Dispelling the myth of ex-felons from the head of the DOC

Max Williams, Director of Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC), spoke at the Out4Life Reentry Conference in Portland, in October. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in prison issues, especially the recidivism problems, view the DVD of this event.

The conference included 30 workshops led by 76 presenters and each provided a rich menu of learning opportunities. These workshops provided practical information on how agencies, non-profits, business, and the faith community could work together to provide more effective assistance to returning ex-prisoners.

Max Williams was the first speaker at “An Essential Partnership: Corrections and the Community.” He immediately identified himself as interested in minimizing recidivism and reversing the population boom in prisons. “We can’t afford to continue the present pattern. An essential partnership between the DOC and the community” is needed now, Williams said.

Oregonians should know that 93 percent of Oregon’s incarcerated folks will be released back to the community. The history of a felony conviction is a substantial barrier to successful reentry. Williams said the problems for the released folks begin immediately when they leave the prison system. Solutions to those problems must be handled while folks are still incarcerated.

New music, new outlook for downtown vendor

By Leah Ingram
Contributing Writer

David Webb can be found at the PSU Plaza or the corner of Yamhill and 6th with a grin on his face and a flute in his hands.  Webb, who is also known as the “Flute Man,” likes to serenade passersby as he sells the paper and wishes everyone he sees a Merry Christmas.

Webb says he has been self taught at the flute for two years now, and that it has helped him to “renew” himself and reconcile his past with his future. Webb grew up with a self described tough childhood, but in a loving home. He and his two siblings were raised Christian by his parents, who came from a long line of pastors and preachers. Webb’s father is an assistant pastor and one of his aunts even runs a church from her home, despite the fact that she is blind.

Webb says that the happiest time with his family was spent in Alaska, where his father   sold newspapers and where Webb worked in a fish processing plant. There, he got to see landscapes face to face and experience the awe of looking at mountains and glaciers. “It might be pretty in a picture,” says Webb. “Wait ‘til you see it face to face. It’s like a post card but a million times better.” Webb enjoyed nature and learned mechanics from his father in Alaska, and he recounts one adventure where he got to visit the North Pole — North Pole, Alaska, that is. He got to see “Santa’s House” and giant igloos.

When Webb turned 16, he began to experiment with recreational drugs, and regrettably progressed to meth and cocaine. He began a 20 year struggle with drugs, despite his frequent attempts at recovery. “I tried treatment; I was in the jail system for a while. I tried writing, I tried piano, I tried guitar- none of it worked,” says Webb. Two years ago marks the start of a treatment that did work- the flute. Webb does not read music, but he says that picking up the flute was like “second nature” to him. “I pour my heart out into it, and I’ve never done that with anything in my life,” says Webb. Now whenever he feels stressed or angry, Webb picks up his flute and simply plays. He says that without it he would not have been able to overcome his reliance on drugs.

Webb says that he now notices music in his everyday life and does his best to share this with others. “I can be walking down the street and I will be playing and a bus drives by and I hear the motor.” says Webb. “I hear notes coming out of things.” Whether it is the steady cadence of cart wheels on the pavement or the wind in the trees, Webb says he has been made aware of hidden beats and melodies. He takes this talent and brings it with him to the Bridgetown Ministries under the Burnside Bridge every Thursday night. He has instructed ten people on the basics of flute playing and he uses his story of recovery to inspire others struggling with drug addiction.

For the rest of the week, Webb lives at Transition Projects Inc. He keeps in contact with his family and plays the flute over the phone for his mother, who is terminally ill with cancer. Web will move into more permanent housing at the beginning of the year and hopes to attend formal schooling for mechanics. For now, he aspires to play his flute and to keep hearing the music in his life.

Vendor thoughts on the season

Steven Hill
During this hectic holiday season, let’s all try to remember that there are many serving our country who would love to be stuck in line at the mall, the grocery store, the airport or in traffic. Let us appreciate what has been given to us. God bless.

Leo Rhodes
Being homeless isn’t easy. You have to contend with the weather. Not enough shelter or affordable housing. Sleeping outside looking for a dry spot is becoming difficult. Police and rent-a-cops are telling us we can’t sleep there. The sidewalk management has started, so we can’t get out of the sun, rain, or snow.
One day I was sleeping under the Burnside Bridge. It was about this time of year. It was cold, rainy and blowing. The blanket I had wasn’t very big, and it was thin. I laid there shivering trying to go to sleep. Then I heard a voice ask, “Hey, do you need a blanket?” Before I could reply two blankets were thrown on me. Then I heard the voice say throw a blanket on those guys over there.
One time I was sitting by the water front when two young ladies asked if I wanted some hot coffee and homemade cookies.
“Yes,” I replied
Last Christmas a man gave me a present. I told him I didn’t want it. He wouldn’t take it back. I opened the present and it was a tarp. I still have and use the tarp. I’ve also gotten coats, gloves, scarves, and offers of celebrating the holidays with friends, and families.
Many of my homeless brothers and sisters have gotten warm clothing just like me. And we would like to thank you.
Happy Holidays!

 

Ted Jack
Thank you and god bless for all your support!

Extra! Extra!

All of us at Street Roots want to say thank you to readers, supporters and friends who have made 2010 such a tremendous year for the men and women who sell the paper every day. Happy holidays, and here’s to an even better new year! Until then, pick up the final 2010 edition of Street Roots from your friendly neighborhood vendor! Here’s what you’ll find:

Frederick’s big four: State Rep. Lew Frederick is taking the concerns over police conduct to the Oregon Legislature with four proposals to change how Portland officers use force and face accountability. Amanda Waldroupe interviews the freshman lawmaker.

Foreclosure fallout: Portland writer and poet Kaia Sand explores what we’ve really lost after the housing investment meltdown, and how we might get it back.

How ugly is too ugly? The third in a series by the Western Regional Advocacy Project on the evolution of quality-of-life initiatives and the anti-poor movement.

Plus, thoughts on the season from vendors, commentaries from Police Officer Robert Pickett and prison advocate Ruth Kovacs, and artwork and poetry from the streets. So pick up your copy bright and early Friday morning and then call it a year! Thank you!

Ain’t that John Mellencamp?

There’s enough you may think you already know about John Mellencamp. There’s the former Johnny Cougar of “Jack and Diane” fame, the man behind “Little Pink Houses,” and the voice you hear behind that ubiquitous truck commercial. This is also the small-town Hoosier boy who did good, helping catapult Farm Aid into the signature social support of family farmers, raising nearly $40 million dollars for struggling farmers since 1985.

But there’s also the movie producer, the activist and political critic who, for the benefit of being unrefined and unrepentant, seems to get away with it all. It bubbled up threw the rockstar veneer: In the 1980s, he wrote several songs critical of the “Country Gentleman” Ronald Reagan. In 2004, he performed with the Vote for Change tour in October 2004, pushing an undercurrent campaign to defeat George W. Bush.  He has written, sung and spoken out against the Iraq wars and other conflicts that continue to trample on the future of young people’s lives. His 2007 album “Freedom’s Road” includes a hidden track called “Rodeo Clown” in a not-so-veiled reference to Bush. This year he’s released “No Better Than This,” produced by T Bone Burnett, an album created in the rough to reflect the bygone American folk tradition. Rolling Stone has named it one of the best albums of 2010. With 25 albums to his credit, he’s performed for rednecks, radicals, a president and troops, but you won’t hear him crowing about any of it. You don’t do that in small town America, and he’s small town. But ain’t we all?

Ken Leslie, the founder of a homeless tent city in Toledo, Ohio, recently interviewed Mellencamp, revisiting their first meeting years ago. The relationship between Leslie and Mellencamp began in 2007 when Mellencamp visited Toledo’s Homeless Awareness Project Tent City. That visit became the inspiration for creating the homeless advocacy and service program 1Matters, which went on to launch the street paper Toledo Streets.

Ken Leslie: We first met two years ago or so when you made an un-promoted stop at the annual Tent City, Project Homeless Connect in Toledo. You just wanted them to know they matter, and you’ve said you were touched by the experience. How so?

John Mellencamp: When you see what progress can produce, and also what progress can discard, it makes a feller wonder if some of the progress, let me put it this way, calling it progress does not make it right.

In this country right now there is no middle class, no place for middle class. You are either really rich or you are really down and out. It’s hard times in this country right now.

K.L.: You brought your wife Elaine and son Speck with you to Tent City. When you had your private talk with some of the unhoused, at first Speck stood back, but by the end of your conversation he was in the circle listening to every word. Compassion is a pretty cool thing for a father to pass on to a son. Did he share his thoughts on the experience before and after?

J.M.: He is a very activist type of kid. I found that out when he was pretty young. He did some research at school on some chocolate company and he wrote them a letter and it said, “You cheapskates, why don’t you hire and why don’t you pay fair, ya so-and-so.” And he almost got me into trouble last year, too.

K.L.: How so?

J.M.: He had a petition on Facebook to try to get me to stop smoking. He had, I think, about a half a million people sign up and he had to get a million. The whole conversation was just at Thanksgiving last year. He said, “Hey Dad, if I get a million people to sign up on Facebook would you stop smoking?” And I said, “Yeah, go ahead.” That was the end of the conversation.

A couple weeks into it, Larry King wanted him to come on, Good Morning America asked him, and of course I wouldn’t let him go on anywhere. First of all, I don’t want him talking about my bad habits; and second of all, ya know, I knew he’d reach his mark.

Canada and the U.S. are making significant strides toward mainstreaming harm reduction, but there are still walls to knock down

By Katie Hyslop with Devan Schwartz, Contributing Writers

Hundreds of doctors, politicians, researchers and frontline workers will get together with drug users and ex-users in Austin, Texas, this month to openly talk about drug use. But instead of reaffirming their commitment to the decades-long war on drugs, the eighth National Harm Reduction Conference will feature discussions on opening needle exchanges, legalizing and regulating the drug trade, and overdose prevention methods.

“What we do in (the United States) is make drugs as unsafe as they possibly can be, and we do that through laws, which means that, if you get busted with drugs, you go to prison for a long time. And that’s designed as a deterrent to make people stop using drugs, which obviously it isn’t,” said Allan Clear, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, which runs the national conference. “We do things like take syringes out of circulation, which has caused epidemics of hepatitis and HIV. So harm reduction is a way of trying to make drug use safer for people who use drugs, without demanding that they stop using drugs.”

Harm reduction can include a range of services from needle exchanges and condom distribution to safe consumption sites and access to addiction services such as methadone and buprenorphine treatments and detox facilities.

Supported by the United Nations and over 93 countries worldwide, harm reduction remains controversial. More than half of the 158 countries where drug use has been reported say they support harm reduction, and 82 countries have needle exchanges, but only 73 provide opiate substitution therapies such methadone, and only eight countries have safe drug consumption facilities. There are only two safe consumption facilities in North America, both in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Progress in Portland: In the late 1980s Portland, Oregon became one of the first U.S. cities to establish Syringe Exchange Programs, or SEPs. The city was dealing with rampant drug abuse that continued through the 1990s, and reached 250 reported heroin-related deaths in 1999.

Portland now offers three fixed sites for syringe exchange, along with the mobile Multnomah County Exchange Van. A drug paraphernalia law remains on the books in Oregon, though the possession of needles and syringes is exempted.

Outside In provides a majority of local needle exchanges. The organization offer one-for-one exchanges of up to 30 syringes along with HIV and hepatitis C counseling. Kelly Anderson of Outside In observes a clear need for their services in the community, their needle exchange clients alone having doubled in recent years. Nevertheless, she says that their funding “has not increased in over five years.”

Despite the relative availability of services, drug-related deaths themselves have returned to alarming levels in Portland — the state’s main site for overdoses. Oregon’s Alcohol & Drug Policy Commission delivered a report to Governor Ted Kulongoski identifying 229 overdose deaths in Oregon is 2008. The Associated Press reports that in 2009, 127 Oregonians’ lives were claimed by heroin alone.

Dr. Rachel Solotaroff is the medical director at Central City Concern, one of Portland’s oldest service providers. She acknowledges the city’s heroin problems but then expands the purview onto the ubiquity of prescription opiates. Oxycotin, suboxone, and methadone — the latter two prescribed as anti-addictives — can lead to their own addictions, black market street distribution, and even deaths.

“Not many of the prescription opiates on the streets come from people breaking into pharmacies,” Dr. Solotaroff says. “That’s the onus on us as prescribers.  Not having sufficient regulation around prescription opiates is a huge contributor to drug-related death in Oregon.”

Solotaroff also identifies structural strains on providers. “With the unemployment and rising uninsurance in the country as well as in the state we just can’t see everybody. We just couldn’t keep our doors open. One issue is the rising uninsurance rate and the other is the increasing complexity of the individuals.”

Often cited social determinants of health include poverty, homelessness, addiction, social isolation, criminal history, and a lack of employment.

But Solotaroff doesn’t believe the issue is strictly a monetary one.  “We need the flexibility to give better care to our patients.  We need to support them in so many ways.  We need to have supportive housing for individuals.  And we need to have supportive housing for people still in their addiction. That’s often the first step to getting them out of their addiction. It’s something that may not take a lot of money, just an act of will and understanding and compassion.”

Central City Concern’s own Community Engagement Program (CEP) utilizes aspects of such a multidisciplinary approach. They attempt to address issues of drug addiction simultaneously with issues of chronic homelessness. “Housing is the really critical thing,” says Sara Goforth, Director of Addictions and Chemical Dependencies and Mental Health Services.

Portland Housing Bureau works to help people maintain stability

From Margaret Van Vliet is the director of the Portland Housing Bureau

With its recent pieces on the West Hotel, Street Roots continues its diligent reporting on issues concerning some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Many SR readers know that the West Hotel is being replaced by the Macdonald Center, and the 27 people who have lived there will have to move.

The new building will house a different – and larger – population of needy people in quality homes that also come with supportive services to help people maintain stability.

In a recent editorial, SR asked whether the Portland Housing Bureau has undermined its goal of ending homelessness by not being more aggressive about relocation requirements when apartments are torn down to make way for redevelopment.

Vendor profile: Wanderlust leads to a new home in Portland

by Leah Ingram, Contributing Writer

Street Roots vendor Mark Brown stands out from the crowd as he sells newspapers at the Hollywood Library. His infectious laugh and his eagerness to meet new faces might draw you in, but what will first catch your eye is his bright red Santa suit and free candy canes.

Brown is a father and grandfather, has lived in more states than he can remember and is currently married to the love of his life, Darla. He is an outdoor enthusiast and is actively involved in his church. Brown has not always had this stable of a life – he has lived through a volatile childhood, the tragic death of two of his children and three divorces. His life is peppered with relocations and changes and he describes himself as having German “wanderlust.” His travels take him on an inexplicable search for the “perfect place.”

Brown grew up in a small town outside of L.A. in a family where his father was mostly absent. Brown’s mother remarried, but his family life did not improve. “I think that they did the best that they knew how,” says Brown, “(but) we pretty much raised ourselves.” Brown was never close with his siblings, so he sought the company of friends. He and his best friend Tony sold newspapers together and would then take the money they earned to buy candy to resell at school. Brown expanded his small business and bought a “thing maker,” with which he could make small rubber toys to sell. He spent the rest of his time mowing lawns and playing in Little League with Tony. The two boys were inseparable, although not always diplomatic. “Tony and I taught each other how to fight,” says Brown. “He’d come away with a big ol’ fat lip and I’d have a black eye.”

Brown moved to Oregon and earned his GED.  Shortly thereafter, he joined the navy, an experience which he says was “not spectacular,” but helped him to put some distance between himself and his stepfather. He was given an early discharge and began his extensive roaming. Throughout the years, he journeyed all over the United States, from Reno and Las Vegas to Phoenix and Albuquerque. He had three marriages and four children.

While travelling, he was able to renew his appreciation for nature, a place which he describes as being “closer to God. Quiet. Away from all the city.” He recalls his adventures with obvious fondness.

“I would hitch hike, when I didn’t have a car, towards the coast… I would say ‘Hey, I want to get off here.’ Then I would just march out into the woods. It was wonderful. You could see the stars out there.”

When asked what he was looking for on his wanders, Brown replies, “I always tried to figure this out. That’s a question I cannot answer. I’ll watch a movie and say that’s the perfect place — that’s where I want to live. There is no such place, at least that I’ve come across.” While terrain is vital, Brown maintains that community is equally imperative for his “perfect place.” Throughout his life, he has tried to influence people’s lives for the better. He started up several AA groups and he helped create a recovery house through Oxford Houses for alcoholics. “I think maybe I saved some people’s lives by doing that,” says Brown.

Nowadays Brown keeps the company of his wife, members of his congregation and people he meets while selling Street Roots. He is currently helping to start a recovery program with his church and is trying to make a positive impact in the congregation. In the future, he and his wife may pack up again and head to Texas but, for now, he calls Portland home.

West Hotel puts new attention on relocation options

By Amanda Waldroupe, Staff Writer

After months of eviction and housing uncertainty for residents of the soon to be razed West Hotel, hotel owners now say the remaining tenants are safe from becoming homeless: Pat Janik, the executive director of the Macdonald Center, the agency that owns the West Hotel, said that the tenants will be allowed to stay through December until new housing has been secured.

And because they are on track to either move into housing within the next couple weeks, or applications are pending, that applies, as far as Street Roots understands, to all of the tenants.

The fact that no one living at the West Hotel will face an eviction and become homeless is a far different story than what Street Roots was hearing a month ago (see “Time’s up at the West”). With only a month left before their eviction date, nearly half of the 27 tenants — all with high barriers to housing — had found no new place to call home. Nor were they assured any housing at the West past the Dec. 1 eviction deadline.

That is no longer the case. But the question of whether a similar situation could arise in the future still remains.

Some housing advocates, most prominently Northwest Pilot Project’s housing consultant Bobby Weinstock, having begun calling for the city to develop a relocation policy. Such a policy would mandate that any housing agency using local money in an affordable housing project that might displace tenants provide relocation services for those tenants. Essentially, the goal of such a policy would be to prevent people from becoming homeless.

Street Roots’ previous story about the West quoted Portland Housing Bureau director Margaret Van Vliet as saying that the Housing Bureau would not create a policy that mandated agencies receiving city funding to pay for the relocation of their residents.

Any given Sunday (Potluck In The Park)…

Potluck in the Park approaches two decades of service, overcoming challenges and serving more than ever before

By Morgan VanFleet, Nick Baty and Kevin Nickoloff, Contributing writers

The air around O’Bryant Square is buzzing with energy of motion. Part of the movement comes from the cold, biting wind pushing through the trees, a rare dry autumn Sunday. But the majority of the energy comes from the cacophony of 600 plus people gathered in anticipation for a hot meal, courtesy of Potluck in the Park.

Logistics Supervisor Julius Brown scans the crowd, anticipating the needs of other volunteers and keeping guests happy. Brown is a congenial man with a knack for well-timed humor and problem solving. Fellow volunteer Karen Hudnall, a cheerful, loquacious woman with a disarming manner, describes Brown as the Potluck team “quarterback”, the go-to guy for volunteers or guests who need direction. Spotting a young woman with a video camera, Brown, tall and authoritative, glides over and requests that she respect the guests at Potluck.

Bureau beware: Copwatch’ Dan Handelman rings in on the Joint Terrorism Task Force debate

By Joanne Zuhl, Staff Writer

Whatever happened at Pioneer Courthouse Square on the evening of Nov. 26, don’t call it a bombing attempt, says Dan Handelman, the oustpoken organizer behind Portland Copwatch, a project of Peace and Justice Works. Handelman is not about to adopt the narrative of law enforcement to describe an event that is now kicking up dust on more than just the notion of entrapment.

The Nov. 26 FBI sting has rekindled interest in Portland’s involvement in the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force, which the city withdrew from years ago over secrecy and oversight issues. It was also an issue of putting city police officers in the role of collecting or harboring information on people’s social political or religious affiliations, regardless of any suspected criminal activity.

That’s a situation Handelman knows personally, having been in the Police Bureau’s spy sights himself years ago. So we caught up with the man behind Copwatch and got his thoughts on how the city might proceed as the Pioneer Courthouse Square event ripples to City Hall.

Joanne Zuhl: The situation with the Pioneer Courthouse Square bomb-scare, orchestrated by the FBI and supposedly without PPB knowledge,  has Commissioner Dan Saltzman calling for the City Council to revisit its participation in the Joint Terrorism Task Force. It seems any time a so-called terrorist action occurs, the issue flares up. Copwatch has not supported this in the past. What’s the problem with this relationship? What’s at stake for a Portland citizen?

Dan Handelman: The Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force (PJTTF) actually existed before 9/11. In late 2000, we discovered a City Council agenda item that was to renew a contract with the FBI to reimburse the City for costs associated with assigning two officers permanently to the PJTTF, in which it talked about a mission to investigate “right wing and left wing extremists” and listed specific groups such as the Animal Liberation Front. We got many community partners, including the ACLU, in to testify about how Oregon has a state law (181.575), which prohibits law enforcement from collecting or maintaining information on a person’s political, religious or social affiliations without suspicion of criminal conduct. Despite a lot of good testimony, we only succeeded in a few tweaks to the contract including dropping that offensive statement, which then-Commissioner Charlie Hales compared to something Richard Nixon would do.

So, if you don’t want the Portland Police poking about into what groups you hang out with, whether it’s where you pray, what you do for social justice, or what you do for fun, you should be very wary of our rejoining the PJTTF.

J.Z.: Mayor Sam Adams says he has much more faith in the Obama administration and the leadership of the U.S. Attorney General’s office now than he did in 2005, but should he? Has anything really changed?

D.H.: The FBI’s historic and ongoing activities to infiltrate, set up, and arrest (and/or have violence done to) people working for social change has continued, despite their being seriously restricted by the work of the Church Committee in the 1970s. The post-9/11 era has opened up a Pandora’s box of law enforcement abuses. Those abuses did not change between the Bush and Obama administrations, and may be getting worse because (a) Obama’s supporters are reluctant to criticize him and (b) Obama is trying to prove himself to his detractors, so in some ways he’s trying to out-Bush Bush. But no matter who was in the White House, these crimes would likely be taking place because this kind of policy, to put down social movements who seek true justice, has been an American policy since before the Constitution was written.

J.Z.: The FBI has long identified a variety of political dissenters and organizations as potential targets for investigations and surveillance. They’ve recently singled out anarchists as well. How complicit are local police officers in these policies?

D.H.: It’s impossible for me to answer this question, since the activities of the Bureau’s Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) only come to light when documents are released after their involvement in an incident. Our group was spied on twice that we know of — once in 1992, soon after we got started, the CIU put two undercover informants at a meeting. The notes from that meeting came up in a trial people refer to as “Moose v. Squirrel,” (because the police chief at the time was Charles Moose) but is really known as “Squirrel v. City of Portland.” Squirrel was part of Copwatch and had been arrested on an unrelated incident. The CIU had the notes from our meeting in a file they kept on Squirrel, which basically reported we talked about a stronger police review board. The judge in the case, Michael Marcus, asked “what possible criminal activity could there be in advocating for a stronger police review board?” and ordered that file be destroyed, that the CIU review its documents for compliance with 181.575 two months after their creation and every two years.

The other time was in 1998, when people were arrested at a protest about Bill Clinton bombing Iraq. My name was listed in the document as “Leader of the Iraq Affinity Group” (another project of Peace and Justice Works, Copwatch’s parent organization) but there was no allegation of criminal misconduct. My efforts to sue the city over that were thrown out of court on a technicality.

J.Z.: In light of the FBI sting, authorities are bound to review their procedures. What is Copwatch on the lookout for during these reassessments and possible changes?

D.H.: The business community has long cried foul since Mayor Potter removed us from the PJTTF in 2005, as has Dan Saltzman, the only Council member to vote to stay on the Task Force. We’re already hearing these voices and others misrepresenting not only the reasons Potter pulled out of the PJTTF, but the nature of the Council action.

The reality is that a resolution was passed that explained how Portland would work with any federal task force where there are security clearance issues … in the case of the PJTTF the officers were granted “Top Secret” clearance but the Chief and the Mayor could only get “secret” clearance. The City Attorney, who would have to advise the officers whether or not their actions were legal under Oregon law, was not offered any clearance, if I remember correctly.

So we should be very aware that this topic could be back on the City Council agenda, and your organization, whether it’s a labor union, a peace group, a house of worship or, say, a newspaper that caters to people living on the streets, should be ready to tell City Council not to cave in to fear, and to follow the law and ensure accountability.

J.Z.: With the above in mind, and with the latest activity of the FBI regarding Muhamed Osman Muhamud, should the city call for full disclosure on who and what organizations the FBI is investigating in Portland- and why?

D.H.: If you mean full disclosure as in printing a list publicly, I doubt that the FBI would do that with ongoing investigations. If you mean sharing them with people who have the right security clearance or elected officials, I would say that they would have to be sure the City Attorney would be able to look not only at a list but also some evidence as to why the groups or individuals were being monitored. I doubt the FBI will do that, either, but that’s the minimum the City should do.

But realistically, if the FBI is tracking an actual criminal suspect who is planning or committng an actual crime that they (the FBI) did not plan, support and pay for, it’s actually OK with us (and allowed under state law and the Council resolution) for the Portland Police to work with them. We’ve never said not to cooperate with the FBI, we’re just saying do so in a way that doesn’t violate people’s rights and actually focuses on real crimes, not inneundo, fairy tales or the bravado statements of an angry teenager.

The quality of whose life? The zero-sum game. Part II

The second in a four-part series on the country’s modern anti-poor movement

By Paul Boden, Contributing Writer

What images do the words “quality of life” bring to mind? A peaceful beach? A beautiful park? A farmers market full of healthy produce? In the realm of policing, the phrase “quality of life” carries different connotations. It means a veteran getting hauled in for sleeping on the sidewalk, a homeless woman being prohibited from resting on a park bench, or even brutal scenes like these from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Fresno.

An unconventional Christmas with the foster fam

By Art Garcia

Well, I decided since it was getting around to Christmas time … sorry if I offended anyone by saying Christmas, however that was what it was called when I was just a little elf.

Now, I don’t know if I ever mentioned it before, I am sure I did, I grew up in a foster home with three of my brothers that were closest to my age. I was about three and a half when we were placed there. Now these folks were nice old people as people went, but just a mite old fashioned and real frugal. I guess some people would call them downright tight when it came to spending money on us kids. Oh sure Mr. foster father bought himself a brand new car every other year, but not one of us kids ever had even close to a new bike. Fact is, the ones we did get were either given to us from another family that had gotten their kids a new one, or our friends would give us parts of a bike and we would build one.

With representatives like these …

Street Roots editorial from the December 10 edition…

The federal response to the American people, both locally and around the country over the past two weeks is disturbing on many levels.

Extending the Bush-era tax to wealthy Americans in exchange for unemployment benefits is a train wreck. The deal, which exponentially benefits the wealthy far more than the middle class, cuts off billions of dollars in revenue that would give local communities the ability to maintain basic services.

As of this week, the deal between the Republicans and the Democrats does not include extensions for the so-called 99ers — the people who have been out of work so long they’ve run through all tiers of unemployment insurance. The total, after state and federal unemployment insurance has been tapped, is 99 weeks. It is estimated that there are currently between two and five million Americans that fall into this category, with the number growing as people remain unemployed.

Extra! Extra!

Believe it or not, there are patches of blue between the stretches of grey, but don’t wait for a clearing in the weather to grab the new edition of Street Roots. Get your copy first thing Friday morning, hot of the press, from your local neighborhood vendor! Here’s a peek at what’s inside:

Ain’t that John Mellencamp? Why, yes it is! He threw off the rock-n-roll establishment years ago, but his opinions about the machinery are still true to his working-class roots. An interview by Ken Leslie.

West Hotel puts new attention on relocation options: The tide turns – for the better – for residents of the West Hotel who were given 60 days to move. Amanda Waldroupe updates us on the situation and looks at the relocation programs in other cities.

Bureau beware: Portland Copwatcher Dan Handelman talks about the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force and what residents need to know if the city rejoins the controversial FBI extension.

Any given Sunday: Potluck in the Park approaches two decades of service, overcoming challenges and serving more than ever before

Out of the shadows: Canada and the U.S. are making significant strides toward mainstreaming harm reduction, but there are still walls to knock down. This is a collaborative effort by street papers from across North American ring in on harm reduction efforts in their communities.

A zero-sum game: The second in a series of reports by the Western Regional Advocacy Project on the country’s modern anti-poor movement.

Plus poetry, commentary and art from the streets, and a smiling vendor to hand it to you! So start your weekend of right and, as always, thank you so much for your support!