Vendor Profiles
Street Roots vendor profile | Finding his place in the community
When meeting Dale for the first time, you can’t help but notice his radiant and authentic smile. He is often in a jovial mood, spreading positivity all around the Street Roots office. Dale started selling Street Roots in 2017. “Street Roots helps more than anything,” he said. “I sold about 12 papers yesterday, and I…
A Street Story | Max finds a home
This is the second installment in a series following Street Roots vendors Max McEntire and Deanna Handley as they seek stability and a place to call home. The first told the story of how Deanna secured housing, but the rules prohibited Max from living there. The following essay is in the words of Max McEntire,…
News
Behind the death of ‘Black Messiah’ Fred Hampton
The recent discovery of memos related to the 1969 assassination of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton prompted U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) and six of his colleagues in Congress to ask Attorney General Merrick Garland, on March 31, to release unredacted and unclassified Department of Justice files related to Hampton’s death. Before Hampton’s death,…
What ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ got right about Fred Hampton
An Illinois Black Panther Party member in the late 1960s, Mary Scott-Boria doesn’t remember any shotgun shoot-outs with police as depicted in the new movie “Judas and the Black Messiah.” “I thought the movie hyped that aspect up too much,” Scott-Boria said in a telephone interview. “I was never asked to participate in anything that was…
Housing
Anti-camping law in Medford draws national attention
The Bear Creek Greenway, a 20-mile paved trail connecting several towns in Southern Oregon, has become a center for controversy in Medford as authorities there attempt to crack down on the unauthorized campers tucked between its trees. After much anticipation, on April 2, the Medford City Council revised an ordinance to specifically ban camping along…
Opinion | How helping my houseless neighbors helped me
If you had told me back in December that I’d soon know all the homeless people in my neighborhood on a first-name basis, I would have laughed. But not only is this true; I have a dozen of their names entered into my phone. I’ve delivered a home-cooked dinner to one guy after his eye…
Opinion
Opinion | IRS audits the poor, ignoring wealthy tax dodgers and big corporations
In this U.S., the heaviest taxes fall on people with the least income, despite the insults you hear about so-called “makers and takers.” The 1% contribute less and less, though their “share” of national income has doubled in the last 40 years, from one-tenth to one-fifth. Due to under-reporting, assets hidden in tax havens, lack…
Street Roots vendor writing | ‘Words cannot explain my first visit to the dying center’
The San Francisco AIDS holocaust of the 1980s took so many tremendous lives that words cannot describe or even explain. It took the lives of most of my friends, co-workers, employers. Peripherally, the lives they touched and some great things they were working on to make the community and the world a better place. Possibly…
Opinion | How helping my houseless neighbors helped me
If you had told me back in December that I’d soon know all the homeless people in my neighborhood on a first-name basis, I would have laughed. But not only is this true; I have a dozen of their names entered into my phone. I’ve delivered a home-cooked dinner to one guy after his eye…
Kaia Sand | The bystanders who witness police killings suffer, too
He said it a total of four times. “I think he’s dead. I think he’s dead. I think he’s dead. I think he’s dead.” And then: “I think they killed his ass.” As I watched the video that David Hernandez recorded of the police shooting of Robert Delgado at Lents Park on April 17 —…
