Street Roots  has some of the best photographers in the city. The newspaper is lucky to have an all volunteer, all-star tandem of  award winning shooters, like Leah Nash, Ken Hawkins, John Ryan Brubaker, and Elizabeth Schwartz. They have dedicated their knowledge, skills and compassion to accompany some of the most hard hitting news stories in the city this year. Here, we look at some of the best shots of 2009, in no particular order. Enjoy.

Mult. County Commissioner Ted Wheeler talks with Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl in July about Urban Renewal Areas in an article titled Balancing Act. Photo by Leah Nash.

Street Roots highlights African immigrants who face cultural isolation in Portland. Mara Grunbaum reports. In this photo a family from Somalia pray together. Photo by Ken Hawkins.

Street Roots writes an in-depth piece on the return of heroin on Portland’s streets in Return of the Dragon. Here a 27-year old man shoots heroin near I-5 in SW Portland. Amanda Waldroupe reports. Photo by Ken Hawkins.

The Cambodian community talks with SR about a troubled past, while looking towards the future in Bitter Blood. Mara Grunbaum reports. Photo by Ken Hawkins.

Melissa Walsh, Street Roots vendor has a breakdown with a local service worker. This photo was one of a series shot of her and her partner, who were struggling with homelessness and have since found housing. It appears in the Nov. 11 edition of the paper in the story, “Look at me. I am not invisible.” Photo by Leah Nash.

Back to back news (The Letter, Perfect Storm) stories by Street Roots in June on the eviction of 300 families in NW Oregon stretched from the desks of Congress Rep Maxine Waters (CA.) to Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon to local and national HUD offices. The result of the news stories and a Oregon based campaign led by SR to save the families was a success, and showed the power of grassroots media at its best. Here a woman, a wife and mother of two, holds an eviction letter. Joanne Zuhl reports. Photo by Ken Hawkins.

In 2009, SR highlighted both the struggles and successes of minority Community Development Corporations working for affordable housing in the region. Here is Maxine Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives Inc. Photo by Leah Nash.

Street Roots has covered the wave of attacks against women and sex workers throughout 2009 (See this edition). Above are three women who have faced the brutality of the streets. Rebecca Robinson and Amanda Waldroupe have been following the attacks. Photo by Ken Hawkins.

The Circus Project works with youth in North Portland. Photo by John Ryan Brubaker.

Thanks to all of our reporters and photographers in 2009. You rock. And thank you to readers for supporting your neighborhood vendor and reading the newspaper.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Or not! But it’s still a great time to tip your hat to your local vendor and buy the latest Street Roots, which arrives early this week on Christmas Eve, tomorrow morning. Here’s what’s packing the pages this week:

“I feel like a target”: That’s the sentiment of one homeless woman who is struggling to get by this winter just as another rash of attacks are reported among women on the streets. Amanda Waldroupe has the news, along with Julie McCurdy’s streets-eye view of how women experiencing homelessness are standing together in defense of the latest violence.

Two veterans work together to transcend homelessness: A story of two men — one homeless, one not — but both living with post-traumatic stress disorder and committed to helping other vets as they transition home. Joanne Zuhl reports

A simple act of life-altering kindness: Cassandra Koslen reports on the story of some remarkable Street Roots readers who supported a vendor in his effort to find a home. (Congratulations, Joe!)

Living in a state of denial: An interview with New Yorker writer and author Michael Specter about his new book titled “Denialism.” It’s more than just an attitude. Much, much more.

Plus, the year in quotes, commentaries, and really indispensable insight from Soup Can Sam. So don’t forget the most important item on your list! Happy Holidays!

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama

On Nov. 4, 2008, an unprecedented number of US citizens cast their ballots for one candidate. This was not like the previous election, which took place in the shadows of the “War on Terror.” Our people did not vote for temerity; they did not vote for a continuation of the policies of an incumbent who that same year had received the lowest approval rating ever recorded. They voted for change.

Our new president took office on Jan. 20. We learned in short order that change was not just a promise: it could come very quickly indeed: More than $700 billion in taxpayer money went to bail out corporations because a financial crisis was imminent and the response was immediate. But what about the tens of millions of us in human crisis? $1.5 billion in homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing funds. A fifth of a percent of what went to bank bail-outs. Our change is still rattling around in the bottoms of our cups.

Nearly 40 million people now live below the poverty live — 43 percent of them in “deep” poverty — a 26-year-high unemployment rate, 46.3 million people without health insurance, and 49 million people who face food insecurity. Homelessness is up 12 percent in cities across the country.

At the same time, economic and social injustice are pushing people into homelessness through the loss of living wage jobs, health care crises, foreclosures, release from prisons without support to become self-sufficient, and the return of soldiers with serious physical and mental health problems from two wars.

More and more of us are being squeezed from both ends. If ever this country has seen a time in need of change, it’s now.

How Did We Get Here?

Beginning in 1978, the federal government so radically reduced its support for affordable housing that within five years emergency shelters were opening in cities nationwide. These cutbacks were and continue to be the primary cause of homelessness. Cuts to funding led to cuts in services — not only was the government failing to construct new units, but very quickly, existing housing became uninhabitable due to maintenance failures. From the 1990s on, the federal policy has actively demolished run-down public housing in the hopes of replacing it with more vibrant communities. But these programs have more frequently rebuilt fewer units than were destroyed, and usually subsidized costs by creating “mixed-income” developments — that is, they replace the majority of low-income apartments or rooms with less affordable equivalents, raising the income bar necessary to access this housing, and pushing the poorest of us out.

Local governments quickly found that they didn’t have the funds to sustain the “new Federalism” that relieved the federal government of the fiscal burden of social-service programs by shifting the tab to states and municipalities. There was no way that even the country’s largest cities could afford public housing the way that Washington had been able to. Stuck without real solutions for the burgeoning homelessness that was quickly becoming one of the country’s biggest social problems, local politicians across the states took the time-honored tack of blaming the victim. Throughout the ’80s, new anti-homeless legislation was passed and old anti-vagrancy laws were resuscitated by local police departments.

The use of criminalization rather than housing continues to be one of the primary solutions that local governments use for the housing crisis today. From Seattle to San Diego, local governments have enacted laws against sleeping outside and panhandling. In the Bay Area, over a score of private organizations have sprung up to privatize public space and to keep homeless people out (“Business Improvement Districts” or “Community Benefits Districts”), while San Francisco has created a new court which segregates homeless defendants from the mainstream court process and denies them full access to defense representation. In Berkeley, new laws attempt to push homeless people out of public space. In Portland, months of organizing were required to see the end of an unconstitutional law that prohibited homeless people from resting in public spaces. The Los Angeles Police Department has spent literally millions of dollars to crack down on jaywalking and sleeping in the low-income Skid Row neighborhood — far more than is spent on shelter or other services for the same population. The situation became so brutal that Los Angeles community organizations requested a Department of Justice investigation of policing tactics. These draconian anti-poor measures are all rooted in the twisted belief that the victims of the housing crisis are somehow responsible for the offense their existence apparently causes to the aesthetics of those who have the ears of local legislators and mayors.

This myth of individual personal issues as a major cause of homelessness is severely misleading. Yet, it has misdirected the miniscule funding that our federal government now allocates to homelessness away from urgently-needed housing construction and allocated it to the creation of a massive service-focused shelter system, mandated service provider “coordination and collaboration,” mixed-use developments that often do not target the truly low-income families and individuals, and myriad federally mandated plans to end homelessness.

To move people into housing quickly, a large quantity of new affordable housing is needed and existing housing need to be maintained. If housing construction from the ’60s and ’70s had continued into the ’80s, we never would have seen the ongoing and massive homelessness of the ’90s and this decade.

Assisting homeless people to address whatever particular personal challenges they may face is an appropriate task for social workers and health care professionals. But our federal and state policy-makers have an obligation to fix the social and structural conditions that have given rise — and continue to give rise — to mass homelessness. Affordable housing is the No. one most important solution to ending homelessness.

Divide and Founder

The obvious necessity of this solution is obscured by the ways that policy-makers continue to divide and subdivide homeless people: We now have programs for “chronically homeless” people, for homeless families, for homeless school children, for homeless youth, for homeless domestic violence survivors, for homeless veterans and on and on and on. This intellectual culture of division has led to some truly horrifying segregationist policies. As mentioned above, San Francisco is sending homeless defendants to a separate court. Many school districts are pushing homeless students into separate schools from their housed peers. And those of us whose West Coast economies depend on for labor, but whom governmental funders consider not “American” enough for assistance, are frequently denied access to social services because of their immigration status. Each time we break people apart by irrelevant personal characteristics, it clouds our ability to recognize the common denominator shared by all: the inability to afford housing.

Social-justice community organizers and service providers have recognized for years that the perpetuation of homelessness in America relies on an approach that:

(1) Regards homelessness as separate apolitical crises, and so keeps us stuck in isolated defensive stances, never moving forward;

(2) Engages in standard forms of inside the beltway advocacy, emphasizing narrowly professionalized forms of expertise, completely missing the winning strategy: building mass power;

(3) Helps marginalize civil rights work as a “leftist” distraction, and turns a blind eye to (and tacitly supports) oppression.

Organizing around issues and taking the time and effort to build relationships that cross class, race, and religion — relationships that value our mutual humanity, life experience, and self-interest: this is the true definition of what it means to build a movement. And a movement is what we need if we want to see real change that stands a chance of ending homelessness.

A Change Is Going to Come

The only way to effect real system change is to maintain unity and focus on both specific immediate and broader long-term goals: We, as a people, need more affordable housing. We need health care for all. We need quality education and living-wage jobs. We need our government to protect our civil rights. This is the movement we are trying to build.

To kick off that movement, the West Coast grassroots members of the Western Regional Advocacy Project are converging in San Francisco on Jan. 20, the one-year anniversary of the inauguration of our vote for change.

Our Demands, On Housing:

— Immediately restore all Federal affordable housing program funding to comparable 1978 allocation levels — with an emphasis on HUD’s Public Housing and Project-based Section 8, USDA new unit construction, and the National Housing Trust Fund program.

— Enact a moratorium on the demolition, conversion, or destruction of any publicly funded units until Federal law guarantees one-for-one replacement at existing affordability rates.

— Ensure adequate funding for operations of public housing to prevent unit loss, high vacancy rates, and substandard living conditions.

On Civil Rights:

— Stop police and business improvement zone programs that enforce “nuisance” or “quality of life” crimes. These programs criminalize and remove homeless people, poor people, people of color, and disabled members of our communities.

— Call for the Department of Justice to respond to the Los Angeles community request for investigation of discriminatory police enforcement under the Safer Cities Initiative that targets low-income and vulnerable community residents.

— Ensure that the more than one million homeless children in our public schools are able to stay at their “home schools,”— the schools they attended prior to homelessness, are fully integrated with their housed peers, and are provided the support they need to learn and thrive.

— Stop any and all questions regarding a person’s immigration status when they are requesting housing, healthcare, emergency shelter or services.

By the Western Regional Advocacy Project

Sign the petition in support!

To join and get more information, contact the Western Regional Advocacy Project at 415-621-2533 or by e-mail at wrap@wraphome.org. More information is available at www.wraphome.org

On a blistering cold December morning last Monday, 20 Latino people—all men, except for one woman—are sitting inside the non-descript mobile home that serves as Portland’s Day Labor Center. The sounds of people speaking Spanish quietly fills  the room. One small space heater, as well as the warmth from the people, go a long way to keep the room, with a concrete floor and high ceiling, warm.

A small group of men are playing cards, slapping down the cards with gusto and laughing at jokes. The woman is leaning her head against her partner’s shoulder. Others are just sitting and waiting.

What they are waiting for is work. Many of the laborers using the Day Labor Center, which is operated by VOZ, a nonprofit advocating for day-laborers and immigrants, may wait days before an employer drives up to the center and their raffle number is picked.

And with Portland’s unemployment numbers well above the national average, more and more laborers are having to wait longer and longer before getting work.

“As soon as this economy went down, the work went down,” says Francisco Aguirre, a coordinator at the Day Labor Center.

“Like today,” says Javier, a 36-year old laborer. He did not give his last name. “Nobody showed up and we’re still waiting for somebody.”

What seems like a growing inability on the part of the Day Labor Center to attract employers is calling into question whether the center is fulfilling its mission. Business owners, police, and neighborhood advocates alike are frustrated and concerned by the continuing presence of laborers on street corners, a practice the center was supposed to end.

“It’s a situation we’re all trying to deal with and figure out, but a solution doesn’t seem to be imminent,” says Terry Taylor, the president of the Central Eastside Industrial Council.

Bob Wentworth, the co-owner of Wentworth Subaru which is located blocks from the Day Labor Center on MLK Jr. Blvd., says that having laborers stand on the corner outside of his business has been “an ongoing problem for 10 years,” and has “affected” his business.

“When you have a large gathering of men standing on the corner, it can be intimidating,” he says.

“We were hoping (when the center began) that everybody would go there …(and) keep people from going to the street corners,” says Taylor.

Javier, who has been going to the center for the last 6 months, says that he never stands out on the street corners.

“I don’t like to run behind cars,” Javier explains, saying that many employers do not stop their cars for a laborer on the street, forcing them to run to get inside.

He says what it all comes down to for someone waiting at a corner is simply wanting a job.

“They stay here and then they go there…to see if they have a chance over there,” says Aguirre.

“Sometimes they get a job there, but sometimes they come to the center to get a job,” Javier says.

(This reporter attempted to get the perspective of laborers who choose to stand on the street and not use the Center, but when I approached a group of men on the corner of MLK Jr. Blvd. and I-84 for this article, they refused to be interviewed unless they were paid $100.)

Mike Reese, the commander of the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct, says the police are concerned about drug dealing among groups of laborers on street corners, particularly heroin dealing. Reese notes that it is not necessarily laborers who are dealing or buying heroin, but people intermixed with the group.

Reese says that the police got involved with issues surrounding the Day Labor Center after the area surrounding the center became incorporated into Central Precinct, which took place in July.

“The police that were in Central Precinct wanted to become more familiar with the Day Labor Center. That’s why there became this resurgence of interest,” says Megan O’Keefe, the board president of the Kerns Neighborhood Association, where the center is located.

Meetings between the Day Labor Center, business owners, police and other constituents have begun in the past few months to find a solution and lessen the impact of laborers waiting on street corners. But Havilah Ferschweiler, a crime prevention specialist at the city’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement, says “there’s not a quick fix to this.”

No one can force the workers on the street corner to go to the center, says Ferschweiler, who adds that whatever the solution is, it will be a collaborative effort, not something punitive or enforced with the center unwilling.

“How do we, as a community, help make the Day Labor Center as successful as possible so that people want to go there? That’s where the conversation is going,” Ferschweiler says.

Sosa says that since the center opened in 2008, 10 people have found permanent jobs through using the center. An average of 60 to 120 laborers come to the center every day. In the past year, 3,500 jobs have been created through the center, and Sosa says that between 15 and 42 jobs come in every day.

The center also offers a number of services to laborers waiting for work, such as English classes and workshops in safe workplace practices. Javier says that is something he likes about the Center. “(If I don’t get work), I stay here and learn some English,” Javier says.

Aguirre says that the center has not turned into a de facto community center with the lack of work, and does not agree that the focus of the center is shifting because of the recession.

“We are focusing on work, not on any other stuff,” Aguirre says. “We don’t want this place to be like the mission. We want this to be a worker center.”

One of the possible outcomes of the meetings may be changing the Good Neighbor Agreement with the Day Labor Center. Ferschweiler says the part of the agreement that is in question are the boundaries of the center’s “impact area,” an area where the center is responsible for engaging workers on the corner and getting them to use the center.

Currently, the borders of that area are I-84, East Burnside Avenue, Second Avenue, and Sixth Avenue. Fershweiler says the hope in broadening the area would be to increase the Center’s ability to engage more workers.

Sosa admits that more needs to be done to attract employers, and says that is the main focus for the center in the next year. However, he did not offer any concrete ideas or plans about how that was going to happen. Currently, workers post fliers around the neighborhood, and the center frequently uses Craigslist to advertise.

“Well, hopefully they can find more employers for the people looking for work,” says Wentworth.

“I think that they are trying to do as much as they can,” Taylor says. “(But) one way or another, they are going to have start educating employers about what the situation is.”

Sosa says that three times a week, the center sends outreach workers out to street corners to talk to workers and convince them to come to the center. “We are trying to reach out to new people at the corners,” he says.

If the center increases the number of employers, Aguirre says the results would be starkly different than the current situation. “All of the day laborers will be here,” he says.

But, he says, community members and business owners cannot view the center as a catch-all organization for employing day laborers

“This place is another option,” Aguirre says. “It is not the solution.”

At this point, Ferschweiler says it has not been decided that amending the Good Neighbor Agreement is the correct path to take. Another meeting between stakeholders is scheduled for Jan. 11. At that point, she says, amending the agreement may seem like the best option.

“We hope to have a good neighbor agreement that allows us to have ongoing conversations about it,” Reese says. (Beginning Dec. 10, Reese will no longer be Central Precinct’s commander, but East Precinct’s. That means Reese will not be in charge of any enforcement strategies regarding the Day Labor Center).

“It’s not a done deal,” Ferschweiler says.

By Amanda Waldroupe, Staff Writer

In the cavernous meeting hall of the Governor Hotel, as 200 people dined at the REACH Community Development Corporation’s annual donor luncheon, Nick Fish was seated off in a corner at the table with members of the newly created Portland Housing Bureau. But when the lights dimmed, Fish was front and center for the show. In fact, at just a few feet away, no one was closer to the giant screen that projected the stark realities of Portland’s housing and homeless crisis.

The grim barrage reflected on his face: 1 in 2 Oregonians live on incomes 200 percent below the federal poverty line for a family of four – $42,400

1 in 4 Oregonians spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent.

64 percent of Portland residents living in poverty work full time.

41 percent of Portlanders living in poverty were single mothers

20,000 new affordable housing units are needed in Portland over the next 7 years.

Nick Fish was the man Portland elected to help change all this, or at least help to correct the economic inequality that, over the course of the past decade, has priced much of Portland’s housing beyond a commoner’s reach, and made it the hub of a state that recently led the nation, per capita, for homelessness, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This was the job he wanted — the job he fought for — several times since 2002, when he first ran for City Council. After two unsuccessful runs, he succeeded in the special election of 2008, filling the position left vacant in June of that year by Erik Sten’s resignation. As Portland’s first commissioner to have combined control over housing and parks, Fish oversees two bureaus that impact nearly every resident of the city, particularly its most vulnerable populations as they interface with business, neighborhood and development concerns.

But just as he got his ticket to the ball, the carriage turned to a pumpkin. Not only did the economy nosedive into the biggest recession in recent history, evaporating local resources and nationwide housing investments, but City Hall soon erupted in a salacious scandal involving Mayor Sam Adams and a teenage intern.

Meanwhile, quietly across the city, people were losing their jobs and their homes, foreclosures hit a staggering pace, and homelessness jumped 37 percent across the state over the previous year.

“Who would have thought, a year and a half ago, after City Council got through dividing up a surplus, that not only would we be in the worst economic downturn of our lifetime, but that the engine room — the precipitating effect of this recession — was a collapse in the housing market. So not only am I in charge of housing, but housing is essentially the place with the three-alarm fire, and I’m in charge of leading a city/county collaborative effort to try and address this unfolding humanitarian crisis.”

“Welcome to City Hall,” he says, with a fitting amount of sarcasm.

It was a likely destination. Public service is a presumed birthright of the Fish family, dating back — at least on U.S. soil — to the Revolutionary War and spanning four generations of U.S congressmen from New York – all named Hamilton Fish. His grandfather was an ultra-conservative Republican who opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. His father was a more moderate Republican congressman who served from 1968 to 1994, during which his son Nick, fresh from Harvard in the early 1980s, became a legislative aide in the anything-but-conservative office of Democrat Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

Fish’s father, who died in 1996, (his mother died when he was a child) left an enduring legacy in his own right, leading the passage of fair-housing protections for families and people with disabilities. But working at sometimes opposing ends of the political spectrum made for a few uneasy situations between father and son, says Fish’s former boss and mentor.

“He was left of his father, who was somewhat moderate,” Barney Frank said. “I was impressed with how respectfully he disagreed with his father. His father was a good man. Nick was interested not to embarrass his father, and that was a potentially difficult situation.”

It was Frank — who came out to Portland to campaign for Fish during his 2008 run — from whom Fish says he learned one of the most important lessons for a public servant: the balance between idealism and pragmatism.

“People who think they are opposites are screwed up,” Frank says. “You can start with an idealistic approach, but if you are not committed to implement your ideals, all they do is make you feel good.  Ideals that are totally unrealized don’t help anybody.”

At a time when husbands following their wives’ careers was less fashionable, Fish left his legal business in New York and moved to Portland in 1996 after his wife, Patricia Schechter, took a position teaching history at Portland State University (The two have a 16-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son). In Portland, Fish resumed his work as a civil rights and labor attorney and even hosted a local public-affairs show on Channel 30. He also immersed himself in the city’s public and supportive housing world by joining the board of the Housing Authority of Portland.

Fish’s campaign history has been well chronicled in a city that watched him run three times for City Council. He lost in 2002 to Randy Leonard, and then again in 2004 against Sam Adams in a race he was presumed to win after a victory in the primaries – an unforgivable error in the eyes of donors, Fish says. Personally, financially and for his family, the race had “not been very productive,” he says. “They were brutal. I saw the best and the worst of the process, to say the least.”

Fish was a candidate who unwittingly aligned the advocacy community — skeptical of his ambition and business backing — opposite the business community — which sought to move away from Erik Sten’s liberal shop that consistently supported Fish’s opponent. He was the candidate who some thought wore the suit perfectly and others thought wore it too well.

“(Erik Sten) has had a candidate in three of my races. I get that,” Fish says. “I’m now the housing guy, and over the cycle of three races, he had someone else he wanted to put either into government or as his successor. That’s not the most ideal situation for someone who wants to follow in Gretchen (Kafoury, a former city commissioner) and Erik’s footsteps. But it’s fair game. When you’re a public person, people get to question your motives. They get to question and assess who you are. They get to be critics, and that’s a wonderful thing. I think, though, that where people are begrudgingly coming around is they’re seeing a body of work that’s very serious. And we’ve done some things that I think people didn’t think were going to happen, and I’d rather be judged on that than whether someone wants to put me on a couch and psychoanalyze me.”

Unlike Sten, Fish is no media darling, nor does he aspire to be, and that’s in part a product of his 20-plus years as an attorney emphasizing discretion and keeping clients out of the spotlight. (His pivotal case came in representing an African-American health care worker fired in retaliation for opposing unlawful HIV discrimination. He won the case, which he says taught him that “progress in civil rights is made through constant struggle.”)

And then there was the media circus around the mayor’s scandal that enveloped City Hall from the start of the year. The environment became corrosive, he says.

“I have some friends in the media who say, ‘Nick, you seem more controlled.’ And actually that’s true. I have become very alarmed about our inability to have a civil discussion about just about anything. … There’s a deep distrust of government, people often feel very powerless. There is a tendency of people to vent anonymously. That is what blogging has brought us; anonymous — not always very constructive — commentary.

“And I have made a conscious decision that I don’t want to fuel that. And I think that I am more measured, more disciplined, but my general view is, unless it moves the ball on something I care about, I’m not going to be the commentator on the sidelines adding fuel to the fire. As a lawyer, yes, I’ve had a lot of training to discipline myself, because I think my natural tendency is to be less careful. To the extent that some would think that being thoughtful and judicious in what you do somehow appears calculating, if there are people who believe that, my guess is they’ve been skeptical about me for other reasons, and that’s icing on the cake.”

Regardless of any reticence he may have with the press, Fish has, with a much lower profile, pushed for greater transparency in city government. He supported the first-ever audit of how the city uses tax abatements (which revealed a lack of oversight in several cases), and initiated the first-ever annual reporting on limited tax exemption programs, in addition to revamping and detailing the city’s annual reports on how urban renewal districts are spending the 30 percent set-aside for affordable housing. Fellow City Commissioner Amanda Fritz says she got to know Fish during the 2008 primary campaign and was impressed with his knowledge and passion about Portland issues.

“There have been a few times I’ve disagreed and hoped he’d vote differently,” Fritz said. “But Commissioner Fish does his research of the issues to make well-reasoned decisions from his point of view.”

Given the city’s economic straits, the 2009 budget process was foreseen by those at City Hall as an unavoidable bloodbath. Bureaus were told to say goodbye to one-time funding in addition to cutting 5 percent out of their budget. About 25 percent of the housing budget – for the city’s most vulnerable families and children, shelters, rent assistance and more – was one-time money, renewed year after year but never secured. The 10-year plan, the template for the city’s homeless and housing initiatives, was unsustainable.

“What changed when Erik left was that for a number of years, this body was governed by a group of three people who had three votes to do whatever they wanted. Adams, Leonard and Sten in fact wrote the last two budgets. They actually took that responsibility away from Mayor (Tom) Potter. And when you have additional money — there was a surplus — and when you have three people running something, there was naturally a level of deference. People deferred to Erik on housing.

“I had the great joy of coming in and all of sudden there’s no surplus, there’s a deficit. There’s a completely new dynamic on the council, and the budget note said, ‘Prove to us why we should continue to invest in the housing bureau’.”

The planned cuts would have been the end of the housing bureau as the city knew it, Fish says.

“It was the death knell for the 10-year plan to end homelessness and it would have been devastating at a time when the need was going to balloon.”

Instead, the freshman councilman, with the help of former U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick and others (bolstered by a community-driven campaign led by Oregon On, Street Roots and other advocates) drafted a financial blueprint that compelled City Council to not only convert one-time money into ongoing funds for the bureau, but also to secure a 30 percent increase on its base budget. Fish says it was the first time that the council was ever presented a document that laid out in clear, in data and in narrative, how Portland funds housing.

“I think the reason we succeeded was that the council concluded ultimately that we were in this together, and they had confidence in the data presented. And that, I think, was a sea change,” Fish says.

Fish calls it a story “of how the housing community came together and supported a rookie commissioner and overachieved during the worst economy of our lifetime.”

Last year at this time, Fish began work on a campaign promise to streamline the city’s housing development engine, creating the Portland Housing Bureau out of the combined housing arms of the Portland Development Commission and the Bureau of Housing and Community Development. Margaret Van Vliet was named director. This bureau houses the city’s arsenal for addressing homelessness and the shortage of affordable housing, including the city’s 10-year plan to end homelessness and the 30 percent set-aside collected through tax increment financing. It also draws funding from the Housing Opportunity Bond of 2006, and the newly created statewide document recording fee that dedicates funding toward affordable housing.

Over the next five years, the Portland Housing Bureau plans to spend $300 million for housing.

The bureau has four major projects in the works; three low-income housing complexes and the Resource Access Center for homeless and housing services. Over the course of the next 18 months, these projects will add 500 units of housing to the city’s inventory. The city also has a strategy to preserve 11 expiring-use properties in the downtown corridor for affordable housing. But the market for developing affordable housing remains depressed, with tax credits – the single major funding source for affordable housing projects – reduced to a fraction of their value, and lenders reluctant to bankroll new projects.

“The entire financing system for housing generally, and especially affordable housing, collapsed, and we’ve cobbled together a series of developments for housing at a time when no one else is able to build housing.”

The creation of the Portland Housing Bureau was the first priority in streamlining the region’s housing services. Fish is now working with County Commissioner Deborah Kafoury on breaking down the silos between county and city homeless programs.

“That’s the next Berlin Wall,” Fish says. “They’ve got families and children. We’ve got adults. And the public couldn’t care less. We are going to reconstitute the service continuum, city and county, into one continuous service.”

If the idealist in Fish takes a personal responsibility to lead the charge to end homelessness, it is the pragmatist in Fish that admits that for all the work in progress, the notion of ending homelessness any time soon is misleading.

“If the economy continues in this way, it’s going to make it even harder, because for all of our positive work, we keep seeing an increase in the number of people needing our services,” Fish said. “I think we probably are misleading people if we say that we will be ending homelessness any time soon. We’ll make a helluva dent. And we will build the infrastructure to provide a decent place to live and services. … We’re not going to end homelessness in my tenure.”

Looming before all of these efforts is the so-called TIF cliff – the point where revenues from the tax increment financing structure, and its 30 percent dedicated for affordable housing, take a dive.

“In about four years, the revenue source from the 30 percent begins to decline precipitously. By the fifth year, it is substantially contracted. Which means some money for four years, but there’s going to be a game changer in about five. It’s built into projections, and it’s got the whole community nervous.”

There are rumblings of putting a housing levy or a bond measure on the 2010 ballot, but Fish says there are limitations to either one generating real resources under the state’s current tax structure. He says the Portland Housing Bureau will be convening a group in 2010 to review all housing revenue options ahead.

In the meantime, simply preserving that 30 percent for housing has become a challenge of its own. The set-aside — 30 percent of funds collected from tax increments in the city’s nine urban renewal districts — has produced a revenue stream coveted as much for low-income housing (for which it was intended), as for higher priced developments and even a baseball stadium (for which it was not).

“I found it somewhat alarming that in the middle of a debate about baseball and soccer, to which I was quite indifferent, someone suggested that we take all the money out of the Lents Urban Renewal District — every penny for housing, plus all the money for economic development and infrastructure — and put it into a baseball stadium. And I think there might have been three votes on council to do that. And worse, it was suggested that the housing dollars would be placed on a credit card in a district to be formed in the future, to make up for the lost money. To me, if that had happened, we might as well write the obituary for 30 percent set aside. Because if you can do that, than to me, it is essentially an accounting gimmick.”

There are some communities in this city that would like it to change the mix on how we spend the dollars, but the city has to do a better job of telling its story, he says.

“Partly, it’s the use of the term of affordable housing, which has now become meaningless. We have to go to people and say forget about the rhetoric and the language, forget about the ideological wars. Who do we want to house in this community? If you put it in terms of who and the need, it’s an easier sell. But that’s going to be my responsibility. To defend the 30 percent set-aside. To provide accountability in terms of how the dollars are being spend, and ultimately to find an additional source of revenue in about four years.”

On a typical night in Portland, about 1,600 people sleep outdoors for lack of housing and shelter. Five years into the 10-year plan, there are more people on the streets of Portland than when the plan was launched, according to the latest city auditor’s performance report. By the end of 2008, the numbers were up 33 percent. At the end of 2008, the city conducted a vulnerability survey of people experiencing homelessness. The results showed that more than one-third of those surveyed had a combination of psychiatric issues, substance abuse and a chronic medical condition, placing them at a high likelihood of death if they remained on the streets.

Which is why some advocates are clamoring for more shelter space, and subsequently butting heads against others who want funding to stay invested in the more long-term, permanent supportive housing. There is also a faction, from on and off the streets, that wants the city to ease its anti-camping laws to allow more accessible and safer alternatives for people to survive when shelters are full. The city’s camping ordinance triggered a lawsuit challenging the city’s right to deny people shelter when city-sponsored shelter is full. Although Fish says he couldn’t comment on the specifics of negotiations surrounding the lawsuit, he did say he expected to unveil a new plan within a month, one developed with a group of advocates and housing bureau representatives.

“We don’t have adequate housing – that includes permanent units of housing plus shelter,” Fish says. “At the same time, we have almost 2,000 people sleeping outside, and we’re enforcing a law that says you can’t sleep outside. So, there is an inherent contradiction here, and it’s at the heart of the lawsuit going on with the city. And one of the theories advanced in the lawsuit is that under certain provisions of our constitution, you can’t enforce a prohibition against status. If you don’t have a place to sleep and you can’t camp, then you’re really saying you can’t ‘be’.”

Among the recommendations are changes in the law to allow a limited amount of camping at church sites, which has been tried in Eugene and elsewhere, and allowing people use of a tarp or a tent. Last winter, the city implemented a comprehensive emergency shelter and warming center plan to provide shelter for all those sleeping out in the case of extreme weather. Along with police, staff, outreach workers and volunteers, Fish was hands on during the December storm, helping facilitate the emergency response and get people into shelter.

“I understand that every dollar spent on shelter is diverted from permanent solutions. But I also understand that our community will not tolerate leaving people with no choice but to sleep on the streets. So we are going to continue to find humane and pragmatic solutions to these problems. And I recognize that around camping, no matter what I recommend, I can’t win this discussion. That no matter what I propose will be inadequate for the advocates and activists and will be outrageous and considered beyond the pale to some of the critics. And so be it, maybe that means I’ve found the sweet spot. But we’re going to try to get out in front of this issue and ultimately, on my watch, I don’t want anyone at risk of dying during inclement weather. And we’re going to have to adapt. I think the times require us to rethink some of our assumptions.”

On Nov. 20, Fish, Deborah Kafoury, Mayor Adams and others broke ground on the Resource Access Center, fulfilling a project that began conceptually under Erik Sten and the 10-year plan before getting mired in lawsuits about funding streams and site locations. The RAC, as it’s known, will provide a day center site with counseling, storage space, showers and voicemail boxes for people experiencing homelessness. Its housing levels will accommodate as many as 90 homeless men for shelter along with 130 permanent affordable housing units. It is a LEED platinum project, the highest “green” standard, and is expected to be completed in early 2011.

In the audience that groundbreaking day were businessmen, civic leaders, politicians, advocates and people who one day will use the RAC for their own needs. And while there was more than enough back-patting for everyone under that rain-soaked tent, the attention was focused on Fish.

He says he is the most fulfilled he’s ever been in his professional life. His wife says the job has made him more patient, and more optimistic.

“Am I satisfied? No,” Fish says. “The demand keeps growing and the supply doesn’t. And we don’t have any money. I can’t print it. So I’m not satisfied. And the day I’m satisfied, I should go back to practicing law.”

By Joanne Zuhl, Staff Writer

Photos by Ken Hawkins

Vendor Ted Jack on Saturday on the Eastbank Esplanade.  

Organizations throughout the Portland region have endorsed the Western Regional Advocacy Project gathering in San Francisco on Jan. 20 to demand affordable housing and civil rights from the Obama Administration.

It’s not to late for you or your group (non-profits, community organizations, businesses) to sign the petition in support.

The following groups have endorsed the Jan. 20^th action: Community Alliance of Tenants, White Feather Peace Community, Jobs With Justice, American Friends Service Committee of Portland, Downtown Chapel, Peace Voice, Northwest Pilot Projects, Rose CDC, Mental Health Association of Portland, Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Street Roots, Sisters Of The Road and Oregon On.

On January 20, 2010 the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) will be gathering in downtown San Francisco at the regional HUD offices to demand the following from the Obama  Administration:

ON HOUSING

•    Immediately restore the Federal Government’s affordable housing funding to comparable 1978 levels. (In 1978, the budget was over $83 billion – in 2009 it is a meager $38.5 billion.)

•    Restore USDA new unit construction levels in rural communities to the 31,000 annually averaged between 1976 and 1985.

•    Enact a moratorium on the demolition, conversion or destruction of ANY publicly funded units until federal law guarantees one for one replacement at existing affordability rates.

•    Ensure adequate funding for operations of public housing to prevent unit loss, high vacancy rates, and substandard living conditions.

ON CIVIL RIGHTS

•    Stop “nuisance crimes” or “quality of life crimes.” These programs criminalize and remove homeless, poor, people of color, and disabled members of our communities.

•    Call for DOJ to respond to LA community request for investigation of discriminatory police enforcement under the Safer Cities Initiative that targets homeless, poor, people of color and disabled community residents.

•    Ensure that the more than 914,000 homeless children in our public schools are able to stay at their “home school” are fully integrated with their housed peers, and are provided the support they need to learn and thrive.

•    Stop any and all questions regarding a person’s immigration status when they are requesting housing, health care, emergency shelter or services.

Read more and sign the petition!

Sisters Of The Road and Street Roots are founding members of the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP).  Our mission is to build a movement that is based in the experience of people with experience with homelessness to expose the root causes of homelessness; challenge unjust housing and economic development policies; and fight the criminalization of poverty.

With the help of folks like you SR has raised $20,000 of its $25,000 goal. We need you to help us get over the hump.

Here’s why you should support SR.

SR gives Portlanders hard-hitting journalism and unique insights, while giving 300 individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty a voice, immediate income and self-confidence and self-worth through working? Plus, nearly 100,000 Rose City Resource guides and thousands of relationships were built, reaching those in crisis in 2009.

We have reported on a myriad of complex issues facing our community, while bringing you insightful voices ranging from Rick Steves to Ted Wheeler. We’ve published hundreds of poems and street art, while highlighting the voices of new Portlanders, people experiencing mental health, police, addicts, sex workers, minority groups, politicians, attorneys, reporters, musicians, economists, and authors, all with a goal of making the world we live, a world with a little bit more dignity.

We led campaigns to save 300 families from being kicked to the curb in NW Oregon through investigative journalism and activism, help support securing millions of dollars in the city budget for housing and homelessness, and have now put a housing levy conversation in motion on the main stage.

What makes this story unique is not all of the things we have accomplished in 2009, but the fact that it was done on less than 200k and led by more than 300 vendors over the course of the year, three and half staff and a small army of volunteers. We don’t think that’s to shabby. We hope you agree.

Your donation this year will not only go towards helping individuals improve their quality of life, but moving the region forward on important conversations taking place on street corners in front of businesses, in the halls of power, and in living rooms and camps all across the Portland region.

It’s your readership that makes it all possible. We ask for your support.

You can also give through the Willamette Week Give! Guide and get some great incentives in return.

Israel Bayer, Street Roots

From the Dec. 13 edition.

Nick Licata is a Seattle City Councilman, and one of Seattle’s champions for affordable housing and civil rights for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. He’s been a Seattle Council member for 12 years. In 2010, he is poised to be the Council Chair for the Housing, Human Services, Health, and Culture Committee for the City of Seattle.

Licata’s work on the homeless front has helped shape the attitude the general public in Seattle has toward low-income residents and people sleeping on the streets — to the point of overwhelmingly renewing a housing levy this April (63 percent) that brought a wealth of resources to the city government for affordable housing and homelessness. Over the course of a little more than a year, a team of foundations, businesses, non-profits and individuals raised nearly $350,000 for the housing levy. The return was $147 million over seven years. (See Push for housing levy coming from the grassroots, Street Roots Nov. 27).

We recently asked Nick how it’s done.

Nick Licata: There is a great deal of energy needed to begin a planning process about a year before the levy is put on the ballot. The city government must be involved and must play a major role in bringing various members of Seattle’s communities together to discuss the possibility of pursuing a levy. The process takes on the following steps:

The effort to create an affordable housing levy usually begins with a city department beginning the plan for such an effort. For instance, the Office of Housing began planning for a housing levy renewal in 2008. The planning process included work by a technical advisory committee and a steering committee, as well as a public open house to discuss proposed Seattle housing levy programs and previous levy successes, as well as current and future housing needs in Seattle.

The Steering Committee was convened by the Seattle Office of Housing to review the proposed 2009 Seattle Housing Levy packages and make a recommendation to the mayor. The committee was co-chaired by former mayors Norm Rice and Charles Royer and composed of representatives from local non-profit housing developers, banks and lenders, unions, attorneys, philanthropy and businesses.

The Office of Housing also created a Technical Advisory Committee to provide advice and feedback to the Office of Housing regarding options for funding programs in the 2009 Housing Levy. The committee was a diverse group consisting of nonprofit and for profit housing developers, lenders, service providers, and representatives of business, labor, environmental and philanthropic organizations. (They met four times between September and October 2008.)

Aside from these two committees, the Office of Housing also wanted to better understand Seattle residents’ overall attitudes about the importance of low-income housing assistance compared to other city priorities; perceptions of the benefits of low-income housing assistance to the wider community; and the impact of the current economic climate on attitudes about these programs and on residents’ willingness to continue funding them through a housing levy. In March 2009, EMC Research conducted a telephone survey of 800 Seattle residents.

I.B.: Do you think the recession affected the passing of this levy?

N.L.: No, I do not think that the recession affected the public’s willingness to support a property tax to build affordable housing for the needy. A poll taken to assess the public’s attitude toward having a renewal of the housing levy, revealed widespread support despite the recession. By a 49-point margin (24 percent to 73 percent) residents chose the statement: “In this economy, it’s more important now than ever to make sure we keep investing strongly in low-income housing programs and assistance” over “Times are really tough right now and we just can’t afford to spend as much on low-income housing programs as we could in the past.”

Only one in five residents agreed with the statement that “Seattle already spends enough to help low income residents” while 57 percent disagreed with this statement.

“Providing housing assistance to low income and homeless families” ranks fourth on a list of seven priorities for the City of Seattle (73 percent say it’s a high priority), above relieving traffic congestion, fighting global warming and reducing taxes.

Initially, nearly two thirds of residents say they believe the low-income housing levy should be continued. After hearing about the types of programs and services the levy funds, 83 percent say that the levy should be continued.

I.B.: Can you talk about the impacts of the housing levy for the Seattle community?

N.L.: The numbers speak for themselves. Close to 1,700 homes will be built through rental housing production or preservation of existing buildings with housing that will serve low- to moderate-income individuals and families, from seniors and disabled, to formerly homeless individuals and families who need supportive services. This is the largest focus of the housing levy. Because levy-funded housing provides affordable rents and services for at least 50 years, these units will serve thousands of individuals and families over the years.

In the area of rent assistance, the housing levy will help 3,025 low-income families and individuals at risk of homelessness who need help due to a family crisis such as job loss, illness, divorce or a death in the family. It is also used for “rapid rehousing” when families or individuals already have lost their homes.

The levy will also help 180 families purchase homes through a program to provide loans for low- to moderate-income first-time homebuyers. The deferred loans are repaid when the owner sells or refinances the home, and funds revolve to assist more buyers. Through financial counseling and conventional mortgages, the program ensures households don’t buy more than they can afford. Even in these tough economic times, there have been no foreclosures among families purchasing with levy loans.

By Israel Bayer, Staff writer

From the Dec. 13 edition.

Talks expected on potential of 2010 ballot proposal

Street Roots reported in last week’s “Housing advocates consider push for housing levy” that County Commissioner Deborah Kafoury expressed strong interest in seeing something similar to Seattle’s Housing Levy on the ballot in 2010.

In an hour-long interview with Street Roots last week, she did not back down.

Kafoury says she is still interested in actively pursuing putting a bond or levy that would generate revenue for affordable housing on the ballot in 2010.

And if advocates came to Kafoury asking to be the politician leading the charge for a bond of levy campaign, Kafoury said she would be interested in hearing what they had to say.

“I’d say let’s sit and talk,” Kafoury says.Michael Anderson, the executive director of the Oregon Opportunity Network, says that in the past week, Kafoury has contacted him to talk about a levy.

And Sam Chase, City Commissioner Nick Fish’s former chief of staff who is now doing contract work with the Portland Housing Bureau, has contacted Anderson as well. “He said what he wanted to talk about were ideas for a levy. We have been playing a very stupid, silly game of phone tag that is now on day six,” Anderson says.

Anderson says that the interest from politicians recently being shown is far different from even a month ago, when the issue seemed dead. “It seems like there is some exciting momentum (being built),” Anderson says.

Fish has said that he did not support putting a bond or levy for affordable housing on the ballot for another “three to five years.” He was unavailable to comment for this story, but Daniel Ledezma, his housing and homelessness policy adviser, says that has not changed.

“Commissioner Fish is very supportive of moving forward with a levy or bond,” Ledezma says. “(But) he is not willing to risk losing the opportunity unless we’re ensured of a successful outcome.”

That, Kafoury says, is an important part of the immediate discussion to have with advocates.

“I would have to look into the practicality of getting something passed,” Kafoury says. “The worst thing we could do is put something out there in haste and not have it pass.”

Realizing that the interest groups pushing for a parks levy — something Fish is working on as the commissioner in charge of the Parks Bureau — have worked on it for two years, Kafoury thinks that a housing levy or bond should not be excluded from this election cycle.

“Times change and we do need priorities,” she says. “I would prioritize housing our citizens, making sure that everyone has a decent, affordable place to live.”

Kafoury, however, said she hasn’t talked to Fish lately about a levy or bond. “We have been focusing on the emergency problems that are facing us right now. That’s what we talked about in the last week,” Kafoury says.

Securing shelter and emergency services throughout the winter for homeless individuals is, Kafoury says, the one thing that stops her from “jumping out there
110 percent” when it comes to starting a bond or levy campaign for affordable housing.

“Sometimes (immediate concerns) take priority over long-term thinking,” she says.

All sides agree that getting a levy or bond campaign off the ground will take a lot of work.

Securing financial support, polling, determining whether it should be a bond or levy, how much money to ask voters for, what specific projects will be funded, and whether it would be a county- or city-wide levy or bond are all things that would have to be hammered out before the actual campaign of persuading the public to vote in favor of it began.

Ledezma says that Fish “wants to make sure we move forward in a way that is thoughtful.”

“There would be some significant work to mobilize folks,” Anderson agrees.

Citing the successes the housing and homeless communities have had in recent years — such as securing the document recording fee, the 30 percent set-aside from tax increment financing districts, and preserving the Portland Housing Bureau’s budget year after year — Anderson doesn’t think getting a successful campaign started less than a year before voters go to the polls is impossible.

“We’ve shown that when we have a clear target, we can organize and do the work necessary to make policy changes happen,” Anderson says. “It seems with the emerging political leadership that the time to start organizing ourselves is now.”

“Housing advocates alone don’t have the political capital or the resources to make this happen,” Anderson says. “But if the interest from elected leaders and other community leaders is building, then it’s really up to the housing advocates to help capture that momentum.”

A levy would generate revenue through property taxes, collecting a certain amount of money per $1,000 of assessed property value (in the case of Seattle’s Housing Levy, 17 cents per $1,000 of assessed value is taxed, meaning that the owner of a $450,000 home contributes $79 a year to the levy).

A bond would raise revenue by borrowing against the future, essentially. Any revenue raised by a bond would have to be paid back by revenue that is generated through future taxes.

Bonds have limitations. One is that the money can be spent only on capital projects that are publicly owned entities, such as the Housing Authority of Portland, which would prohibit nonprofits and private developers from using the funds.

A levy would not have that limitation. The funds could be used by nonprofits and for-profit developers alike, and revenue could also go towards other services, such as rent assistance and land acquisition. However, because of Measures 5 and 50 in Oregon, which limit how much property can be taxed, levies are particularly hindered by compression.

In Oregon, properties can be taxed to a maximum of 10 percent per $1,000 of assessed value. If there are too many levies seeking revenue through property taxes, the amounts that those levies generate shrinks, or compresses.

“The compression issues around a levy concern me,” Anderson says. However, he points out, many other interest groups pursue levies — such as the children’s levy and the zoo levy that was passed in 2007.

With that in mind, Anderson prefers pursuing a levy because of the flexibility of the funds, and the ability to use those funds on top of other resources that Portland has at its disposal, such as the 30 percent
set-aside from tax increment financing and revenue from the state document recording fee.

“Just looking at the challenges that the TIF set-aside has had,” he says.  “We need other resource to augment the set-aside.”

“One of the things that gets me excited to see the interest of Commissioner Deborah Kafoury is that it is fair to say that, because of the growth and improvements within Portland, we’ve seen a 15-year trend where poor people have been priced out of the city again and again and again,” Anderson says. “It needs to be more than Portland. A county-wide levy is … an absolute necessary step.”

Ledezma did say that Fish will convene a meeting in early January with stakeholders in the housing community to discuss what resources exist for affordable housing, and which ones are needed, with, Ledezma says, “an eye towards action.”

When asked if Fish is categorically opposed to putting a bond or levy for affordable housing on the ballot in 2010, Ledezma would not rule it out. “That may be a recommendation (of the January meeting),” she says.

If there will be a campaign for an affordable-housing bond or levy, the last date to file and be on the 2010 ballot is Sept. 2.

By Amanda Waldroupe, Staff Writer

Editorial from the Dec. 13 edition

Street Roots has been around the block a time or two when it comes to cold weather in the Portland region. We’ve had vendors die in the cold and have stayed open around the clock for days, sometimes weeks at a time once the weather turns for the worse.

Five years ago, during one of the worst winter storms of the past decade, Portland’s homeless community and providers were thrown into chaos, after more than a week of freezing ice and snow that shut the city down. Nonprofits, churches and businesses throughout the city opened their doors 24-7, including Street Roots, to provide a safe and warm place for people sleeping out during the nightmare scenario.

Five years on, Portland has created one of the better emergency preparedness systems around. The former Bureau of Housing and Community Development, now known as the Portland Housing Bureau, and the Portland Office of Emergency Management, developed standard operating procedures and an incident command structure that works with nonprofits, city bureaus, businesses and volunteers. Much of this has come under the leadership of Nick Fish and his drive to make the system better.

In cold-weather situations, organizations and systems shift gears. Homeless providers and people sleeping out work double time to make sure response is adequate and that people on the streets have access to cold-weather gear and shelter. The group also works to educate the general community to know exactly what is available and how to help, ranging from donations all the way to volunteering at a warming center during cold spells.

On the front lines is the Red Cross, 211 info, and a range of outreach workers and homeless providers who are out and about engaging folks. The Red Cross runs a cold-weather center for adults and families, and 211 works long hours on the phones and coordinating information to connect people with essential services. A range of other organizations, including the faith-based community and individual efforts also play a role in the response. Everyone involved should be commended.

Saying that, more than 1,600 individuals sleep on our streets every night and thousands more experience homelessness during the course of the year. It’s a sad reality.

While it’s easy to feel good about the efforts of city officials when cold weather hits, it by no means lets them or larger government institutions off the hook. We need solutions, such as alternatives to criminalization and revenue streams dedicated to affordable housing.

Without these harm-reduction and long-term solutions, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Instead of solving homelessness over the course of 10 years or more, we’ll be left patting ourselves on the back because we respond to homelessness only when the weather turns cold. It’s a remarkable effort, but it’s still not good enough. We have a long way to go before we reach the mountaintop.

Winter has definitely arrived, if not officially, than at least in spirit. But in all kinds of weather you can find your local neighborhood vendor with the newest edition of Street Roots, out Friday morning. Check out the latest and greatest from the Roots:

Man of the hour: On his third run, Nick Fish got his seat on City Council as head of the city’s housing and homeless programs, just in time for the housing market to collapse, the economy to tank and the city’s coffers to run dry. Joanne Zuhl reports on what makes the commissioner tick and his approach to housing and public service.

Deborah Kafoury looks into leading the charge on housing levy: Amanda Waldroupe follows up on the housing levy conversations taking place, while Seattle City Councilman Nick Licata talks readers through exactly what it takes from A-Z to put a successful housing levy on the ballot.

Day Labor Center struggles with demand for work: Day labor workers are facing an uphill climb in Portland’s downed economy. Amanda Waldroupe reports.

Also, the Western Regional Advocacy Project reports on its upcoming mobilization taking place in San Francisco by housing and homeless advocates and their allies, and Leah Ingram delivers a report on Golden Harvest, a unique food cooperative in North Portland. And much, much more, including poetry, photos and letters from readers. Don’t forget your copy today, and pick up an extra for the in-laws coming to visit!

By Bob Flanagan
Street News Service

Bob Dylan has at various times revolutionized folk, rock, country and gospel music.  However, any Dylan fan who says he was not surprised that Bob released an album of traditional Christmas songs is pulling your leg.  “Christmas In The Heart” is another surprising move by an artist famous for surprises.  Yet when you hear Dylan’s direct and obviously sincere readings of “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Little Town Of Bethlehem,” and “The First Noel,” this unlikely exercise seems of a piece with the rest of Dylan’s work.

From the very first, this was an artist who made us look at the familiar with new eyes and ears. While some critics tie themselves into knots analyzing Dylan’s motives, it has usually turned out that Bob Dylan means exactly what he says. Featuring members of his touring band along with Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and Chess Records vet Phil Upchurch, “Christmas In The Heart” is Bob Dylan’s celebration of family, community, faith and shared memory. And a timely celebration it is. Recognizing the worldwide problem of hunger, Bob Dylan has donated all of his proceeds from the record, in perpetuity, to organizations around the world to help with hunger and homelessness.

We sat down to talk in the Waterfront Plaza Hotel in Oakland on a rainy, windy, October day.

Bill Flanagan: Is recording a Christmas album something you’ve had on your mind for a while?

Bob Dylan: Yeah, every so often it has crossed my mind. The idea was first brought to me by Walter Yetnikoff, back when he was president of Columbia Records.

B.F.: Did you take him seriously?

B.D.: Well, sure I took him seriously.

B.F.: But it didn’t happen. How come?

BD: He wasn’t specific. Besides, there was always a glut of records out around that time of year and I didn’t see how one by me could make any difference.

B.F.: What was Christmas like around your town when you were growing up?

B.D.: Well, you know, plenty of snow, jingle bells, Christmas carolers going from house to house, sleighs in the streets, town bells ringing, Nativity plays. That sort of thing.

B.F.: Your family was Jewish; as a kid did you ever feel left out of the Christmas excitement?

B.D.: No, not at all.

B.F.: Have you spent any Christmases overseas and been struck by how the holiday is celebrated in other countries?

B.D.:  I was in Mexico City once and they do a lot of re-enactment scenes of Joseph and Mary looking for a place to stay.

B.F.: Why do you think Christmas has better songs than other holidays?

B.D.: I don’t know. That’s a good question. Maybe because it’s so worldwide and everybody can relate to it in their own kind of way.

B.F.: Very often when contemporary artists do Christmas records, they look for a new angle. John Fahey did instrumental folk variations on holiday songs, Billy Idol did a rock ’n’ roll Christmas album, Phil Specter put the Wall of Sound around the Christmas tree and the Roches did kind of a kooky left-field collection. You played this right down the middle, doing classic holiday songs in traditional arrangements. Did you know going in you wanted to play it straight?

B.D.: Oh sure, there wasn’t any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too.

B.F.: There’s something new that happens when your voice goes up against the very smooth background singers and old-fashioned arrangements. It adds a new flavor to the mix. When you do “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” it sounds really forlorn, like you’re singing the song in jail and this is your one phone call. Do you ever approach singing a song like an actor?

B.D.: Not any more then Willie (Nelson) or Nat King Cole would. The songs don’t require much acting. They kind of play themselves.

B.F.: Do you try to go for different emotions on different takes?

B.D.: Not really. The emotions would pretty much be the same on any singular take. The inflections would maybe differ if we changed the key and sometimes that might affect the emotional resonance.

B.F.: When I hear your version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” it makes me think of a lonely fellow outside the church, looking through the window at the congregation, wishing he were in there. Did any of these songs surprise you when you heard them played back?

B.D.: No, they were pretty much the same going in as going out. You can already hear them in your head before you begin.

B.F.: Any Christmas songs you like but you did not think you could do?

B.D.: Not really. There were ones I didn’t want to do, but not any that I didn’t think I could do. The idea was to record the best known ones.

B.F.: “Christmas Blues” is an old Dean Martin song. What attracted you to that?

B.D.: It’s just a beautiful song.

B.F.: Stan Lynch once told me about you and him slipping out of a rehearsal with the Heartbreakers to go see Dean, Sinatra and Sammy Davis. What appealed to you about those guys?

B.D.: I don’t know, maybe the camaraderie. On the other hand, I wasn’t much into that whole scene actually – it left a lot of people out.

B.F.: “Must be Santa” is a real jumping polka. I never heard that song before. Where did you hear it?

B.D.: I first heard that song years ago on one of those “Sing Along with Mitch” records. But this version comes from a band called Brave Combo. Somebody sent their record to us for our radio show. They’re a regional band out of Texas that takes regular songs and changes the way you think about them. You oughta hear their version of “Hey Jude.”

B.F.: The way you do “Winter Wonderland” makes me think of Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers, the singing cowboys in the old movies. Even in John Wayne films, there’d always be a scene back at the fort where an Irish band was playing, or the Sons of the Pioneers were singing. Did you have a favorite cowboy singer as a kid?

B.D.: Yeah, Tex Ritter.

B.F.: What about Gene and Roy?

B.D.: Yeah, they were OK, but Tex Ritter was my favorite. He was way more heavy. There was more gravity to him.

B.F.: Have you heard “Christmas on Death Row,” the rap Christmas record?

B.D.: No I don’t think so.

B.F.: Do you listen to rap music?

B.D.: I don’t listen to rap radio stations and I don’t play rap songs on the jukebox, and I don’t go to rap shows – So no I guess I don’t listen to rap music all that much.

B.F.: What do you think of rap music?

B.D.: I love rhyming for rhyming sake. I think that’s an incredible art form.

B.F.: There’s a lonely quality in the way you do “Silver Bells.” You were a young man when you moved from Minnesota to New York City. Was Christmas very different in New York?

B.D.: Christmas was pretty much the same in New York, only more so.

B.F.: Did it make you homesick?

B.D.: Not really, I didn’t think about it that much. I didn’t bring the past with me when I came to New York. Nothing back there would play any part in where I was going.

B.F.: Hearing you sing “Adeste Fideles” reminds me of being an altar boy at Midnight Mass. The priests all had to lead the singing, and it didn’t matter if they were singers or not, they belted it out. Have you ever sung in a foreign language before?

B.D.: I’ve sung in French, Italian and Spanish. Over the years, Columbia has asked me to do records in those languages and I recorded stuff here and there. None of the tracks have been released, though. It’s hard deciding whether to do a translation of one of my own songs, or an original song in one of those languages — which I’m actually more partial to. I’ve always wanted to do some Edith Piaf songs.

B.F.: “La Vie En Rose?”

B.D.: Yeah. That one and a couple of others. “Sous Le Ciel De Paris,” “Pour Moi Tout Seule,” and maybe one or two more.

B.F.: What stopped you?

B.D.: Well, I can hear myself doing them in my head, but I’d need written arrangements to pull it off and I’m not sure who could do that.

B.F.: Which singers do you associate with Christmas?

B.D.: Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole. Doris Day.

B.F.: What about Bing Crosby?

B.D.: Sure, “White Christmas” was always a big song.

B.F.: Your song “Three Angels” always reminds me of the holidays. Did you ever sit down to write a Christmas song?

B.D.: I have never done that. It’s something to think about, though.

B.F.: You have grandchildren. What do you think they’ll make of this record? Did it occur to you making this record that years from now your grandchildren will play this album for their own kids?

B.D.: I don’t know what my grandchildren think of any of my records. I don’t know if they’ve even heard them. Maybe the older ones.

B.F.: You’re a lot more loyal to these melodies than you are to the melodies of the songs you’ve written. Do you figure these tunes can’t be messed with?

B.D.: If you want to get to the heart of them they can’t be. No.

B.F.: Your version of “The Christmas Song” is right in the pocket. You slide into that song like you’ve been singing it all your life. You also sing the intro (“All through the year we waited…”) which most people leave out. I don’t think Nat King Cole used that intro – why did you bring it back?

B.D.: Well, I figured the guy who wrote it put it in there deliberately. It definitely creates tension, predicts what you are about to hear.

B.F.: I think you did drop the “goodies” on the sleigh. Did something about that bother you?

B.D.: No not really. I don’t think I thought of it until you mentioned it. I try my best to be exact, but sometimes things just fall away. We probably recorded the song, got the feel right and moved on. Most likely we didn’t even listen back. Just moved on to something else. I don’t think that’s something I would have noticed anyway.

B.F.: You really give a heroic performance of “O’Little Town of Bethlehem” the way you do it reminds me a little of an Irish rebel song. There’s something almost defiant in the way you sing, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” I don’t want to put you on the spot, but you sure deliver that song like a true believer.

B.D.: Well, I am a true believer.

B.F.: You know, some people will think that Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album is meant to be ironic or a put-on. This sounds to me like one of the most sincere records you’ve ever made. Did anybody at your record company or management resist the idea?

B.D.: No, it was my record company who compelled me to do it.

B.F.: Why now?

B.D.: Well, it just came my way now, at this time. Actually, I don’t think I would have been experienced enough earlier anyway.

B.F.: Some critics don’t seem to know what to make of this record. Bloomberg news said, “Some of the songs sound ironic. Does he really mean have yourself a Merry Little Christmas?” Is there any ironic content in these songs?

B.D.: No not at all. Critics like that are on the outside looking in. They are definitely not fans or the audience that I play to. They would have no gut level understanding of me and my work, what I can and can’t do – the scope of it all. Even at this point in time they still don’t know what to make of me.

B.F.: Derek Barker in the Independent compared this record with the shock of you going electric. So many artists have released Christmas records, from Bing Crosby to Huey Piano Smith. Why is it a shock if you do it?

B.D.: You’ll have to ask them.

B.F.: The Chicago Tribune felt this record needed more irreverence. Doesn’t that miss the point?

B.D.: Well sure it does, that’s an irresponsible statement anyway. Isn’t there enough irreverence in the world? Who would need more? Especially at Christmas time.

B.F.: The profits from this album are going to buy Christmas dinners for folks who are having a hard time financially. When I heard that I thought of the Woody Guthrie song “Pretty Boy Floyd”  – “Here’s a Christmas dinner for the families on relief.”

BD: Exactly.  Pretty Boy Floyd. “Pretty Boy grabbed the log chain and the deputy grabbed his gun.” Did you ever notice how Pretty Boy Floyd looks exactly like Babe Ruth?

B.F.: Yeah, I have.

B.D.: Did you ever think it could be the same guy?

B.F.: Maybe they’re interchangeable?

B.D.: Yeah, in the real world Pretty Boy would be batting cleanup for the Yankees and Babe Ruth would be robbing banks.

B.F.: Yeah, and they’re both legends.

B.D.: Right.

B.F.: Why did you pick Feeding America, Crisis UK and The World Food Program to give the proceeds of this record to?

B.D.: Because they get food straight to the people. No military organization, no bureaucracy, no governments to deal with.

B.F.: Do you have a favorite Christmas album?

B.D.: Maybe the Louvin Brothers. I like all the religious Christmas albums. The ones in Latin. The songs I sang as a kid.

B.F.: A lot of people like the secular ones.

B.D.: Religion isn’t meant for everybody.

B.F.: Do you drop any hints about what you hope to get from your family?

B.D.: Nope. Their well-being – that’s enough of a gift for me.

B.F.: I know we’re out of time but I have to ask, what’s the best Christmas gift you ever got?

B.D.: Let me think… oh yeah, I think it was a sled.

SNS Exclusive © Street News Service: www.street-papers.org

By Joanne Zuhl
Staff Writer

Letting go of Sisters Of The Road has been a gradual process for Genny Nelson, and for good reason. It is no small measure to say that the organization — which includes a cafe, a civic action group and a resource and organizing center for the homeless — has been Nelson’s lifeblood since she and Sandy Gooch founded it 30 years ago.

As Sisters now marks three decades this month, Nelson is formally retiring. The former executive director has amassed milestones that stem from the extremely personal to the highly public, including the National Caring Award, and made her an icon in the homeless community.

Ironically, Nelson’s retirement comes as the number of people on the streets continues to escalate and poverty creeps into more and more households across Portland. We talked with Genny about her thoughts on these times and her reflections of what continues to be a lifetime of service.

Joanne Zuhl: Sisters Of The Road is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month and the demand for your services has never been greater. How has Sisters adapted to the changing – and increasingly challenging – times over the past three decades?

Genny Nelson: We have stayed the course. Sisters Of The Road is as passionate now as when we first began, about who we are. Sisters is a nonprofit organization grounded in the philosophies of non-violence and gentle personalism, while operating from a community organizing model, all within a systemic change approach.

We believe if you want to solve homelessness, do more than satiate the immediate, urgent needs of homeless people, build community and share power with them; create systems that teach self reliance instead of dependence; and remember, until men and women experiencing the calamities of homelessness and poverty are full participants at the table where public policy on homelessness is being decided, we will never resolve it.

J.Z.: How is homelessness in Portland different today than when you and Sandy Gooch opened Sisters 30 years ago?

G.N.: There are so many more people on the street now, thousands more. Between 1976 and 1982 the federal department of Housing and Urban Development built over 755,000 new public housing units, but since 1983, only 256,000. It is no mystery why the number of people living on the street has increased dramatically.

On a positive note, by the end of the ‘90s a transformative discussion among people dealing with homelessness began to take place. They were telling themselves and anyone else who would listen that they did not feel ashamed because they were poor. On the contrary, doing political and economic analysis of the society they were increasingly left out of began their social movement.

J.Z.: Homelessness, hunger and poverty are on the rise in Portland and across Oregon. If you were just embarking on your career today, where would begin, what would you do first?

G.N.: The first thing I would do is begin to build authentic personal relationships with lots of people who were dealing with homelessness.  I would go to the places they frequent: soup lines, coffee shops, missions, shelter lines, day labor sites, warming centers, libraries, the waterfront, neighborhood bars, etc.  I would introduce myself and ask if they were interested in talking with me. If yes, I would ask them their name and invite storytelling that included both of our lives.  I would listen carefully for the issues that mattered most to them.

J.Z.: For all the work you’ve done, what do you feel is your greatest accomplishment?

G.N.: Founding Sisters Of The Road with Sandy Gooch is my greatest accomplishment.  My children are my greatest gifts.

J.Z.: What is you’re greatest unfinished project?

G.N.: Sisters Of The Road is also my greatest unfinished project.  It will always be a work in progress, a daily experiment in truth.

J.Z.: What are you going to do in your retirement? Are you still going to be out there telling our representatives what they need to know?

G.N.: I’m going to connect with my family and friends more deeply.  I am going to write.

My spirit and my passion for human rights are as strong as ever. I will find ways within the limitations of my health to continue trying to make a difference.

J.Z.: Will we see you having lunch at the café now and again?

G.N.: Of course you will see me eating in Sisters Of The Road Café from time to time.  It is my favorite restaurant!

By Israel Bayer
Executive Director, Street Roots

The Western Regional Advocacy Project or WRAP (of which both Street Roots and Sisters Of The Road are founding members) is working to build a movement to expose the root causes of homelessness; challenge unjust housing and economic development policies; and fight the criminalization of poverty.

In 2007, the organization released “Without Housing: Decades of Housing Cutbacks, Massive Homelessness and Policy Failures.” More than 125,000 of the reports have been downloaded at www.wraphome.org.

The report has become a roadmap for policy makers, organizers, homeless and affordable housing service providers, and for social work departments, explaining how modern day homelessness arrived on our doorsteps in America over the last three decades. (An updated “Without Housing” report and “Without Rights,” a new report four years in the making on the criminalization of people on the streets is due out in 2010.)

For more than 30 years, the broader public has been led to believe that homelessness is a byproduct of individual deficiencies, born out of bad choices that lead to addiction, mental health problems and hopelessness. Disregarding the reality that homelessness is actually a product of a broken system – which includes the lack of affordable housing, access to health care and civil rights.

The founder and Executive Director of Real Change (WRAP member), Tim Harris wrote last year that “mass homelessness grows out of an economic system that accepts the abandonment of the most vulnerable. Anyone who’s paying attention knows that multiple systems are deeply and profoundly broken. Homelessness, however, is often defined as a matter of broken people; not as evidence of a broken system in which some of us are regarded as “less than.” This, finally, leads to an intolerable acceptance of the logic of dehumanization, and this, I believe, is the core issue of our time.”

Because of this, Harris argues that homeless advocacy is in dire need of reinvention. Here are his views:

•           To regard homelessness as a largely depoliticized social services issue — divorced in practice from the realities of growing poverty and inequality — is to fight an unending rear-guard action in an ever-expanding theater of war on the poor.

•           To engage in forms of advocacy that privilege inside politics and value narrowly technocratic forms of expertise over movement building is to miss the point: this is about power. If we’re not building power, we’re not even in the game.

•           To treat opposing the dehumanization and criminalization of the very poor as a leftist distraction from the more important work of “ending homelessness” is to collaborate in the inhuman oppression of the least among us.

•           To narrowly pursue the empowerment of a handful of homeless people at the expense of building power across class is to misunderstand our mutual interest in broad system change. Our movement needs to amplify the realities of the street through the respectful power and clout of our allies.

•           To organize around “issues” without taking the time and effort to build relationships that value our mutual humanity, life experience, and self-interest is to embrace an empty politics that surrenders movement building to short-term expedience.

“If government does not deal with homelessness,” says the highly revered author and urban planner Peter Marcuse, “it appears illegitimate and unjust; if it does try seriously to alleviate homelessness, it breaks the link between work and reward that legitimizes wage labor. Neither horn of the dilemma is a comfortable resting place.”

According to Marcuse, the solutions, therefore, are “aimed more at dealing with ordinary (housed) people’s reactions to homelessness than with homelessness itself.”

In 1978, the federal budget for affordable housing was over $83 billion. In 2009, it is a meager $38.5 billion. In that time period millions of people have experienced homelessness on our streets, while many thousands more have died in the elements. In city after city, and rural community after rural community, affordable housing has disappeared at alarming rates.

In an attempt to correct horrific urban planning throughout the 20th century (ghettos) the federal government recreated urban America (white flight) with urban renewal efforts in an attempt to improve the quality of life. Unfortunately, this planning also dumped millions of poor people on America’s streets (and displaced millions more to the outer rings of cities) without any foresight on what to do with the throwaways.

So, who picks up the pieces? Local city governments and small grassroots non-profits that are already stressed and don’t have adequate resource. Hence the tug of war between local homeless and housing advocates, and city governments, both of whom are working towards the same goal of providing housing for its citizens.

The solution has come in the form of mixed income housing units that often times don’t even capture people most in need (0-30 percent medium income), massive shelter systems and any number of federally mandated plans to end homelessness, including the current 10-year plan to end homelessness.

The lack of adequate resources leads to the overflow of people sleeping in doorways, which in turn leads to the criminalization of people on the streets. Laws that ban sitting or lying on a sidewalk, park camping, homeless feeds, etc. are enacted because of the eyesores created when thousands of people have no place to exist due to the lack of housing. Thus, creating an environment where people on the streets become public enemy number one for local chambers of commerce and city governments — especially in times of crisis, like the modern day depression we find ourselves in today.

It’s easy to blame people on the streets for poor retail sales and lack of employment instead of looking at the root causes of these problems. The short fix is to push poor folk out of business districts by using unjust laws that target people for simply existing, again creating a climate where advocates and people on the streets are pitted against the same institutions claiming to be helping end homelessness.

In an age where large banks and corporate institutions are being bailed out for poor decision making and greed, small non-profits who are doing good work and showing results, are forced to beg, borrow and compete for measly sums to survive — it’s simply pathetic.

On Jan. 20, WRAP is coming together in San Francisco to reignite a homeless and affordable housing movement that’s been lacking on a national level for a long time.

In cities all along the West Coast — Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, etc. strong homeless advocacy exists. The goal is to bring these groups along with allies like you, together to demand affordable housing and civil rights for every human being.

We hope you will join us! For more information or to sign the petition go to www.wraphome.org or www.streetroots.org.