Skip to main content
Street Roots Donate
Portland, Oregon's award-winning weekly street newspaper
For those who can't afford free speech
Twitter Facebook RSS Vimeo Instagram
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • Advertise with Us
  • Contact
  • Job Openings
  • Donate
  • About
  • future home
  • Vendors
  • Rose City Resource
  • Advocacy
  • Support
News
  • News
  • Housing
  • Environment
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Orange Fence Project
  • Podcasts
  • Vendor Profiles
  • Archives

Kaia Sand

Executive Director

Kaia Sand
Motoya Nakamura

she/her

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
    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
  • Street Roots
    A tent by the river with the Portland skyline as a backdrop

    Kaia Sand | Empathy is built through Street Roots’ journalism and vendors’ prose

    OPINION | When writers provide familiar details, they help us make sense of unfamiliar experiences
    By
    Kaia Sand
    May 12, 2021
  • Street Roots

    Kaia Sand | ‘Imagine how well it would work if the city and the people who made decisions stood behind it’

    OPINION | A conversation with CAHOOTS coordinator Ebony Morgan about how Portland Street Response should be rolled out
    By
    Kaia Sand
    May 12, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Two women stand in front of the Street Roots office, one is carrying a large box. Tents line the street.

    Kaia Sand | Go big, Mayor Wheeler. Our city needs Portland Street Response.

    OPINION | The mayor proposes underfunding the non-police crisis response program by 77%
    By
    Kaia Sand
    May 4, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Flowers, signs, candles and other items adorn the site of Robert Delgado's memorial

    Kaia Sand | The bystanders who witness police killings suffer, too

    OPINION | Unhoused people are overexposed to trauma. The effects accumulate.
    By
    Kaia Sand
    April 28, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Paulette Martin walks past a memorial with flowers and candles

    Kaia Sand | ‘Why are they shooting people?’

    DIRECTOR’S DESK | The police killing of Robert Delgado was among a national spate of such killings since the Chauvin trial began
    By
    Kaia Sand
    April 21, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Right 2 Rest hearing is this Tuesday at 1 p.m.

    Opinion | ‘We all know these laws are only enforced against certain people’

    WRAP Director Paul Boden discusses why it matters to pass the Right to Rest Act
    By
    Kaia Sand
    April 9, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Three Street Roots ambassadors raise their fists outside the Street Roots office

    Kaia Sand | It’s time to ‘Strengthen Our Roots’ for decades to come

    OPINION | Street Roots’ Ambassador Program means more income opportunities for people experiencing poverty, and it relies on your support
    By
    Kaia Sand
    April 7, 2021
  • Street Roots
    Peter Salzmann

    Kaia Sand | Hints of federal progress offer new hope for rectifying old failures

    OPINION | The Biden administration’s child tax credit creates a floor on families’ poverty. Can we keep going?
    By
    Kaia Sand
    March 31, 2021

Pages

  • ≪ previous
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • next »

8 of 21

▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • © 2021 Street Roots. All rights reserved. To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org.
  • Read Street Roots' commenting policy
  • Support Street Roots
  • Like what you're reading? Street Roots is made possible by readers like you! Your support fuels our in-depth reporting, and each week brings you original news you won't find anywhere else. Thank you for your support!

  • DONATE