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Need and poverty are rising in Oregon

Cost of living, inflation and ongoing pandemic impacts contribute to record levels of poverty "It feels like I’m the string quartet on the Titanic," M. said — referencing the quartet playing as the ship sank — while they cradled two paper grocer ...

17 Aug 2022 - Piper McDaniel
City contractors swept homeless Portlanders during state of emergency

Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency July 22 due to the impending danger of extreme heat, but city contractors continued sweeping homeless encampments until at least July 25 at noon While city and county agencies, as well as mutual aid groups, ...

3 Aug 2022 - K. Rambo
HUD launches affordable housing and rehousing initiative to combat national homelessness crisis

“Homelessness is not a political issue. It’s about human lives.” What was once a battered Econo Lodge, a strip of rooms bordering a blacktop asphalt parking lot near downtown Hillsboro, is now a flagship rehousing project offering temporary transitional h ...

3 Aug 2022 - Piper McDaniel
Opinion | See the Invisible Man

A science fiction story about an invisible man speaks to the experiences of homeless Portlanders, who often only wish for people to recognize their humanity When I was homeless here in Portland, I would save enough money to get a room for the night. I ...

27 Jul 2022 - Leo Rhodes
Portland’s new shelter referral system becoming less effective with time

Street Services Coordination Center offering fewer shelter referrals as sweeps increase Crystal Kelly has lived in a tent near a bus station in Old Town for months. Homeless for a few years now, she’s been trying, as she puts it, “to get clean, to stay ou ...

20 Jul 2022 - Tyler Walicek and K. Rambo
Homeless people are more likely to be victims of violence than housed people

For many housed people, there is a tendency to conflate unhoused populations with violent crime and danger, but crime rates tell a different story. Editor's note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence. In May, Willamette Week reported ...

13 Jul 2022 - Piper McDaniel
Old Town’s 90-day ‘reset’ yields sweeps with little notice, no advance postings

Unhoused Portlanders swept using the tactic say it undermines safety, stability and human dignity What’s the difference between moving with one hour’s notice and 72 hours’ notice? “A lot,” DJ Husar, Street Roots vendor, said. The city swept Husar, an unho ...

6 Jul 2022 - K. Rambo
Editorial | Interviewing unhoused neighbors requires care

Street Roots maintains an internal set of criteria and considerations regarding interview practices for unhoused Portlanders. Compassion and consent lead the way. Street Roots often receives praise from readers for including the triumphs, concerns and exp ...

6 Jul 2022 - SR editorial board
Police know arrests won’t fix homelessness. They keep arresting people anyway.

In the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, residents gathered at a public forum last June to voice their concerns about the city’s growing population of homeless individuals. Over the last decade, rent grew twice as fast in Portland as the rest of the ...

29 Jun 2022 - Melissa Lewis
Kaia Sand | When policing is more important than housing, the unhoused are over-policed

Opinion | Stable housing is vital, but remains underfunded compared to policing Imagine a city in which some people have plenty, and some barely have anything at all. Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. This column represents her views. T ...

29 Jun 2022 - Kaia Sand