Vendors, readers make winter brighter

Street Roots wants to take the time to give special thanks to all of our hard working vendors. It’s this time of the year that we call the “February freak out” at SR. We’re months into the rainy season and tensions are high, people are cranky and the city is in a bad mood. For someone experiencing homelessness, all of these elements are compounded, and living on the streets becomes a living hell.

The health and wellbeing of individuals can become life and death in a matter of hours. Things like walking pneumonia and the flu are commonplace, and being able to prepare for the temperature changes can be a real challenge. It’s the pits for many.

That’s why it’s important to call out the vendors, and to thank them for staying upbeat and maintaining paper sales and for being involved in neighborhoods around the city.

Saying that, we can’t thank the vendors without thanking the readers. We so appreciate the relationships being built and maintained every day throughout the city. It’s these relationships that make SR special. The newspaper is just an added bonus.

Additional paper sales for vendors may mean the difference between a warm hotel room verses a shelter or sleeping under a bridge on a cold winter’s night. Thanks all, and enjoy the read.

— Israel Bayer

Old Town needs a larger vision to reclaim its streets

Street Roots editorial

In some ways, the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood embodies the changes Portland has undergone over the past decade. It is the home to both new and familiar residents. It is an enterprising business network, gaining steam. It is the community of social service organizations that work to alleviate poverty and homelessness, to fill the gaps in addiction treatment and health care. And it is the broad shoulders for the people these organizations serve. The neighborhood also has a history and culture of open drug dealing.

The Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association, it’s business and community partners are calling for renewing the Drug Free Zone ordinance, which would give police greater authority to stop, question and search individuals on the street, and allow the courts to exclude selected street offenders from the neighborhood. It was dropped from the city books three years ago under former mayor Tom Potter following accounts of racial disparity and civil rights violations.

We believe, and neighborhoods have proven, that there are more constructive solutions to turning this environment around and taking back our streets. We need leaders in the neighborhood who have vision and can think outside the box.

We offer a few examples that could be used drive out drug dealing during the early morning rush hour, and throughout the day in Old Town Chinatown. We can do so supporting local businesses and promoting a healthy living environment for our neighborhood and the City of Portland.

On the economic front, we need to make our sidewalks vibrant with opportunity, much as it is on many otherwise discarded city blocks at breakfast, lunch and after work.

We should work to create a small number of food carts and other street-side attractions in Old Town Chinatown that would serve neighborhood workers, tenants and tourists. The options are almost endless, including an extension of local establishments, Asian and Latino enterprises, and social-service projects such as Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream employment program through New Avenues for Youth.

These endeavors rely on the neighborhood’s support and vision, including incentives to foster a marketplace for workers, friends and patrons.

As an entry point to many bus and train visitors to the city, Old Town is a ripe location for tourist information and business vendors to set up shop and welcome the stream of people to the city.

The resources could be generated from the Portland Development Commission, and working with the Portland Business Alliance, the City of Portland, local businesses and non-profits, could set a foundation to launch the projects. In the end, it means celebrating this community, drawing people to, not away from, a destination. We’ve seen it happen in neighborhoods throughout the city, and it should happen here, in downtown’s backyard.

Public safety is equally in the mix. We need officers walking the beat. Not on horses, not in cars, but on the sidewalks, knowing the people who come and go at all hours. It is a presence that has paid off in the past, and can once again, to create a safe environment.

On a simpler note, put in more streetlights. There are stretches of sidewalks in Old Town that suffer from the lack of fundamental illumination. Light the streets.

None of this will change things overnight. But nothing happens if nothing is pursued.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times at the Portland Housing Bureau

The past two years at the Portland Housing Bureau have seen some enormous changes, ranging from the merger of the Bureau and Housing and Community Development and portions of the Portland Development Commission, to a new strategic plan, to working to change the way the bureau communicates with the broader public.

100 years after 1,000 homeless men

By Ben Cook

In 1911 William Taft was president of the United States and Carter Harrison Jr. was the first Chicago-born mayor of Chicago. The infamous Stockyards were in full swing and factory work abounded, but many Chicagoans slipped through the cracks of opportunity and became homeless. It was up to religious organizations and the Chicago Bureau of Charities to administer humanitarian aid.

At that time it was common to consider the homeless population “tramps” and “bums,” or other easy-to-file away stereotypes.

Vendor Profile: Loving Portland through Jenni’s eyes

Street Roots vendor Jenni sells outside of Zupan's at Belmont and 33rd Avenue.

By Kaisa McCrow
Contributing Writer

Jenni, a petite woman with short hair and an endearing smile, describes her post selling Street Roots outside of the Zupan’s on Belmont and 33rd as the location for the happiest shoppers in Portland. This seems to delight her, and she describes the area as a “super neighborhood,” where everyone is smiling and with beautiful children and dogs, carrying flowers and enjoying life. In Jenni’s Portland, people seem to be happy, the forests are beautiful, and there is space for any kind of person to find peace and home. Jenni moved here two years ago from Michigan with her best friend and traveling partner Justin. They had already been close for years when together they decided to sell everything that they owned and venture west. They say it took 5-6 months of saving money, a lot of soul-searching and one-way Amtrak tickets to get both of them to leave behind the only home either of them knew for Oregon.

Jenni described Michigan as a much harsher place to live. She experienced more violence there and recalls getting held up at gun point, on her birthday no less. The dangerous environment, coupled with a bad economy and a desire for adventure, led her and Justin through the mountains on a two-day train trip with the few things left that they owned. It was a beautiful way to travel and Jenni describes the trip as gorgeous, barring the less than inspiring scenery in North Dakota. Traveling in March at the end of winter, the pair began to feel panicked as they approached Oregon with the scenery around them still covered in snow. They began to rethink their little tent and lack of winter gear, sprouting final seeds of doubt and cold feet after nearly half a year of preparation. The image of arriving in a city blanketed by snow, with no home or possessions was nerve-wracking and scary. To their happy relief, they pulled into Portland’s downtown train station to greet an unseasonably nice, 65-degree day, just the greeting they needed to start over in this new city.

Hundreds stand up for Planned Parenthood

Hundreds of people packed the 3700 block of NE MLK Jr. Boulevard in a high energy demonstration to stand up for Planned Parenthood and against the effort by House Republicans to defund the nation’s largest provider of health care for low-income people.

The crowd filled both sides of the block outside of Planned Parenthood’s offices, drawing support from the rush-hour traffic that honked and cheered the cause. Some present estimated about 700 in attendance.

The House on Friday voted to ban Planned Parenthood nationwide from federal funding for health care. The Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, based in Portland, serves 2,00o people every week, providing cancer screenings, birth control and other vital services for men and women who cannot otherwise afford health care.

Including this woman, who said she couldn’t afford health care, and was diagnosed at Planned Parenthood 15 years ago with stage 3 cervical cancer. It was treated, and she says she’s now healthy and clear of the disease. Nationally, the organization provides care to 3 million people.

The move by the House was generated as part of the fight against abortion rights, however, no federal money for Planned Parenthood pays for abortions – it’s prohibited by existing law. The money was used for preventative services, including contraception and other medical services. The cut, if approved by the Senate, would mean a loss of $330 million to Planned Parenthood nationwide. Participants signed banners to send off to Sens. Jeff Merkly and Ron Wyden to urge them to preserve the funding.

Read about Street Roots own encounter with the right-wing effort to disconnect people with Planned Parenthood services here.

More photos follow:

Extra! Extra!

Chase away the winter blahs with a hot chocolate and an even hotter edition of Street Roots! We’re at the press with 16 pages of news, commentary and poetry, all delivered by your friendly neighborhood vendor first thing Friday morning. Here’s what coming:

One nation, under lock and key: An interview with lawyer Michelle Alexander, author of  “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, who calls for new a social movement to change the criminal justice system.

Life after foreclosure: An interview with Good Grief America founder Nancie Koerber, who talks about the Oregon’s movement to empower victims of the foreclosure crisis together to fight back.

100 years after 1,000 homeless men: A century after a Chicago social worker chronicled the experiences and challenges of homeless men, her words still ring true.

Street Blues: Officer Robert Pickett busts the myths of police work perpetuated by Hollywood and beyond.

Healthy Streetbeat: The Bicycle Transportation Alliance delivers another great column about pedestrian use of public space, and how we can do better.

Old Town wants drug free zone restored: The Old Town Chinatown and Pearl neighborhoods are calling on Mayor Sam Adams to reinstated the controversial ordinance that was shot down three years ago over concerns of racial disparity and civil rights encroachments. Advocates, police, business owners and residents speak out.

All that and more, including a great vendor profile, commentary and poetry from the streets. Get your copy bright and early Friday morning and your weekend will be off to a great start. Thank you!

All the world’s a stage — street musicians

by Amanda Waldroupe, Staff Writier

Walk just about anywhere in downtown Portland and odds are you will be serenaded by a stranger. But don’t take it personally. This is business.

For 16 years, street musicians, businesses and the city have operated under an agreement that allows performers their place in the sun. But now, City Commissioner Amanda Fritz’s office will dust off the agreement, starting with a public forum for all those involved.

The forum is scheduled for Feb. 10, and Sara Hussein, Fritz’s policy assistant, says that Fritz is hoping attendance will include a large number of street musicians, business owners, representatives from law enforcement, Paul van Orden, the city’s noise control officer, and the city’s ombudsman.

Hussein says the forum was prompted by a number of concerns Fritz’s office has received from street musicians and business owners about the Street Musician Partnership, which was created in 1994. Street musicians, the Portland Business Alliance (PBA) and the City of Portland are members of the partnership, which sets down rules and regulations for musicians playing on Portland’s streets.

The rules include mandating that a street musician can only play in a particular location for 60 minutes, then either take a 60-minute break and resume playing, or move to another location. Musicians are not allowed to play more than twice on a corner or given location in the course of a day. Street musicians are asked to understand the city’s noise ordinance, and to be spaced at least one block apart. Amplification is allowed, but if the music can be heard more than 50 feet away, then it’s in violation of the agreement.

Health care champion Margaret Flowers talks w/SR

Dr. Margaret Flowers has become a leading voice in a movement for single-payer health care. In 2006, she left behind a medical practice to take up the fight and has become a hero of sorts for millions of uninsured Americans.

Flowers obtained her medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and did her residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

After being arrested in 2009 for advocating for single-payer she wrote, “In that moment, it all became so clear. We could write letters, phone staffers and fax until the machines fell apart, but we would never get our seat at the table. The fact that thousands of people in America are dying every year because they can’t get health care means nothing. The fact that over one million Americans go into bankruptcy every year due to medical debt — even though most of them had insurance when they got sick — means nothing.” She has dedicated her life to changing this.

Flowers currently works with the Physicians for a National Health Program, a non-profit research and education organization made up of more than 18,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals. She was recently in Portland as one of the speakers at a daylong Single Payer Conference at the First Unitarian Church.

Street Roots’ Jay Thiemeyer talked with Flowers about her commitment to single-payer health care over the phone last week.

Jay Thiemeyer: What particular reasons do you have for supporting single-payer as a solution to the health care crisis in this country?

Margaret Flowers: Single payer is the only approach to financing health care that actually uses our health care dollars in a way that’s accountable to the public, that’s transparent, that’s the most cost effective way to finance health care. It’s also the simplest way for patients and health care professionals to interact with each other. There’s one set of rules. Every health profession is in the system, so you don’t have to worry about where you can go. You can choose where you want to go. And it allows a direct relationship between the payer and the provider, so we don’t have this middle person, this insurance company administrator in the way, telling us what we can and cannot do. So it allows us to focus on taking care of our patients without the hassles of dealing with all these health insurance plans.

After practicing for 15 years and being in this situation, which is really driving us in the opposite direction of not being able to take care of our patients well, I felt like this was something I needed to leave practice and work for to achieve in this country. We’re the only country that doesn’t have a health system.

J.T.: Is it fair to say that, as I understand it, a third of the health-care dollar that people who are covered by private insurance spend, is spent on that administrative layer, which is basically devoted to denying coverage to the people who subscribe to private health insurance?

M.F.: Right. It’s really a very perverse and wasteful situation. It’s at least a third of our health-care dollars overall that are going toward marketing and administration of all of these various health insurance plans, both from the health insurance company side, where they have to develop their products and market them, to the provider side, where we have to interact with them and figure out their rules which are often changing or obscure and very difficult to figure out. It’s also a waste of our time and very stressful on both patients trying to deal with this mess when they need health care and for health professionals to deal with that. And it’s perverse because an insurance company makes a profit, which they’re required to do for their stockholders, by denying and restricting health care instead of actually paying for health care, which is the opposite of what we should have.

Vendor profile: A student of the streets

If you have been short on good conversation for a while, head to NW 23rd Avenue and Thurman Street to buy a Street Roots. Terris, the vendor that sells on this corner in front of Food Front, seems to have a talking point for anything, whether it be theories of eco-psychology, gaming , how to end homelessness, or recommending your next good read. At the onset of a conversation with Terris, his articulate speech and keen sense of self are striking- this man knows he is a born thinker and intellectual, and he’ll get you on his side of that argument in minutes.

Terris doesn’t just know a lot of facts, he has a lot of ideas, and they are good ones. Straight away, we began discussing the meaning of the word “home.” He immediately challenges the commonly held assumption that simply having a house equals having a “home.” Although Terris grew up in Portland and Vancouver, WA and did not begin experiencing homelessness until he was an adult, he says in many ways he did not have a “home,” at all while growing up. His parents divorced when he was 18 months old, and his entire childhood was spent shuffling back and forth between them, unstable and consistently uprooted. Now, although he “sleeps outside” — his preferred terminology when referring to homelessness — Terris will tell you with conviction that Portland is his home.

And all signs point to this being true. Terris is ingrained in this community. He is not only active with Street Roots but also with Home PDX, a non-traditional church group that meets under the Hawthorne Bridge and is active in the community of people who sleep outside. When asked if he was religious, Terris referred to a broad definition of spirituality, focusing on a message of love and acceptance of people from all walks of life.

“Jesus was a bum,” he says plainly, when discussing Christianity. “He was homeless. He slept outside.” In this way, Terris says, he can consider himself a follower of Christ, and he uses this outlook to discuss how he believes we should be helping the less fortunate. “If you want to be like Jesus, don’t go somewhere and tell people they should come up. Go and accept them for who they are.” Terris believes this, and he practices his belief with dedication to his community and with love and respect for everyone that he meets. “Love everybody. It can be a challenge. Stop looking at people as having faults, but instead … as challenges.” He explains that this outlook will allow people to look at both themselves and others with more hope and possibility.

This perspective is possibly what makes Terris so good at selling Street Roots, which he has been doing for roughly a month now. He has been quick to excel. He says that he is just getting to the point where he is learning the faces of his regulars and in true Portland fashion, the names of all their dogs.

Despite the sense of community Terris has found in Portland, he isn’t romanticizing about the hardships that he has faced in his life. Experiencing homelessness is his reality, and it is a harsh one. “In the city you are overwhelmed; you are bombarded by stimuli,” he explains. “We have less barriers between us and the city than most people do.” He goes on to say that when you sleep outside, you are still surrounded by the same “city-noise” and chaos as everyone else, only there is no escape, no respite, no place to retreat to. “The sounds of the city when you are outside will drive you crazy,” he says.

In his perfect world, Terris would live away from the city, perhaps somewhere along the Gorge, near Hood River. He imagines a smaller, simpler community; in his version of the world, he would be the village blacksmith. It’s a nice dream, and none of Terris’ dreams are something to shake a stick at. He wants to attend PCC, then PSU, and finally, Lewis and Clark to get a master’s degree. His goal is to study psychology and then eco-psychology, which studies the way environment affects the psyche. The experiences Terris has had on the streets richly inform these studies. We talked at length about how eco-psychology critiques “symptom-focused” cultures. Homelessness is a perfect example. Terris says that the existence of homelessness is not the problem itself, but a symptom of a bigger problem. Terris sees himself as fully engaged in trying to open the eyes of others to these kinds of misconceptions, and hopes that his education will make this more possible.

In the meantime, Terris can’t help but continue to learn, to read, to excite, to discuss anyway — it is his baser nature. He is thinker, a poet, an educator and a community member. He believes that in addition to choosing to love all people, a good education for every person is fundamental to heal society and to make people active participants in finding real solutions to homelessness. He wants that education. Until he can get it though, he’ll continue to curl up with a good book on his days off, and to engage in a kind of learning that doesn’t come from school. Anyone can experience some of that learning from Terris while he is working outside of Food Front, just one corner of Terris’ city-wide home.

Street Roots 2010 Annual Report

Welcome to the 2010 Street Roots Annual Report. The past year has been a breakthrough year for the organization. (Download the report here: SR 2010 Annual Report)

With the great recession hammering our city, SR has become a go to for Portlanders for many different reasons. It’s easy to feel helpless, or to not understand how to help during these hard times. SR serves as an important tool that offers tangible and proactive ways to make a difference.

For people on the streets and experiencing poverty, it has become a stopgap tool to create stability and get off the streets or avoid homelessness. We’ve had people walk through our door who have been homeless for years, and others for only days — people who sell the newspaper on the weekends after working one or two part-time jobs to maintain their housing, health care and their quality of life.

From a reader perspective, SR has become an important tool in understanding and engaging in the issue. The newspaper and vendor program allow thousands of Portlanders to become proactive in the fight against poverty. Whether that’s building a relationship with someone on a street corner or becoming educated and learning how to take action through reading the newspaper.

This past year, SR became more of a leader on the poverty and social justice front. We led campaigns in partnership with government to start counting individuals who pass away on the street. We helped ease tensions on sidewalks through the sales of the newspaper and by creating a poster campaign to educate panhandlers in the city. We also continue to call for a long-term revenue stream for affordable housing in our region. We exposed a group of right-wing Catholics that are driving the defunding of social justice organizations in Portland and around the country, including SR. We have helped facilitate conversations among non-traditional partners to help understand the complexities of homelessness, while never backing away from tough issues.

We are proud to be taking journalism and homeless advocacy in a new direction in our city. We believe SR is a vehicle for creating real change in our community. We believe that by offering solution-based ideas, programs and conversation, we will be able to break out of the derogatory stereotypes that have built up over the past three decades around the issue of homelessness. In short, there is hope, and together we will continue to make a difference, one newspaper at a time.

Read the entire report here: SR 2010 Annual Report

Sincerely,

Israel Bayer, Executive Director

Thinking outside the box: Solutions to Old Town Chinatown open drug problems

By Israel Bayer

The following is a short list of examples that could be used to detour and drive out drug dealing during the early morning rush hour, and throughout the day in Old Town/Chinatown.

Open drug dealing has been a part of the culture in the neighborhood for decades. While some of these ideas may be pie in the sky — there’s no reason to believe that with a long-term strategic plan that some of these suggestions couldn’t work to curb the problem.

If the following examples below were positioned at key locations in the neighborhood, and supported by the larger Old Town/Chinatown community and the city — we could take back four to twelve blocks of our community. By doing so, we would be supporting local business, and promoting a healthy living environment for our neighborhood and the City of Portland.

The resources could be generated from the Portland Development Commission, and working with the Portland Business Alliance, the City of Portland, local businesses and non-profits to create enough income to generate supporting the projects.

Drug free zone conversation is back

by Joanne Zuhl

Drug Free Zones, left to sunset by Mayor Tom Potter, could be making a return if a request by the businesses and residents of Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood get the mayor’s nod.

After many meetings where the issue of street-level drug dealing dominated discussion, members of the neighborhood association, the business community and the Chinese community have all sent a request to Mayor Sam Adam’s office saying it supports the reinstitution of the drug free and prostitution free zones.

The city ordinances establishing the zones, or DFZ and PFZ, were allowed sunset in 2007 after legal and critical challenges to their process and use by police. The zones allowed police to exclude people from the zone if they had prior arrests, allowing them to stop individuals, ask questions and even search property based on a “preponderance of evidence” (a step up from the previous incarnation that allowed police to do so based merely on suspicion, which was ruled illegal in Circuit Court).

City considers new guidelines for Sidewalk Management Ordinance

by Joanne Zuhl

In the current edition of Street Roots we revisit Portland’s Sidewalk Management Ordinance, which, given it’s political ancestry, has charted a smooth course over the past seven months it’s been enforced.

But concerns were raised at yesterday’s meeting of the Portland Sharing Public Sidewalks Advisory Committee over a plan to label sidewalks, including some areas that would now ban sitting or lying altogether. The committee was convened by City Commissioner Amanda Fritz as a sounding board for the ordinance’s performance.

As part of the ordinance, the Portland Bureau of Transportation was charged with developing a plan to label downtown sidewalks according to the pedestrian use zones carved out in the city’s sidewalk management ordinance. The labeling process — a $90,000 project with ongoing monitoring — has been one of the lagging issues on the ordinance, which prohibits people from sitting or lying down in the pedestrian right-of-way, between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. It does, however, make allowances for sitting or lying in a two-foot zone on the curb edge of the sidewalk.

Under the proposal from PBOT, some sections of sidewalk would be declared totally off-limits to sitting or lying, primarily along those sidewalks with Max train stops. That includes stops along Yamhill and Morrison streets, and under the Burnside Bridge. PBOT says that at high volume transit stops, the pedestrian zone applies to 50-feet in each direction of the stop, or the entire block. On a typical sidewalk the zone is between six and eight feet, depending on the width of the sidewalk.

Here’s the map, with the yellow areas indicating places where sitting on the sidewalk is entirely prohibited.

Also marked as pedestrian only is a section of West Burnside from Park Avenue out to the I-405 ramp. PBOT is also proposing that the pedestrian use zone – in which people cannot sit or lie down – would encompass the entire sidewalk in “any areas of sidewalk that do not meet the preferred sidewalk pedestrian sidewalk width corridors and the sidewalks do not have a buffer from vehicle traffic lanes.

“That creates a not very safe position for people to be sitting in that zone,” said Rich Eisenhauer, program manager with PBOT.

The criteria for prohibiting sitting, and lying, altogether, also includes all other sidewalks wherever “police data indicate a high level (to be defined) of conflicts, and if the sidewalk has a high level (to be defined) pedestrian flow during peak hours. While this is an initial proposal from PBOT, it is coupled with months of reports from the Portland Police Bureau that show a concentration of warnings and citations happening around Pioneer Courthouse Square, and two services for people on the streets: Portland Rescue Mission and Transition Projects Inc.

Under the proposed guidelines, PBOT would have the authority to change the sidewalk designations for sitting and lying down without going before council.

Of the $90,000 price tag, approximately $22,000 is for signage and the rest for monitoring. The signs drew their own line of fire.

“This is one of the most boneheaded signs when you talk about enforcement of an ordinance that was framed from beginning to end to be respectful of people with disabilities.” Tricia Knoll, a representative from the Human Rights Commission at the meeting.

Arwen Bird, also on the Human Rights Commission, uses a wheelchair, and was equally critical of the signage, saying that it was “emotionally painful to me to have read these signs.” Bird offered to work with PBOT to help develop more suitable language.

“Put the money toward places to sit and be dry,” said Knoll.

There was no consensus, much less approval, of the proposed guidelines or signage. It will be the focus of the next committee meeting.

Commissioner Fritz acknowledged the lack of support from the committee, and said that the money, which was allocated in the previous budget cycle, didn’t have to be spent. “We could put the money back, in essence,” Fritz said.

This is an initial proposal from PBOT, and Eisenhauer said that his bureau will wait until the committee comes back with a decision on the proposal before moving forward.

Bird has said repeatedly that the biggest obstacle for her isn’t people on sidewalks, but A-boards, signs and café settings – summertime’s “restaurant creep.”  In the past, enforcement by PBOT has been almost nonexistent because of a lack of resources. Eisenhauer said two years ago the bureau put in place a much higher-priced permit and fine system – $250 for citations — equal to a sidewalk ordinance violation, with the intention of applying that money toward enforcement. After going through a lengthy notification process, the bureau began issuing warnings last summer, however, there have been no citations given to businesses under the new ordinance, Eisenhauer said.

Sit-lie law moves along

By Joanne Zuhl, Staff Writer

Seven months into the enforcement of Portland’s Sidewalk Management Ordinance, there are no lawsuits festering in the wings, no major protests at City Hall, and little in terms of social discourse under the banner of civil rights violations. The absence is notable considering that this plan, which regulates sitting and lying on public sidewalks, was born of nearly a decade of sit-lie regulations drawing all of the above.

Unlike similar city efforts in the past, which essentially prohibited sitting or lying on sidewalks downtown wholesale, the complete sidewalk management plan includes an agenda of actions to alleviate sidewalk problems. It includes a regular, open forum called the Public Sidewalk Management Advisory Committee, with business representatives, community advocates, representatives of city commissioners, police, and anyone interested in attending. As both a watchdog and sounding board for the ordinance, the advisory committee meets monthly to discuss sidewalk management and the ordinance’s performance, under the oversight of Commissioner Amanda Fritz.

“As a participant and an advocate, I always thought the previous ones were unconstitutional because there wasn’t anywhere on downtown sidewalks where people could sit or lie if they didn’t have a place to go, and this ordinance expressly allows people to do that.”

So far, she says, it seems to be working.

“I’m getting far fewer angry messages from all sides,” Fritz says. Fritz says she still gets some messages from tourists who complain about panhandlers, and the local community understands the challenges and is “moving in the right direction,” but that they will always have to contend with more challenges and limited resources.