Many Portlanders are skeptical of media, politicians and wealthy agenda-setters. Street Roots is skeptical, too.
There’s a rebellious spirit in this city — a populace clamoring for a better future and rejecting tired narratives. Street Roots is part of that. We’ve been here long enough to know the arc of these narratives and how they diverge from the facts.
We’ve been here long enough to know that sweeps solve problems for the housed, while endangering the homeless. We’ve been here long enough to know citations and temporary overnight shelter rarely connect anyone with services. We’ve been here long enough to know subsidizing market-rate development doesn’t magically house homeless people.
Street Roots exists to separate facts from opinions, spin and excuses. It exists to find the holes in officials’ plans and platitudes, and to highlight real, research-based solutions. But it really all starts with that shared skepticism.
We’re also skeptical of the long line of Music Man-esque characters waltzing in and promising they’ve finally figured it out. We’re also skeptical of the long line of “solutions” that seem best positioned to benefit profiteers and well-connected companies. Like you, Street Roots is skeptical of powerful people and institutions.
We’re everyday Portlanders. We don’t spend our evenings at the Arlington Club. We don’t have friends in City Hall.
Like many of our neighbors, we watch the possibility of owning a home move further from our grasp as our rents climb. We go to bed and wake up concerned about the city our kids are inheriting. We watch and wonder, as our officials spend hundreds of millions on homelessness and housing, why do thousands of our neighbors sleep on sidewalks or cots at night? We ask why there are so many “solutions” and yet none of them seem to solve our problems.
These experiences don’t guide our conclusions, but they do guide our questions.
Like the workers maintaining our roads and building our housing (who very much should be paid a prevailing wage, for those keyed in on that debate), or our neighbors being forced to sleep on a gymnasium floor under threat of legal penalties, we wonder why solutions always seem to come at a cost to us. Why is it always the proverbial little guy being asked (or forced, in some cases) to sacrifice for the sake of the big guy? Why do so many solutions involve self-determination myths and disproven trickle-down ideologies?
It’s almost as if the people in power struggle to identify the real problems, and therefore the real solutions. Rather than solving the problems of marginalized people, they assuage concerns and address narratives of other powerful and privileged people. These narratives often stem from problems faced by marginalized people, but are distinct from the actual problems.
These narratives are ones of convenience. ‘Homeless people are usually homeless because they use drugs, so we must police drug use.’ ‘Sweeps humanely connect homeless Portlanders with shelter and services, so we must continue sweeps.’ ‘Housing is too expensive, so we must give more money to developers/pay construction workers less money/deregulate construction/eliminate permitting costs/etc.’
These narratives serve to demonize our vulnerable neighbors, justify continued negligence and violence, and ensure that each solution somehow comes back to giving more money and power to those who already have it. Those pushing these narratives pretend there’s evidence supporting their conclusions, or that there’s at least a valid debate to be had.
For some reason, they always figure it out without the perspectives of those to whom they’ve prescribed “solutions,” and without the decades of research often disproving a theory they thought they developed.
All hands on deck come together to push all the chips to the center of the table. These narratives keep failing to capture the truth. These solutions keep failing to solve the problems. Losing hand after losing hand, the public loses patience. The false and corrosive idea that poverty and homelessness are intractable social ills comes to the forefront.
That’s where an outlet like Street Roots becomes so vital.
Street Roots doesn’t exist to ask developers profiting from the outrageous cost of housing how to fix the outrageous cost of housing.
It doesn’t exist to validate unfounded fears of those perceived as “other.”
It doesn’t exist to fatten the pockets of a corporate board or ownership group.
It doesn’t exist to tell you what powerful people want you to hear, or even what you want to hear.
Street Roots exists to give you the information you need — the truth of it all — and to provide income opportunities for Portlanders facing homelessness and poverty. Street Roots exists for Portlanders, by Portlanders.
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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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This article appears in December 3, 2025.