OPINION | When conditions demand it, many unhoused people step up as informal health and safety workers
Dressed in an elegant straw hat and walking her golden Labrador, a woman wandered over to the Street Roots cooling station in front of our Old Town office. Visiting from San Francisco, she hadn’t gotten the memo, so to speak, that she was supposed to fear Old Town, so she reveled in the mist that scattered over her in the canopy run by people who are currently and formerly unhoused, chatting about her son’s soccer tournament. Matt Perkins, Street Roots lead ambassador, set out a water dish for her dog to drink. It was a caring scene of hospitality and public health.
Moments like this stand out for me because this is a time of particular vitriol about how unhoused people are obstacles to progress and sources of fear — so much so that Tournament Golf Foundation, the organizer of the Ladies Professional Golf Association Portland Classic tournament, moved the tournament from Columbia Edgewater Country Club, referring to nearby encampments on Marine Drive as unsafe.
According to Willamette Week, the foundation emailed players that because “Portland has experienced a rise in houselessness, including the areas surrounding Edgewater,” the foundation was moving the tournament over concerns for “the health and safety of LPGA players, staff, fans and local community.”
It’s jolting to see homelessness described as a threat to the health and safety of others, rather than as a threat to the health and safety of the people experiencing homelessness.
In truth, what I witness much more is how unhoused people step up as informal health workers. This happened a great deal during the pandemic. This was because it has been a period of conflicting public health needs. The best thing most of us could do was stay home to slow the spread of the virus, and yet that meant the contraction of services. Many unhoused people stepped into public health roles.
That’s how the Street Roots Ambassador Program emerged: People experiencing homelessness began to go out to get other unhoused people accurate information and hygiene supplies early in the COVID-19 pandemic. This outreach evolved with public health needs: Ambassadors let people know how get to shelter during the fires, delivered cold-weather supplies in the ice storm, ran a heating tent in the ice storm, delivered vaccine information late in COVID-19, and now — as Portland broke its all-time high temperature record, then broke it again — they hosted a cooling station in the heat. .
Ambassadors set up canopies with a hose affixed to the top that filled the space with mist. Next to that they lined up buckets of iced water where people could dip their hats as well as bandanas and towels for their necks. They handed out cups of ice, water bottles, sunscreen and sun hats. Many Street Roots supporters pulled up steadily with more supplies, lugging over bags of ice. Ambassadors, volunteers and staff headed out on foot and bike to deliver cups of ice and water to camps in Old Town and downtown. All the while, ambassadors made sure people knew about the cooling stations the Joint Office of Homeless Services was running, as well as air-conditioned libraries.
On Monday, as the heat hovered near 113 degrees, two ambassadors River and Doug Marks tended to two people who showed signs of heat exhaustion. They called 911 and soon paramedics were tending to the people inside the cooling tents, delivering fluids through IV tubes. Each person was taken to the hospital.
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I heard reports of innovative efforts to keep people cool all over the region by organizations, mutual aid groups and neighbors helping neighbors. Ground Score, for example, set up a wind tunnel using generators and fans under the Morrison Bridge on the Central Eastside.
As we experience the aggressive weather of a warming planet, once again, the impacts are unevenly distributed. Some of us can weather this heat with indoor air conditioning, and weather the cold with heating systems; others of us, exposed in all circumstances, risk death.
But still, there can be moments of shared experiences in these crises. Unhoused and housed people both appreciated the cooling station in front of Street Roots, spreading their arms as the mist scattered over their body, exclaiming a bit of joy at the relief.
There was a respite in animosity. Again and again as we face public health crises — pandemic, fires, ice storms, extreme heat — supporting each other is an act of community love.
Look out for your neighbors who can’t escape the heat. Make sure people have water and ice. We will need to rise up for each other again and again in the extreme-weather events of our disrupted climate.
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Look — I’m grumpy that unhoused people are being scapegoated as the city opens back up — after how impressively people survived during this pandemic outside looking out for each other, and then, as the rest of us crowd back into public spaces, they are castigated as eyesores once again, deemed an obstacle. The logic of the LPGA golf tournament seems to be that poverty is contagious, as if housed people need gated communities for our sensibilities.
Doug Marks, a Street Roots ambassador who has steadily helped every Street Root ambassador effort during the pandemic, was running the misting tent on Sunday afternoon when he turned to me and said how proud he was of the work they had accomplished. There’s so much untapped talent on the streets, he said to me. If only more people understood this.
While he talked, River, another ambassador, was a gracious host to all who passed by, some of whom were housed neighbors or tourists startled by the heat, others who were lugging bedrolls and garbage bags, trappings of surviving the streets.
Cool off in our misting tent, River would offer, and people would step in, gratefully.
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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