DIRECTOR’S DESK | As the city explores how to pilot Portland Street Response, it’s reaching out to unhoused residents
A snoring dog lay at the feet of Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty as she leaned back against a table, nodding. A woman described how when she lived in her car and was approached by a first responder, she needed to be listened to, not just told what she needed.
The room bustled with the energy of 40 or so people experiencing homelessness. The snoring dog had trotted in with a small group of people who sat up front. More dogs rested on the laps of owners in wheelchairs. People packed in with their walkers, bundles of belongings at their feet. When Hardesty asked whether the first-responder system, with its over-reliance on police, was working for people in the room, no one raised their hand.
On Monday, July 8, Sisters of the Road hosted a listening session for people experiencing homelessness to talk with Hardesty and Tremaine Clayton, manager of the Community Health Assessment Team at Portland Fire and Rescue. They are seeking input as they develop a pilot for Portland Street Response.
A lot has happened since Street Roots put forward the Portland Street Response plan, for non-police first responders to address street crises, in our March 15 issue.
Many of you – Street Roots readers, Street Roots vendors – wrote letters to Council, turned out at budget hearings and endorsed the plan at portlandstreetresponse.org (where you still can add your voice). I’ve been invited into conversations with neighborhood associations and faith communities and businesses and neighborhood organizations. The enthusiasm for a new, constructive system is thorough-going in this city.
And City Council showed they heard all your voices, allotting $500,000 toward developing a Portland Street Response pilot in the budget that began July 1.
Hardesty’s staff, in collaboration with Mayor Ted Wheeler’s staff, is charged with moving the pilot design process forward and bringing a plan to Council by this November.
Street Roots is actively advocating first and foremost for unhoused people to have a voice in this design process. There will be another listening session, also intended for people experiencing homelessness, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday, June 13, in the JOIN day space, 1435 NE 81st Ave.
Additionally, we know that getting feedback from people on the streets means lacing up our shoes and walking out the door. We are working on a survey with Right 2 Survive and the Portland State University Homelessness Research Action Collaborative, as well as the Mapping Action Collective at PSU. For the past decade, Right 2 Survive – led by people on the streets – has been at the forefront of advocacy and community organization for the houseless.
On Tuesday, July 16, and Thursday, July 18, Street Roots vendors, Sisters of the Road “Roadies,” Right 2 Survive members and Portland State University students will go out to camps, squats and shelters, talking to people about how Portland Street Response should be designed. Right 2 Survive and the youth-focused Yellow Brick Road are training volunteers who will help survey. All of these efforts are supported by the city’s Office of Community and Civic Life.
We are asking people living on the streets about their experiences with first responders. Who do they want the responders to be? How should responders show up, and what should they be wearing? How should they be trained? We’ll bring that back to the city, and keep going from there.
We’ve begun our efforts focused on unhoused people so they can have a voice in a process that too often leaves them out. At Sisters of the Road, people voiced the need to keep police out of encounters. Indeed, sometimes what might look unsafe to housed passersby – a camp of tents and tarps – might involve an intricate system of security and relationship. Too often people are made less safe from police intervention.
People also emphasized how important it is for Portland Street Responders to understand particularities of homelessness – the challenge of leaving pets and belongings. How taking away one person might leave another without their support system. People talked about how mental health issues prevented people from receiving respect and support. Transgender community members recounted being mistreated.
And many community members talk about not having good options, struggling with calling 911 because police might be sent to a crisis that then escalates, keenly aware of how the high arrest rate of unhoused people adds trauma while increasing barriers to housing and employment. After all, the 911 system is besieged with so-called “unwanted person” calls, and now the rest of us need to listen to the people treated as “unwanted” to design a better response.
These initial community outreach efforts are focused on input from unhoused Portland. When there are specific ways for more people to give input, we will let you know. I know that there are many people, housed and unhoused, who want Portland Street Response to be thoughtful and well-resourced.
As we move Portland Street Response forward, our public imagination must be both bold and loving enough to change this broken system. It will take the whole community to demand this be done well.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.
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