OPINION | The measure worsens homelessness, diverting funds away from solutions
When the ambulance pulled up, Elizabeth Bodenstab nearly refused medical help.
The Street Roots vendor who’d just had a seizure in front of our offices was willing to risk her well-being for housing. She was too concerned that she’d miss her housing appointment.
“She didn’t want to get in the ambulance because she had a housing meeting that was scheduled an hour after the incident took place. And she was hellbent on not missing that meeting,” Street Roots vendor program director DeVon Pouncey explained.
“The medics were really trying to encourage her to actually get checked out, get in the ambulance.”
Pouncey assured Bodenstab he’d walk over to the housing provider immediately and let them know she was in the hospital. Only then did she accept medical help.
Pouncey made good on his promise, and the housing provider promised they would reschedule her appointment.
Bodenstab’s willingness to sacrifice her health is not uncommon. Living on the streets, people too often have to make impossible choices, and people are desperate to secure housing.
In an expensive housing market where even affordable housing is far out of reach for the poorest of Oregonians, an opportunity to move off the streets and into housing is precious.
And this is why I also felt downright sick when I read about the proposed People for Portland ballot measure announced Friday. It’s moving people further from housing, not closer to it.
Metro-region voters passed the Housing Services tax measure in 2020, which pays for rent, as well as services to support people in their housing. It also supports people while they are homeless through street outreach and shelters. The People for Portland measure focuses on one aspect: stripping most of the funds away from housing and locking the lion’s share — at least 75% — into shelters.
What this means is something quite dangerous. People for Portland is stripping away the funding that can actually house people, relying instead on corralling people into spaces that should be temporary. Oftentimes housing people can be just as quick and not cost more: “The 3000 Challenge” campaign Street Roots advocacy is championing relies on the existing rent assistance and support services as a way people could be housed in apartments.
If the People for Portland measure is successful, it would not only strip funds from future housing efforts, but also from those who have secured housing in the past year and now count on rent assistance to stay housed. Thousands upon thousands of people are on the precipice of homelessness.
Of course, the People for Portland measure is about more than shelters. The proposed measure requires “cities within each county to enforce their own anti-camping ordinances as a condition of long-term funding.” It’s about clearing people out of sight without solving their homelessness. That’s a bleak future.
And I know that many people are desperate for a better future, like Bodenstab.
I caught up with her this week, after she was released from the hospital. Grateful for the medical care, she’s determined to stay alive, she told me, and she has one goal: get housed.
Bodenstab and her friend, Street Roots vendor Racheal Dulaney, discussed the People for Portland measure.
“To move money to just be in shelters doesn’t help people at all,” Dulaney said. “For people with anxiety, with being introverts — a shelter is not a good environment. There’s not at all time that I’m able to reset, because I’m around everybody.”
“That’s why I choose to be in a tent,” Bodenstab said. “I don’t do shelters,” she added. But while shelters don’t work for her, housing does. She was relieved Pouncey made sure her housing appointment was rescheduled.
“My main goal is to get housing,” Bodenstab said. “I can’t be out here. My health is going downhill.”
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
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