News
Organizations call for 100% of short-term rental fee to go toward affordable housing
As organizations working to preserve and expand opportunities for low-income people to live and thrive in Portland, we support the proposal by Portland City Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Nick Fish for a dedicated stream of funding for affordable housing, to come from the City’s lodging fee on short-term rentals (e.g. Airbnb). We thank the Commissioners…
Street Roots Summer Online Auction is Live!
Welcome to the sixth Street Roots Summer Online Auction. We have more food and booze than you could ever imagine. We have summer fun. We have something for you and yours… Check it out! (Auction site is: http://www.streetrootsauction.org/) When you support Street Roots you support: Our goal of going from a bi-weekly to a weekly…
Smart money: State Treasurer Ted Wheeler on where to put our tax dollars to work
Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler admits that most Oregonians know very little about what he does — he said even he didn’t know much about the job before he took it. But it’s an important position, and as financial concerns grow across the state, his department has become increasingly high profile. The Oregon Treasury oversees…
Rock ‘n’ roll with a woman’s touch: Portland’s Jennifer Batten
Jennifer Batten didn’t become one of rock’s most accomplished professional guitar players with a waifish, coy girlie image. She got there by living, breathing and being music — by being a badass woman in an industry dominated by men. She did three world tours with Michael Jackson, and for several years in the 1990s toured…
Voz loses Catholic funding over solidarity with marriage equality
Voz Workers Rights Education Project, Portland’s day laborer organization, was recently faced with a difficult decision: Either pursue a promising $75,000 grant through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, or forfeit the money and stay in solidarity with equal rights. It chose equal rights. It was an easy decision for the group, but a tough…
Priced out in San Francisco
Ly Tran* is washing dishes when I arrive at her house. She wears a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants with neon green lines running up the leg, her short black hair bobbing up and down as she wipes dry a plate. Her quiet demeanor contrasts with the slew of broken English and Chinese I am greeted…
For the record July 4-18, 2014
• Tons of food generated by the Waterfront Blues Festival to benefit Oregon Food Bank since the festival started in 1988: 800 • Amount raised in last year’s Waterfront Blues festival: $1.3 million • Number of meals they could buy with that money (estimate): 3.9 million • Pounds of fireworks purchased in the US each…
Opinion
Opportunity Initiative a good investment in tomorrow
What a weird and wonderful election system we have here in Oregon. Myriad initiatives and referendums spinning tens of thousands of signatures into ballot measures in a seemingly endless cycle. This November, one of those initiatives comes from an unlikely place: The Oregon State Treasurer’s office. The Opportunity Initiative would establish an endowment funded by…
Drug shortage threatens Death with Dignity rights
A spat between a drug manufacturer and states that use the death penalty could soon be impinging upon residents’ right to die. Pharmacists I’ve spoken with from Portland to Seattle, report the manufacturer of pentobarbital, the drug used under Washington state’s Death with Dignity law, has halted sales to the United States in protest of…
Dealing with the unthinkable, one day at a time
How could this have happened? This question has reverberated in people’s minds and hearts since high school freshman Jared Padgett shot and killed 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman and injured physical education teacher Todd Rispler before taking his own life. As parents, grandparents, siblings, and community members, we expect children to be safe from gun violence in…
Minimum wage: A stronger economy from the ground up
Around the state, a grassroots movement is calling for a higher minimum wage and a fair shot at economic opportunity. They’re right. The truth is that our wage floor is too low. As Labor Commissioner, it’s my job to ensure that Oregonians are treated fairly on the job and that we have a workforce ready…
Tips to support your Street Roots vendor this summer
Street Roots vendors work hard in the summer. It’s not easy. Being homeless in the summertime isn’t any fun. Longer periods of daylight are a welcome sign for many Portlanders, but for many people on the streets it can mean going long stretches of time without adequate sleep. Typical locations for people to sleep in…
Jade District: International business meets local activism
The Jade District, the neighborhood center located around Southeast 82nd Avenue and Division Street, is literally boxed in by major transportation corridors: Southeast 80th Avenue to the east, outer Southeast Powell Boulevard to the south, 93rd Avenue to the west, and outer Southeast Harrison Street to the north. These are some of the most traffic-congested…
Vendor Profiles
Music, homeless advocacy a driving force for vendor
Homelessness is not a crime. The belief that it is, is what Daniel Cox hopes to help change with advocacy work in the future. Daniel sells Street Roots and volunteers with Sisters of the Road. “Being part of that community and now joining the Street Roots community, I have a sense of a purpose rather…
