HUD responds to letter writing campaign

Street Roots has been following nearly 300 families that are being terminated from Section 8 because of to a numbers game between the Northwest Oregon Housing Authority (NOHA) and the Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

On June 12 Street Roots wrote an indepth piece about the complexities of the situation and has been following a family that’s at risk of becoming homeless through the bureaucratic mishaps that have occurred. Read the story from June 12 here.

On June 8, Sen. Ron Wyden wrote HUD asking for immediate redress. On June 12 Sen. Jeff Merkley and Oregon Congressmen David Wu and Kurt Schrader followed suit.

During the course of writing the June 12 article, Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl discovered that the same is happening in Oregon were also happening in rural Washington, West Virginia, Florida, Idaho and New Jersey.

On June 24 Street Roots published “The Perfect Storm” covering the broader implications of the crisis both locally and nationally.

Street Roots joined forces with more than a dozen organizations around the country and launched a campaign to ask the President, Congress and HUD to save the hundreds of families from being kicked to the curb.

This morning (June 29) Street Roots received a response from HUD saying, “The Department has no additional source of funds to provide.”

Read the entire response below and an interesting press release by HUD.

Street Roots joins Change.org to raise awareness about street newspaper movement

Street Roots Director Israel Bayer will be writing a weekly column/blog for the End Homelessness blog at Change.org about Street Roots and the street newspaper movement. The column will highlight  news and vendor voices that are having a social and political impact in communities around the world, including Portland.

About Change.org: Today as citizens of the world, we face a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and education to global warming and economic inequality. For each of these issues, whether local or global in scope, there are millions of people who care passionately about working for change but lack the information and opportunities necessary to translate their interest into effective action.

Change.org aims to address this need by serving as the central platform informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time.

Check out the first column here.

Sit-lie enforcement has officially been suspended

Via the Portland Police Bureau…. (3:00P.M.)

Sit-lie a cliche of obstructionism

The new ruling that the sit-lie law is unconstitutional caught Street Roots off guard. According to sources at City Hall, it also caught the city on its heels.

Rumor has it that staffers there are scrambling to try to figure out what exactly the ruling means.

Street Roots thinks it’s clear to the broader public what the ruling means and what City Hall should do. For years, seven to be exact, the sit-lie ordinance has become a wedge issue in our community. Not to mention that the law infringes on the rights of Portlanders, specifically homeless folks.

The sit-lie ordinance is being evaluated in community-wide discussions led by City Commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz to determine the long-term viability of the law. We have a hunch that the process will not shed any new light on the subject.

This law is more or less a waste of everyone’s time.

It’s time to cut bait. Stop beating a dead horse. The police bureau, private security groups and the business community need to learn to live without the sit-lie ordinance.

The simple fact of the matter is, we have individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty that live and contribute in our community. We may not always like the way a few bad apples create tension on the streets, but it’s time to turn over a new leaf and look at more progressive and innovative ideas when thinking about these issues.

The Street Access For Everyone (SAFE) workgroup, made up of members from the business community, homeless advocates and concerned citizens, has created a framework on which to work together. We don’t think this should be lost.

Street Roots recently joined the Portland Business Alliance (PBA) in the same vein. We believe that while we don’t always agree on specific issues, the PBA and the larger business community do care about people experiencing homelessness. And we have to find a way to breakthrough the tired rhetoric. Here’s our chance.

In the past two years, the city and the PBA have supported the SAFE committee to help build more park benches and to open public restrooms downtown — things that benefit both the housed and homeless communities. They have worked to create day access space for people on the streets to have a welcoming place to go and have created the capacity for a homeless women’s shelter to increase its hours to 24/7. The shame of the sit-lie law only tarnished these worthy efforts.

What if the discussion could move on to what homeless folks can do alongside the business community? How can we be involved in cleaning blighted areas or helping police drug dealers and predators that prey on people on the streets? We can develop a relationship in the spirit of collaboration instead of confrontation, and share the concept that the people on the streets are a part of the solutions we all seek.

None of this is possible with an ordinance that tells people not be a part of the community at-large. It’s time to move along.

Read the latest news and the seven year history of the ordinance.

Sit-lie update and seven year history

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Stephen K. Bushong has ruled that the city of Portland’s sidewalk-obstruction ordinance — commonly referred to as sit-lie, unconstitutionally exceeds the city’s authority.

The ruling was issued June 19, and grants the motion to dismiss a sit-lie case being defended by attorney Clayton Lance.

“This ordinances has been found unconstitutional on three separate and distinct grounds,” Lance told Street Roots. “That’s a heck of a lot of unconstitutionality for one little ordinance out of the city. It just is not going to work and they just keep trying to make it fit, and it will never be able to fit, in my opinion.”

The sit-lie law prohibits sitting or lying on downtown sidewalks between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. The city has said that it is to keep the sidewalks free of obstructions. Records show that the majority of people cited under the law are homeless.

Judge Bushong ruled that the city’s law conflicts with and is pre-empted by state law; State v. Robison, which Lance says already allows the city to penalize people for obstructing sidewalks.

“The (sit-lie) ordinance does not at all deal with obstruction. That’s a myth,” Lance said. “It was to move the transient and the homeless because the transient and homeless were sitting on the sidewalks in downtown Portland. Nothing else.”

As Lance noted, this is the latest round in the city’s failed attempts to institute a sit-lie law. In 2004, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Marilyn Litzenberger ruled that the city’s 2003 version of the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The current version was a response to that ruling with more specific information on what was and was not prohibited. The Court of Appeals further ruled that the 2003 version was pre-empted by state law, the same as Bushong’s ruling.

“In the United States, we fundamentally respect the rights of individuals to meet, to assemble, to communicate and to use public property. And (the city’s) attempts at curtailing those fundamental rights have been unconstitutional every step of the way.”
It is presumed by many that the city will revise its ordinance for another round. Lance says he is ready to defend any charges under the ordinance for free.

“Because of social justice and compassion,” Lance said. “We need to have social justice and compassion. And this law lacks that completely.”

In May, the City Council voted 4-1 to extend the ordinance until October, with the only dissenting voice on the council being Commissioner Randy Leonard.
City Commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz are currently leading a community process for input on the controversial ordinance.

Fritz told Street Roots she is reviewing the ruling and communicating with the City Attorney’s office before making a formal comment.

Fritz does say, “I am currently hoping our public meetings over the summer will go ahead as planned, as now more than ever we need to talk together to figure out solutions that work for everyone.”

“I never supported the sit-lie, because of its effect on some of our most vulnerable citizens,” says Leonard.  “I am happy the courts agree.”

“Everyone at City Hall is circling the wagons and trying to figure out next steps,” says Matt Grumm with Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s office. “People are aware of the decision and next week we will have a little more clarity.”

Asked if the police are currently enforcing the law after the ruling, Grumm says, “The commissioner has not asked the police to stop or discontinue with enforcement.”

The court’s ruling was welcome news at Sisters Of The Road, which has campaigned against the ordinance since its creation.

“This ruling re-affirms what Sisters has known from the beginning,” says Brendan Phillips with Sisters Of The Road. “The sit-lie law violates the human rights of Portlanders, it (also) violates the constitutional rights of Portlanders and hopefully this (ruling) will lead the city to immediately repeal the ordinance.”

Seven years of sit-lie; A history of Portland’s sidewalk suits

New paper day

William signs his papers before going out to sell at NW 9th & Hoyt.

Sisters Of The Road launches letter writing campaign to end sit-lie

Via Sisters website…

We need to make sure the City pays attention to this ruling and puts an end to this law. Please call the Mayor and City Commissioners and ask them to repeal Sit/Lie immediately because this law is unconstitutional and violates Portlander’s rights! Contact info is below.

Read more…

Extra! Extra!

Your summer reading plan gets a little more fun tomorrow morning with the new edition of Street Roots. Your neighborhood vendor can’t wait to deliver the word. Here’s a peak at what’s inside:

The perfect storm: A follow-up on the story we broke June 12 about nearly 300 families being terminated from Section 8 due to a numbers game in Northwest Oregon. But the same Section 8 disaster is being repeated across the country, with housing authorities shortchanged in funding to cover the demand in this new economic environment. Joanne Zuhl reports

Here today… Andy Warhol once said that, “In the future everyone will have 15 minutes of fame.” But is that enough these days? An interview with Bill Wasik, the man who gave us “flash mobs” on his new book about instant and fleeting fame. Rosette Royale reports.

Judge: Sit-lie still unconstitutional: Another judge, another ruling against the city – same problem as before. The city’s obstruction as nuisances ordinance does pass constitutional muster, court says. Joanne Zuhl and Israel Bayer report.

Groups helping immigrants survive face legal penalties: Authorities are going after humanitarian groups leaving water for immigrants crossing the desert at the Mexican/U.S. border.

Murnane Wharf, Marvin Ricks remembered with honors: Portland author Michael Munk writes about the loss of the last surviving participant in Portland’s legendary 1934 Longshoreman’s strike — and good news for commemorating the Murnane Wharf.

All this, still at a 20th century price! Get yours today, and chime in with your thoughts!

Posted by Joanne Zuhl

A duet: Soloist writer talks about his experiences

From the June 12 edition of Street Roots

You never know what you’ll find when you walk down the street. And there was Steve Lopez, in 2005, doing just that, making his way through L.A. when he heard it: music. Nearby stood a man – homeless, playing for what seemed to be beauty’s sake – drawing his bow over the strings of a beat-up violin. Lopez stopped and listened. He introduced himself to the violinist. And from that moment on, both men’s lives became interwoven.

That violinist was named Nathaniel Ayers and Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, wrote about their encounter. Soon after that, he wrote another column. Then another and another. As he continued, over the months, to chronicle their relationship, a complex portrait of Ayers unfolded: a childhood in Cleveland; a scholarship to Juilliard, the premier New York arts academy; the onset, in his early 20s, of paranoid schizophrenia; homelessness; nights on Skid Row.

Readers loved the columns and, buoyed by support from a newspaper editor, Lopez, already an author of books, wrote another one: “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music” (Putnam, 2008), which detailed their at times chaotic yet inspiring relationship. From that, a recent hit movie was born. All of which has kept Lopez busy and humanized Ayers.

We tried to set up a time to talk. But scheduling those minutes to chat took some work. So, while in a cab en route to the airport, Lopez revealed, via cell phone, how his life has been affected by a man who lives on the street, a man for whom Beethoven provides salvation, and praised the gifts that can arise just from stopping to hear the music.

Rosette Royal: I heard you came across Nathaniel Ayers when you were out looking for material for a column.

Steve Lopez: Yeah. I was in downtown Los Angeles and I heard music. So I turned and looked and here’s a guy living out of a shopping cart and he was playing a violin that was missing two strings. And he looked very determined. So it just begged the question: Who is he?

So all of that made me very curious and I went over and introduced myself and that was how it started. He was very wary of me and he looked a little frightened, but he calmed down a little bit. I said, “Why do you play right here?” And he points across the street and he says, “There’s the Beethoven statue and I play here for inspiration.”

I realized — because he had some clear mental issues — that it was going to take a while. So this just began a series of meetings over the course of several weeks, and every time I met with him he was a little more comfortable and a little more forthcoming. I wrote my first column with no idea that there’d be a second one, or a third one, or a 20th one. Or a book. Or a movie. It all happened organically.

And when I wrote the first column, readers responded in a huge way. They sent e-mails in the hundreds, and letters, and they wanted to buy the missing strings. My desk at the L.A. Times was surrounded by boxes of instruments that people had sent, and when I took them to him, I realized that I had just complicated his life — I was afraid he would get mugged for those instruments, and I thought he could even get beaten to death on Skid Row where he lived.

I felt it was my duty to try to get some help for him and keep him out of harm’s way. That’s when I started this dialogue with a mental health agency called Lamp Community and it took me into this world that I knew virtually nothing about: mental illness and homelessness and public policy regarding those issues.

A vendor well-suited for success

From the June 12 edition of Street Roots

The first thing I noticed about George, when I arrived a little late for our meeting at the Street Roots office, was how nicely he was dressed. He was sporting a blue dress shirt, a tie, and nice dress slacks. A suit jacket was draped over his chair. “Dress well, feel well,” he said; “dress bad, feel bad.”  He added that when he dresses nicely, people see that he is “chasing after health, not drugs.” He likes good clothing and dreams of becoming a clothing designer.

The second thing I noticed about this Street Roots vendor was his easy smile and love of words. He began with stories of lessons his grandmother taught him as a little boy while she taught him to fish. The stories seemed ripe with moral instructions about hope, self-sufficiency, and independence. “Stay positive,” he said, smiling. “Keep believing in what you do.”

George told me a number of things he does to help him keep a positive attitude even during the toughest times. He said he reads the book of Galatians every morning and encourages others to pursue education so “they can reach their goals.” Sometimes late at night, when his only mattress is a large slab of concrete, he talks into his tape recorder. He shared part of one of his recordings. His voice on the recorder described being outside with nowhere to go at two in the morning. The monologue is interrupted by his congested voice saying “stay positive” midway through his description of the night.

I asked to see what George carries in his small, black backpack. He has two manila envelopes with some artwork in pencil and a plastic folder neatly organized to hold Street Roots newspapers and other important information.

“Art, business and communications” are three things that are important to him. He mentions the three frequently when I ask him about either his background or his goals. A pencil drawing of a Christian cross reflects his art and religious interests. Taking the initiative to start selling Street Roots over three months ago, even though the gout in both his ankles made it difficult for him to walk, reflects his devotion to business and self-reliance.  No one who has ever talked with him doubts his devotion to the spoken word and desire to communicate.

Selling Street Roots “gives me a chance to dialogue with lots of people and see people I haven’t seen for years.” He clearly relishes the contact and interactions. George sees lots of people on the streets doing nothing, he says. He uses selling Street Roots to model self-sufficiency and “encourage them to do something with themselves.” His main goal in life is right now, he says, is to “reach everybody to believe in education so they can reach their goals.”

One woman’s experience eating nothing but food found in Portland’s urban landscape

From the June 12 edition of Street Roots

For five days at the end of May, I survived exclusively on wild food if found in Portland. There was no Dumpster diving and nothing plucked from gardens. Instead, I ate weeds and wild plants found within the city limits. I wanted to see what it would be like to survive without supermarkets or even gardens. I knew I could rely on the free, nutritious food that grows all around us, so I foraged the food growing at vacant lots, wilderness areas, yards and sidewalks.

I knew it had been done before. People have been living in what is now Portland for the past 10,000 years and only since the 1850s has anyone been farming or gardening. Before that, the population was surviving on wild food alone. We have pavement now instead of wide open spaces, and we have many more people per capita than ever before, but our ancient plant friends are still here. They are the hearty weeds growing in alleyways and along sidewalks, so strong that they can make it in the city despite all the asphalt and concrete.

In most cases, they have more nutrients than gardened food because they have to be stronger to survive; they’re hardier than the plants we make it easy for. Many also have medicinal properties. Unfortunately, sometimes they also take in the toxins of the environment they grow in, so use discretion when eating things that grow in places that are not parks.

During the five-day project, I lived on broth I made from boiling stinging nettles, the baked roots of burdock, thistle and wild carrot, raw salads of purslane, miner’s lettuce, chickweed, dandelion and red clover, and teas made of rose petals, pine needles, wild chamomile, lemon balm, cleavers and wild ginger.

I wanted to last for a whole week, but I could not find enough calories to keep me from getting weak. As it turns out, nature is not like the grocery store. Every few weeks, new kinds of plants arrive and other ones disappear.

I learned that just because I saw an edible plant growing somewhere in the beginning of May did not mean that it would still be around when I did the project at the end of May. I found myself stuck in the cusp between when the mushrooms disappeared and before the berries arrived, which meant my food options were very limited. I did not want to eat animals, but if I had, I could have tried to hunt pigeons or fish from local waterways. The native people here relied on fish and other aquatic animals, but they also stored food so they could have what they needed year-round. It would have been great to have wild food on hand.

I was doing a lot of walking as I looked around for food. It was surprisingly tedious to find and gather sustenance. This is where it comes in handy to know your neighborhood very well — down to what plants grow at what intersection. Community can also be a big help. While one person might spend four hours looking for and gathering burdock root, three others can use that same time to go out and get three other kinds of foods in three other places. Together we can do so much more than one person can accomplish alone. The opportunity to share our knowledge and barter or share goods are also huge benefits. Maybe you didn’t save enough acorns last fall, but your neighbor has more than she needs. Maybe you don’t know where to go to catch bass, but your friend does. You don’t have to be a maverick to survive. You just need a group of people who are all in it together.
The best way to identify edible plants is to meet them with an expert, in person, on a foraging walk. It can sometimes be difficult to accurately recognize them from photographs alone.

Every plant on the planet has a gift to give humans, but a few are extremely poisonous in all but the very tiniest of doses. For this reason it is imperative that anyone who wants to start supplementing their diet with wild greens first learn to identify the toxic plants and know how to distinguish them from edible look-alikes. For instance, poison hemlock and wild carrot are two plants that are prolific around Portland. They look almost identical, but while wild carrot is a tasty food, poison hemlock is deadly.

For information on safety, plant identification and further resources on wild food in general, such as books and photos and other learning opportunities, check out my wilderness skills blog, www.FirstWays.com. And check out the fantastic primer called “Feral Forager: A Guide to Living Off Nature’s Bounty in Urban, Rural and Wilderness Areas,” available for download at zinelibrary.info.

BY ‘WILD GIRL’ REBECCA LERNER, CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

Photo Courtesy of Rebecca Lerner

The Urban Gypsy

From the June 12 edition of Street Roots

I’m sitting here, looking around my city, hard pressed. I still feel that Portland is full of potential and possibilities.

I wait with the patience of a newly awakened predator. For people’s smiles to fade at the sheer numbers of the newly homeless. It breaks my heart to see the innocence leak out of eyes and faces that shouldn’t be here on the street.

Pardon me if I begin to snarl in frustration. I am speaking directly of the mentally challenged that our overloaded system has tossed to the street.

There are several people in my mind’s eye causing this strain of thought. One in particular who is not new to the streets, but was on the day she got there 30 years ago.Let me show you what I saw. First of all, I would have missed her totally without that second glance at the enclave next to the alley. Up close I recognized what caused the strange hesitation in my approach. However, caught in her gaze, I couldn’t very well back up. So we stood for a moment frozen, sizing each other up. There was a surprising strength to her fragility, which was momentarilly reasurring. Her story tumbled out in a sing-song voice, in between bites of stale bagel. Thirty years outside in this heaven and this hell. Her eyes were eerily innocent and detatched as she spoke of sodomy and rape, of laughter and love, like they were the same thing. She crackled but didn’t cry, even when telling me about things that I have only seen in horror movies.

I, on the other hand, wept like a newly widowed woman. Later that night, safe in my solitude, it made me think that maybe sometimes insanity is a mercy. I wept for the woman she was now because the world would never get to see her specific genius, it having been scattered over the concrete streets of Portland’s potential.

Julie McCurdy resides in Portland and is experiencing homelessness with her Italian greyhound, Maggie. She is a regular contributer to Street Roots.

Breaking news: Judge rules sit-lie law unconstitutional

(3:00 P.M.) Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Stephen K. Bushong has ruled that the city of Portland’s sidewalk-obstruction ordinance – commonly referred to as sit-lie, unconstitutionally exceeds the city’s authority.

The ruling was released today, and grants the motion to dismiss a sit-lie case being defended by attorney Clayton Lance.

“This ordinances has been found unconstitutional on three separate and distinct ground,” Lance told Street Roots. “That’s a heck of a lot of unconstitutionality for one little ordinance out of the city. It just is not going to work and they just keep trying to make it fit, and it will never be able to fit in my opinion.”

The sit-lie law prohibits sitting or lying on downtown sidewalks between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. The city has maintained it is to keep the sidewalks free of obstructions. Records show that the majority of people cited under the law are homeless.

Judge Bushong ruled that the city’s law conflicts with and is preempted by state law; State v. Robison, which Lance says already allows the city to penalize people for obstructing sidewalks.

“The (sit-lie) ordinance does not at all deal with obstruction. That’s a myth,” Lance said.“It was to move the transient and the homeless because the transient and homeless were sitting on the sidewalks in downtown Portland. Nothing else.”

As Lance noted, this is the latest round in the city’s failed attempts to institute a sit-lie law. In 2004, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Marilyn Litzenberger ruled that the city’s 2003 version of the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The current version was a response to that ruling with more specific information on what was and was not prohibited. The Court of Appeals further ruled that the 2003 version was preempted by state law, the same as Bushong’s ruling.

“In the United States, we fundamentally respect the rights of individuals to meet, to assemble, to communicate and to use public property. And (the city’s) attempts at curtailing those fundamental rights have been unconstitutional every step of the way.”

It is altogether likely the city will revise its ordinance for another round. Lance says he is ready to defend any charges under the ordinance for free.

“Because of social justice and compassion,” Lance said. “We need to have social justice and compassion. And this law lacks that completely.”

Update: City Commissioner Amanda Fritz told Street Roots she is reviewing the ruling and communicating with the City Attorney’s office before making a formal comment. She does say though, “I am currently hoping our public meetings over the summer will go ahead as planned, as now more than ever we need to talk together to figure out solutions that work for everyone.” Read more about the public meetings.

A judge is also suppose to rule this week on weather or not a lawsuit brought against the city by the Oregon Law Center on the camping ordinance should be heard.

Street Roots coverage from the last time sit-lie was ruled unconstitutional in 2004.

Section 8 crisis: Save 100s of families from homelessness

The following organizations are calling on President Obama, HUD Secretary Donovan, and Congress to provide housing authorities with an immediate infusion of funding in the current fiscal year, to ensure that every current Section 8 tenant is able to keep their voucher. We could use your help!

Oregon ON, Washington State Low-Income Housing Alliance, Street Roots, Real Change, Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity, Columbia River Business Alliance, Sisters Of The Road, Rural Organizing Project, Tillamook County Citizens for Human Dignity, Columbia Pacific Alliance for Social Justice, Latinos Unidos para un Futuro Mejor, Western Regional Advocacy Project, National Coalition for the Homeless, Rev. Chuck Currie, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, LA Community Action Network, San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness/Street Sheet, Building Opportunities for Self Suffiency, International Network of Street Papers, Free United Homeless Coalition, CHAM Deliverance Ministry of San Jose, Oregon Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness.

Please send a letter today! Time is running out…

Photo by Ken Hawkins

A hard look at addiction, Street Roots vendors and homelessness

This note landed in my e-mail yesterday from a reader.

“It has come to my attention that some of your vendors are alcoholics and drug addicts. If this is true, I’m sorry to hear that. I was under the impression that buying your paper you were helping them. You maybe helping a few but not all and for that reason I will not buy your paper. You really should let the public know about the people that sell your papers and the problems they have. The money they make is going to there addiction and not helping them.”

Having an honest and open discussion about alcoholism and drug addiction is always a hard discussion, specifically in the context of homelessness. It’s even harder when an organization creates an alternative economic engine for people living on the streets, like a street newspaper.

Selling Street Roots is hard. There’s no question that the individual sleeping under a bridge tonight or in a cheap motel, after selling Street Roots all day, has put in a hard day’s work.  There’s a lot of ways to make money on the streets, and selling Street Roots is an honest one.

Why do people experiencing homelessness and poverty ask for your dollar, specifically Street Roots vendors? The answers are as colorful as the people that walk through our door. The short answer is survival, but there’s more.

Some have been slammed by circumstance, the recession or from an unforgiving health care system. Some of the new faces of homelessness have been baffled at the idea of having to sell a street newspaper.

One vendor, possibly in his 50s, recently told me he was terrified to sell Street Roots because of the humiliation it would bring.

He had grown up in Portland and worked most of his adult life here. “What if I see people I use to work with or old high-school friends? It will kill me on the inside if I see these people,” he told me with a cringe. I had no logical answer for the man.