Director's Desk from the June 12 edition.
For more than 10 years, Street Roots has battled with the Portland Business Alliance in a public arena and behind the scenes about such issues as the oversight of private security downtown and the sit-lie law – both of which we haven’t moved an inch on.
We still believe there should be oversight of the private police downtown, especially considering thousands of park exclusions are handed out annually. And we still believe the sit-lie law is inhumane and a gross violation of individual’s civil rights.
Still, the work Street Roots represents through the vendor program and Rose City Resource guide spans out beyond these issues alone. More than 80 vendors sell the newspaper in front of businesses throughout the Portland region – many of which are downtown. Vendors and Street Roots have built relationships with business owners and their cliental. It makes absolutely no sense that we work with many of the businesses the Alliance represents that we are not members and to take the steps to create more formal relationships. By joining the Alliance we will be in a better position to work with and engage businesses downtown.
Street Roots will in no way, shape or form be beholden to the Alliance or will it change our editorial and social justice presence on important issues effecting people experiencing homelessness and poverty citywide.
Street Roots has never been an organization that followed trends. Why start now?
Street Roots has been working on the front lines of homelessness for 10 years and have been mentored by some amazing organizers who have been in the game a lot longer than we have. In all of our accomplishments over the years we’ve yet to create a formula that works in the context of how exactly to end the injustices pointed at people sleeping in a doorway.
Street Roots supports tent cities, we have helped organize rallies and direct actions, we mobilize people to write letters, and help attorney’s working on these issues be in a better position to challenge many of the laws targeting homeless folks.
We also have put together an extensive package (www.rosecityresource.org) of laws targeting the poor and how to combat those laws together in one place for community organizers, homeless folks and other activists. And still to this day, offer office space and resources (computers, printers, coffee) to groups organizing around these issues on the ground.
Saying all that, we feel like its time to engage the community in a new way. Will it lead to all of the answers we have on the issues of homelessness and poverty? No. But it will allow for us to break out of a stalemate that has led to a breakdown of trust and communication on the homeless front and with the broader community.
Homeless groups can’t flinch or even think about working with the Portland Business Alliance in open for fear of being called sell outs or talked about in the press as being lap dogs for big interest. This environment has led to a smoke and mirrors game of veiled secrecy and mistrust behind the scenes among many of the homeless groups. This has to change.
The Alliance has worked for years with a number of homeless organizations downtown and has historically supported groups like New Avenues for Youth and Central City Concern, both organizations Street Roots very much respects. They have helped open a shelter for women and been engaged at many different levels. It's not all bad.
We’re taking the first steps publicly to say it’s OK to be a grassroots homeless organization working with the PBA and to move beyond the tired rhetoric.
Without an open relationship with everyone touching these issues people experiencing homelessness lose, period. And that’s not what Street Roots is about. It’s time to turn over a new leaf.
- Israel Bayer
