Kaia Sand | Doors are opening at Street Roots

James Duby rolled up to the Street Roots building on Northwest Third Avenue and Burnside Street and pressed the wheelchair access button. The copper-colored doors slowly opened.

James smiled.

Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. This column represents her views.

So did Francisco Flores, who, as the O’Neill Construction superintendent, worked for over a year preparing this building for Street Roots.

The Street Roots Burnside Street building’s grand opening is Aug. 1, but for the next couple of months, we are finishing construction and designing the interior with vendors at the lead.

James’ reaction was everything. Everyone working on this project centered people at the margins, just as the building itself centers people at the margins in our city.

This means drawing from the ideas of universal design, that if you design a space to include people who are most excluded, you are designing a space for many other people. A person with the biggest mobility challenges should be centered to make a space, for example, so Holst Architecture took great care to design not only how people enter the building but also how they navigate it.

The elevator and stairs wrap around in the same space, so one community isn’t jettisoned into a dark corridor.

Holst Architecture spent countless hours determining ways to soften the sound (the vendor space has acoustic spray on the ceiling) and the light.

Jessica Helgerson lent her extraordinary insights on trauma-informed design from working on the award-winning Path Home shelter.

Now, we are at a new stage in the next few months led by Cole Reed, who, in turn, leads the “flight crew” — Street Roots vendors working on furniture and art for the space.

Cole Reed is approaching the space to support the diverse ways people experience their surroundings, whether from trauma, neurological differences or both. There’s a vibrancy of neurodiversity at Street Roots, where differences are superpowers. It’s these months of intentional, inclusive work that’s going to bring the final touch to magic.

Raising money for this beautiful space — beautiful for people on the streets, beautiful for the larger community — has been a Herculean task. We’re not done yet. In fact, we’ve divided out many of the final aspects so you can decide how to plug in.

Thanks to many of you, we’ve raised the funds to purchase three washers and dryers, as well as a bookshelf that will be a Portland Street Books-managed library. You’ve also contributed the funds to pay for our classroom table and a coffee station for the library.

Thank you.

Here are some areas we are focused on now:

$50,000. Wheelchair access fund.

From wheelchair access at the front door to a charging station to uniquely designed counters to an extraordinary ADA shower, focus on wheelchair access is ongoing. We need to raise $50,000 more to support this work.

$20,000. Vendor stipend fund.

We need to pay vendors for their work on the flight crew as they refinish furniture and work with Cole Reed to design an inclusive space.

$20,000. Trauma-informed fund.

That acoustic foam. Those soft lights. Those calming colors and materials (wood, stone, copper). It’s a grounding space. Chip in at streetroots.org/wishlist

Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. 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.

This article appears in May 15, 2024.