Skip to main content
Street Roots Donate
Portland, Oregon's award-winning weekly street newspaper
For those who can't afford free speech
Twitter Facebook RSS Vimeo Instagram
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • About
  • Vendors
  • Rose City Resource
  • Ambassadors
  • Advocacy
  • Support
News
  • Social Justice
  • Housing
  • Environment
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Podcasts
  • Vendor Profiles
  • Archives
Street Roots vendor Nettie Johnson interviews DeRay Mckesson about the Black Lives Matter movement before his March 15, 2018, speech at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Portland. (Photo by Celeste Noche)

Street Roots vendor writing: Reflections on work, life and racial justice

Street Roots
Nettie Johnson opens up about her experiences with addiction, discrimination and hope
by Nettie Johnson | 14 Jun 2019

When I first encountered Street Roots, I was living on the streets in downtown Portland. It was 2003. The building and logo haven’t changed much. I received a badge and a few papers to help me earn income. 

I was too chemically addicted to heroin and cocaine to fully comprehend what the paper and organization stood for, other than it was a place for homeless people to go and not be judged during struggling times.

I vaguely remember holding the papers. When I got to Third Avenue, I said, “This is not for me.” I think I threw the papers away. I continued using until 2004 when I was arrested and sent to jail behind a $5 piece of crack. 

Fifteen years later, and clean for 15 years, I came upon Street Roots again. I had lost several jobs and was severely injured at my last one, still trying to find a way to make myself feel valuable and stay clean and sober. With a clear mind now, I realized just how Street Roots is focused on real life challenges that need to be changed and also social justice disparities.

I have been a vendor now for over two years, the longest job in my life. I sell the paper at the Woodstock New Seasons. When I first was assigned the location, I was happy and thriving. I even felt like my own business owner, a dream my Momma instilled in all 11 of her children. 

People in Woodstock must love Street Roots. I became recognized as not your average vendor after two articles were published that I was involved in, the first one about my life experience as a homeless addict, and the second about my interview with DeRay Mckesson of Black Lives Matter. With so much lived-through trauma, “Black Lives Matter” used to rub me the wrong way, but that is another story.

I knew there was a racial situation brewing all over America. I have since educated myself in school at Portland Community College, where I am getting a degree in alcohol and drug addiction counseling. 

For many years, the main population in prison for drug addiction has been blacks, including me. I was not able to enjoy the luxuries of treatment or housing for addicts. My home for a period of over 18 years was jail or prison. Now, in 2019, drug addiction is considered a mental illness and “treatment comes first.” I continue to work out my prejudices for the greater common solution.

Street Roots has been and will continue to be a part of my foundation for a more hopeful, enlightening future, although I frequently face racial slurs out at my sales location. I am challenged to prove up my coping skills and am often viewed as a loser or a beggar, and recently I was called a drug addict by a panhandler who was begging for money with her children, all under age 5.

That type of harassment hurts deeply.

I have had to call in the Portland police for protection on several occasions as a Street Roots vendor. Mostly, I was questioned like I was the perpetrator, not the one who called in the harassment. 

With America divided on racial problems, I am not sure what my role is, but I do believe in social change and that my experience can help curb homelessness, discrimination and racism. When I look at the despair on the streets of Portland, I want to give everyone a copy of Street Roots so they can be informed on what is taking place in America. 

I am not a pushover personality, so I stand a much better chance of surviving this turmoil because I understand what it’s like to be out of control mentally, and I know what it means to give up, due to hostility, discrimination, criminal attacks and dealing with ignorance and racial judgments. I will not drop the ball! Hopefully not to the point where I lose my newfound connection to my main source of support: Street Roots.

My main quote today is: “Know what you are looking at,” by the late B.J. Finley-Branch.


© 2019 Street Roots. All rights reserved.  | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity.  Learn more about Street Roots.

Street Roots is funded by individual readers like you. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.

Tags: 
Street Roots vendors, racial justice
  • Print

More like this

  • Life on the Streets: Foot health, a never-ending struggle
  • Street Roots vendor writing: A sense of community through Street Roots
  • Street Roots vendor writing: Hats off to the volunteers
  • Street Roots vendor profile: A new start in Portland
  • Hard work, high energy means a ticket home
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • © 2021 Street Roots. All rights reserved. To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org.
  • Read Street Roots' commenting policy
  • Support Street Roots
  • Like what you're reading? Street Roots is made possible by readers like you! Your support fuels our in-depth reporting, and each week brings you original news you won't find anywhere else. Thank you for your support!

  • DONATE