I recently visited Portland and purchased a copy of Street Roots off of one of your fine vendors. I was expecting to read a newspaper filled with rants about how unfair the world is, but was surprised at how well the newspaper was laid out and the content in the newspaper. Portland is such a great town. Your newspaper is one of the examples that make it so!
I recently read “Numbers Game,” by Israel Bayer in the lastest edition of Street Roots. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a wonderful piece about Clackamas County homelessness. We are often left out of the debate surrounding so many issues.
It was refreshing to see your newspaper tackle the issue of rural homelessness and put a face on families struggling to make ends meet. Keep up the great work!
The economic recovery, so-called, that Bushies like to point to as evidence of administration success has, in fact, been of benefit to only a handful at the very top, preferred investors in mega-corporations. The same handful benefiting from skewed tax cuts pushed through by the former Rightwing Republican 'DeLay'd' Congress of pre-2006. For many others there have been economic doldrums and homelessness. Many working poor have remained unemployed so long they've dropped off the rolls altogether. They are homeless, unemployed and living in their vehicles, in SRO motels, in shelters.
The now-permanent tax cuts for the rich (nearly 2 trillion shmackuhs!), in combination with draining the national treasure on military adventures (another trillion, so far!), a deficit in the multi-trillions after the surplus from the Clinton years, and Republican-sponsored budget cuts have all contributed to the decimation of the Safety Net.
For too many, unemployment has been so long a part of their lives that they are no longer even being counted. These invisible poor constitute the reality that must be addressed and the reality that this administration refuses to acknowledge.
As the recently published 'Voices From The Street' makes clear, it doesn't take much to wind up on the street, but it takes a lot to get off and stay off.
Sadly, this administration wants non-homeless to believe that if you can't see these homeless, they literally don't count. Simple. End of story: end of homeless. The 10-Year Plan is working.
Bayer's article lends clarity to a cruel and expanding reality. The homeless are families and children as well as single adults. It is mean-spirited in the extreme to pit one against the other.
Thanks, Israel, for a fine article.
