OPINION | People need agency in their own lives, and options when it comes to housing and shelter The bright daffodil stood upright like a spring flag against the blue-tarped tent on West Burnside Street. It was nearly 70 degrees last week and people were ...
13 Apr 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | It took a lot of ‘yes, and’ to build a brand-new first responder system Plenty of civic dialogue focuses on what doesn’t work. Goodness knows I devote column inches to describing system failures. But the fact Portland Street Response is up and r ...
6 Apr 2022 - Kaia Sand
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 ...
30 Mar 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | An audit of the state’s Home Mortgage Interest Deduction reveals the tax policy’s inequities The largest government subsidy for housing in Oregon does not help people exit homelessness. Rather, it benefits high-income, white, urban Oregonians, a ...
23 Mar 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | We need to look throughout our region and make use of what’s available to house 3,000 people this year “They’re not homeless when they are housed.” That’s what a Creston-Kenilworth neighbor told Kevin Cavenaugh when he was surprised they weren’t ...
16 Mar 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | The $400 million legislative housing package protects human rights; no city can use the funding for sweeps People survive in tents in Deschutes National Forest, along the Umpqua River of Roseburg, on the sandy knolls of Lincoln City. In Medford, ...
2 Mar 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | We can go bigger — and kinder I’ll hand it to Sam Adams. Putting aside the alarming nature of his idea to warehouse 3,000 people in militarized spaces, he was thinking big — but not big enough. It’s the same thing with the People 4 Portland camp ...
23 Feb 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | The order lacks constructive measures. Where are people expected to go? Mayor Ted Wheeler invoked an emergency declaration to prohibit people from living along many major streets where people camp often seeking visibility as a form of safety. It ...
9 Feb 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | Knowledge from the unhoused provides critical insight The Street Roots ambassadors grew animated discussing the topic of ranked-choice voting. They considered how this method of voting could motivate people to vote because they might feel like t ...
2 Feb 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | Public education is a right in this country. Why not housing? What if people had a right to housing in the way that they have a right to a K-12 public education? That’s a question Andy Nelson, executive director of Impact NW, posed to me. Impact ...
26 Jan 2022 - Kaia Sand