DIRECTOR’S DESK | Street Roots and four partner organizations asked 97 houseless Portlanders where they’d prefer to live temporarily during the pandemic
Over the past few weeks, the Street Roots vendor-led Coronavirus Action Team fanned out, offering unhoused people something in addition to the usual essential supplies: questions.
What would people prefer as a temporary response to their living situation during this pandemic?
The responses were diverse — always a reminder that any one-size-fits-all solution disregards the range of human experiences and needs — but the majority selected motels and hotels.
We need to listen, and we need to act.
Street Roots calls for opening up more hotel and motel rooms across the state to unhoused people.
At 11 a.m. May 26, we will host a virtual town hall live on Street Roots’ Facebook page, where we will explore the demand for hotel rooms. DeVon Pouncey, our vendor program manager and digital content creator, will convene the discussion.
I encourage you to tune in.
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN: Endorse opening hotel rooms to people on the streets
Street Roots worked on this survey with Stop the Sweeps PDX, Northwest Pilot Project, Coalition of Communities of Color and Portland State University's Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative, collectively surveying 97 unhoused people, the majority of whom are enduring the pandemic in tents and on the ground. [READ THE SURVEY]
This survey builds on the earlier effort to inform the Portland Street Response, which led to the survey-based report “Believe Our Stories and Listen.”
We aim to inform more policy with ideas from those who are affected.
While the former survey was developed out of conversations, we faced a new challenge of brevity when gathering information during the pandemic.
People need to communicate through masks at 6-feet distances. This was a quicker survey to gather information that can drive policy during these coming months while we live with COVID-19.
And while motels and hotels were the overwhelming top option, other findings should drive responses too. Thirteen percent of respondents listed moving into a car or RV park with hygiene support as a top option. That number would likely grow if the survey reached more people currently living in cars or RVs (9% of those surveyed listed that as their current shelter). As with the C3PO camps, safe parking camps could support more social distancing with life-saving hygiene access.
And 14% of respondents said remaining in tents, either where they are or in self-organized camps, with assurances they won’t get swept was their preference. In other words, they indicated a desire to shelter in place.
Only 3% listed moving into shelters, aligning with medical concerns over congregating people in shelters during this pandemic.
Hotels and motels allow people to better isolate from the spread of this virus. Let’s open more motels and hotels to unhoused folks — and not just symptomatic folks, as has been the Multnomah County policy so far.
I know it’s complicated. But it always is. We can be imaginative and brave in order to save lives.
There are a range of possibilities and plenty of examples to draw from around the nation and overseas, including leasing with an option to buy, or outright buying, motels so people can weather the pandemic and beyond.
Or consider this: Former Trump administration official Gordon Sondland’s Provenance Hotels received a Payroll Protection Program loan from the Small Business Association through the CARES Act. What if our community banded together to create a campaign of pressure aimed in his direction, demanding that he open empty rooms in his five Portland hotels to house people vulnerable to death in this pandemic? And really, doesn’t he have some penance to do?
The obvious contradiction of empty rooms and roomless people is always a stark fact of extreme inequality, but it’s additionally grotesque in a pandemic. Let’s not get stuck in this injustice. Let’s act justly to save lives.
Director's Desk is written by Kaia Sand, the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand
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. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2020 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
