Past Issues :: 2007 February 16 :: Contents
Cover Story
A warm place
“All these people get kicked out from under bridges in the early morning. We can’t go to the terminals. We can’t go to the libraries. We can’t go anywhere. Where’s a place where people just have warmth? A warm place.”
The sentiments above are from one person experiencing homelessness, but they resonate with anyone who has spent a night on the streets. In a report by Sisters Of The Road, part of its extensive interview program, hundreds of people on the streets spoke about the need for a day access center. Unsurprisingly, the common themes among those interviewed are safety, peace, flexible hours and access to the tools that will help them get a job, healthcare and a home of their own.
Act Now
Stop the dismantling of critical homeless housing programs
Editorial
PBA has the pulpit to call for a transfer fee
Horoscope
Astro logic
Letters
Sisters sets the record straight on role with SAFE
Street Poetry
Poems
Columns
Director’s Desk
You'll notice the organization's 2006 Annual Report in this issue. One of the goals we set last year was to make the organization as transparent as possible, and publishing the Annual Report in the paper is one step closer to that goal. [2006 Annual Report pdf]
Memoirs of a Vietnam Vet
Stop playing Russian roulette with our soldiers
overseas
You know, ol' friend, at first I was in favor of this war. I truly believed it was something that needed to be done. Now, I'm not so fickle as to change my mind completely, but I do believe enough is enough.
Alejandro Queral
Feds' planned collection of DNA samples challenges privacy rights
Last week, Julia Preston of the New York Times revealed that the Justice Department is drafting new rules to collect DNA samples from anyone who is arrested by federal authorities under suspicion of having committed a felony, or noncitizens detained by any federal agency.
Marvin Mitchell
Julia West House provides what we all crave — a place to be
My favorite Peanuts cartoon strip showed up in The Oregonian last week. As Charlie Brown is lying in bed looking at the ceiling, he says, "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Why am I here?' Then a voice answers, 'Why? Where do you want to be?'"
Street Culture
Prevail
Surviving is poetic. It takes the greatest despair, the most weighted frustration, the simplest loss of soul, the most fragile anger, the lowest revenge... and from within this lowest inarticulation comes a haunt of the spirit's rebellion... the largest, sweetest effort to prevail.
Diary of Homelessness, Part III
There was nothing to do last night & I had no money & not even any beer, so I got in the car in the campsite behind the strip club near the McDonald's & moved the car over to the corner of the lot for a change.
Homecoming bittersweet on Old Town's streets
When I visited Portland's Old Town last fall, I realized how much it had changed from the "Burnside" neighborhood I lived and worked in over 30 years ago. Where there were old hotels and flophouses, there are now trendy nightclubs and offices.
White Train, Part II
The vigil came together on a clear night and we sang to a guitar and held candles and then held hands and prayed. The white train roared past without any reaction.
News
Special Olympics offers a 'once-in-a-lifetime' chance
Frankie Smith's involvement with the Special Olympics spans athlete, fundraiser and walking encyclopedia, which means there are no short conversations on the subject in the Street Roots office. Frankie, 31, has been a Street Roots vendor for about two years now.
Street News Service
Who watches the watchers in a surveillance society?
In some cities in Europe and the United States, a person can be videotaped by surveillance cameras hundreds of times a day, and it's safe to say that most of the time no one is actually watching.
Court-martial brings out contrasting views on Iraq
Near Seattle, the overpass at Exit 119 on I-5 may not carry much architectural importance, but on Feb. 5, its fenced-in walkway, the freeway shoulder below, and a nearby park were perfectly designed to support the bodies, banners, picket signs, and opinions of nearly 1,000 peace activists and war supporters.
