OPINION | When housed and unhoused neighbors gathered at a Portland park to listen to each other, new opportunities emerged The circle was big. Standing 6 feet apart, neighbors — at first mostly people who are housed, and slowly, more and more unhoused — ...
30 Dec 2020 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | Street Roots suspended our print edition this week because of the air quality It wasn’t much, but it was pizza – a small effort at fire prevention. Mike D, a Street Roots vendor who coordinates action team outreach, and I crossed the busy St. He ...
12 Sep 2020 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | Under the direction of Street Roots staffer Mallory Smith, our vendors are helping unhoused people take the Census Pops cleaned off a laptop, readying it for the next Census taker. Mask on and wearing a turquoise t-shirt announcing, “We Count St ...
17 Jul 2020 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | Street Roots is connecting impoverished people with cash assistance, stimulus checks and tax credits, but it’s not enough These days, I think about money a lot. Where is it, and how can it get into the pockets of poor folks? An antidote ...
15 May 2020 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR'S DESK | We can build a better future, even though we don’t yet know what that is A wedding during a pandemic. Unhoused people running an office. A rainbow in a stormy sky. During these undeniably hard times many of us grapple with new expe ...
24 Apr 2020 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | As we confront this pandemic, we continue to look toward our best future There’s nothing incremental about this moment. At Street Roots, we’ve developed a theory of action: When we solve for one problem, we also solve for something else ...
27 Mar 2020 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR'S DESK | Accustomed to getting the news out, they are becoming the media in a new way — by word of mouth Street Roots vendors are hitting the trails to deliver accurate information about COVID-19 to other unhoused people. Accustomed to getti ...
12 Mar 2020 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR'S DESK | It's all-hands-on-deck when it comes to hygiene support We’re not helpless out here,” Raven Drake told me, standing in front of an eight-person tent that, she explained, would serve as a medical tent should any people in neighb ...
6 Mar 2020 - Kaia Sand