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Kaia Sand

Executive Director 

Kaia Sand
Motoya Nakamura

Kaia Sand became executive director of Street Roots in late 2017, two decades after she worked as a staff reporter for the Burnside Cadillac, the predecessor to Street Roots. In those subsequent 20 years, Sand worked as a poet, artist, community organizer, and university professor, focusing particularly on economic injustice and homelessness — from a magic show she created about the financial collapse to the Right 2 Survive Ambassador Program she co-founded for housed people to learn from people experiencing homelessness. She taught at Portland State University, Pacific University, Willamette University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland; co-founded Vignettes & Verses, a writing and personal history institute; and performed and taught internationally, including in England, Ireland and Brazil. She has widely exhibited her artwork and served in residencies, from a public art commision at the City of Portland Archives and Records Center to the Despina International Artist Residency in Rio de Janeiro. A  member of PEN America, she is author of three books of poetry — interval (a Small Press Traffic Book of the Year in 2004), Remember to Wave and A Tale of Magicians Who Puffed Up Money that Lost its Puff — and the co-author of Landscapes of Dissent: Guerrilla Poetry & Public Space. Two books in Jim Dine's Hot Dreams series are comprised of her text. In 2019 she was awarded a Spirit of Portland award by Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty; and in 2019, the regional Society of Professional Journalists small newsroom first prize for Best Column.

Articles by Kaia Sand

  • Street Roots
    Image shows a mattress used as an art canvas.

    Kaia Sand | Concern for ‘humanitarian crisis’ could turn inhumane

    OPINION | Most funders of the campaign strategist-led ‘People for Portland’ are anonymous
    By
    Kaia Sand
    September 1, 2021
  • Street Roots
    There are more than 100 papers in 35 countries.

    Kaia Sand | It’s a global movement

    OPINION | Portland's Street Roots is one of 100 street newspapers in 35 countries
    By
    Kaia Sand
    August 25, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Orange tent on a city sidewalk

    Five ways to help out in the heat

    Hard times demand compassionate responses from the community
    By
    Kaia Sand
    August 10, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Street Roots ambassadors Mike Dusek and Raven Drake dispatched to Forest Park last September to warn people of fire dangers. Ambassadors are preparing to resume this work in a larger coordinated effort with Portland Fire & Rescue.

    Kaia Sand | Global warming poses challenges for the unhoused

    Opinion | There’s no escape hatch from the storms and fires
    By
    Kaia Sand
    August 3, 2021
  • Street Roots
    A tent sits near the bank of the river

    Kaia Sand | Where, exactly, can unhoused people camp under Portland’s new policy?

    OPINION | Unhoused people deserve to know how the new ordinance on camp sweeps will be applied.
    By
    Kaia Sand
    July 7, 2021
  • Street Roots
    An awning is set up on the street, with several people working around it

    Kaia Sand | A heat wave is less escapable for those living in the elements

    OPINION | When conditions demand it, many unhoused people step up as informal health and safety workers
    By
    Kaia Sand
    June 30, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Street Roots vendor Char in the Street Roots office

    Kaia Sand | If nothing else, these words are our own

    OPINION | I love how flexible the English language is, that it keeps bending
    By
    Kaia Sand
    June 23, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Barbie and Lor hold empty trash bags while full trash bags sit on the sidewalk

    Kaia Sand | There’s plenty of trash talk. Ground Score puts people at the fore.

    OPINION | Trash is infrastructural, but it’s also personal. It connects us in on a human level.
    By
    Kaia Sand
    June 16, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Leo Rhodes

    Kaia Sand | We can learn a lot from the wisdom of the streets

    OPINION | Leo Rhodes reminds us that people’s needs vary: ‘You might not need it, but somebody else will’
    By
    Kaia Sand
    June 9, 2021
  • Street Roots
    A few tents line the sidewalk along Laurelhurst Park

    Kaia Sand | Camp sweeps solve nothing — but upcoming budgets could help

    OPINION | How should Portland and Multnomah County funding be spent for what is, in fact, a diversity of needs?
    By
    Kaia Sand
    May 26, 2021

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future Street Roots headquarters

$2.1 million. The building.
An investment in Old Town. 

Major Renovations

$1 million. Major renovations.

$1 million. Operating and programming cost reserves

 

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