up to previous levels.

Analysts say it will take until 2015 for Oregon to surpass the number of available jobs in 2003, the low point of the less severe recession earlier this decade. Graph from OCPP.

As part of their analysis, OCPP looked at job levels during the last economic recession earlier this decade. Though the economy grew for several years after its low point in 2003, employment never returned to pre-recession levels.

OCPP analyst Michael Leachman says Oregon can keep the dip from getting deeper by investing in the public sector — strengthening the unemployment system, funding programs that fight poverty, and pushing growth in health care and education.

“Public investments preserve and create jobs in the short term and bring matching federal dollars into the state economy,” Leachman said in a statement. “In the long term, they help lay the foundations for future growth.”

Posted by Mara Grunbaum

Extra! Extra!

Dignity Village today: Street Roots spends some time at the village and writes an in-depth five page look at Dignity Village today and the lives of the people that live and work there. We ask the Mayor and Commissioners if Dignity Village II could happen and offer our own perspective on the pros and cons of another semi-permanent structure. Street Roots looks at tent cities in Nashville, Seattle and Sacramento. Israel Bayer reports.

Miracle Theater: Street Roots looks at Miracle Theater, a Latino-focused playhouse working to change the way people think from both the Spanish and English speaking populations. The group is also reaching out to Latino youth in Portland and working to change young people perspectives through drama.  Joanne Zuhl reports.

Environmentalists charge up to challenge coal: Street Roots talks to Oregon’s Sierra Club about federal policy, local activism and what lies ahead for Oregonians on the environmental front. Mara Grunbaum reports.

Seattle is putting a $143 low-income housing levy on the ballot and it’s projected to pass. Get the scoop from your friendly neighborhood tomorrow. They will be glad to great you with all the latest news, poems and stories from the streets – including a disturbing first hand account of woman being raped on the streets.

All this and more in tomorrows edition of Street Roots.

Immigrant workers face extremes of economic crisis

Published in the May 1 edition of Street Roots

Growing up in the riverfront manufacturing town of St. Helens, Yesenia Sanchez knew only a handful of other Latino families. Born in Oregon to Mexican immigrant parents, she was one of the only non-white students in her class. Still, she says, she was never aware of any significant racial tension.

That changed last year, when economic troubles stirred political unrest, which in turn brought animosity bubbling to the surface.

Columbia County, where St. Helens is located, has a small but fairly settled Latino community. Some, like Sanchez, are citizens, some are legal residents, and others are undocumented immigrants.
In November, Columbia County voters passed a ballot initiative to penalize businesses that employed undocumented workers with a $10,000 fine or revocation of their business license. Another measure, which was voted down, would have required construction sites to display large signs declaring them for legal workers only. Latinos in the community, regardless of their immigration status, felt targeted.

“I’d never really experienced overt racism, or at least not that I can remember,” says Sanchez, now a college student at the University of Oregon in Eugene. “I never thought that part of my community wanted to essentially kick me out — didn’t want me there, my family there.”

Columbia County isn’t the only place Latinos are feeling the pressures of the recession in full force.

Oregon is home to almost 400,000 Latinos, most from Mexico. Their median income in 2007 was just over $18,000 per person a year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center; the average for Oregon is about $25,000. Latinos were already more likely than other Oregonians to live in poverty and less likely to own their own homes.