Thanks for the interview with Susan Emmons and for archiving online the important talk she gave at First Congregational Church. Better than anyone in Portland, Emmons tells the story of how this community contributed to the numbers of homeless people by destroying or repurposing the low-income rental inventory she remembers when she first took over as director for Northwest Pilot Project. In her talk — and I hope everyone gets a chance to read it — she tells the story of one Mr. Christiansen, a dear old man who was relocated repeatedly by NWPP, just ahead of the wrecking ball’s arrival at each of his “new” homes.
She does not tell the story, presumably because it is so grim, about how NWPP first began relocating tenants: it goes back to the early '70s, when founder Peter Paulsen was still directing the agency, and one of their clients was found dead in a freeway snowbank. She had come home to her small room at the Freeway Hotel to find nailed to her door a HUD notice advising her the building was to be demolished. In her fear and confusion, she ran away and died of exposure.
Susan Emmons has, for decades now, argued that no amount of money allocated for “services” and no “ten-year plan” can solve this problem, if we continue to shuffle people and funding around without building more housing.
And now she is proposing some very concrete things we could do to create that replacement housing.
I’m amazed that, after three decades doing this work, she still has the juice and to come up with these ideas but one thing is clear: we need to listen to her. She is one of this city’s seers.
Martha Gies
Portland Oregon
You can read the complete Oliver Lecture series presentation by Susan Emmons, along with the interview, at news.streetroots.org.
