DIRECTOR’S DESK | While Portland Police Response addresses problems upstream, we're also tackling the barriers downstream
I intend to write about hope, but to do that, I’ll start with some bleak moments. Bear with me.
There was that morning when the man emptied his pockets of rocks, declaring that’s all he owned in the world, shouting, despairing. And there was the hour I spent making sure he didn’t have weapons in his pockets – more rocks, a pocketknife – before the Project Respond mental health crisis workers arrived, because they would be accompanied by police, and I feared that the situation might escalate.
There was the day when the person who only the week before handed me a sketch of a dancer was now banging their head against the wall in despair, the crushing draw on mental health that is the streets. There was that man who was terrified by memories of seeing another man shot while in the throes of a mental health crisis, and who said, essentially, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” And there was the exhaustion of sleepless nights that made one person’s eyes flicker wildly, the way someone’s eyes might rapidly move under their lids when they sleep.
Those are the days when I toggle my thinking, helpless in the face of one person’s struggles, determined that somehow those struggles provide lessons on how to fix the system. This is how we at Street Roots find more determination: Our mission is to make both individual change and systemic change, and we often switch between those two visions, one informing the other.
It is for the person with the rocks in his pockets, the person who sketched the dancer, and all the others that Street Roots put forward the Portland Street Response plan . When they are in crisis, the last thing they need is for their crisis to get worse.
Again and again, police are sent to what are non-criminal issues, and again and again, the very people who need housing are denied it as they accumulate criminal records often built out of the struggles of being homeless. It’s absurd and regressive, 10 steps backward.
So, while we designed the Portland Street Response to address the problem upstream, we also need to work downstream. Too many people are entangled in that legal system, often through crimes, essentially, of homelessness.
That’s why our vendor office was abuzz on Thursday, April 25. It was a big day. The Metropolitan Public Defenders Community Law Program set up a legal clinic at Street Roots. Propping up laptops, pizza spread out for everyone, they helped people review their Oregon court records because some crimes can be expunged – either removed or sealed from a person’s record. They also helped people assess their court fines, and make a plan on reducing or removing them with service.
“We were able to give people a lot of information about their records," said attorney Juhi Aggarwal. "For people who have a lot of other things going on, they don’t always remember the details of when and where and if they still owe money. Everyone I talked to, I was able to tell them, you will be eligible on a certain date. It might not be today, but they have that certainty to look forward to. And we were able to advise them about fines and fees they still owe, and make a plan to resolve those.”
Indeed, there was a festive atmosphere. Standing at the counter, eating pizza, one vendor began to talk about how a conviction from almost 30 years ago had posed a barrier in so many ways – housing, a job he so much wanted. He was smiling the whole time as he imagined having that burden lifted should the expungement come through. As he spoke, I imagined an alternate story, the one he would have lived had he not had that conviction. And then I reminded myself to focus on his future, all that still could be ahead.
Our staff has been working on toward for months because, again – as we toggle between the individual and the system – we are participating in this pilot to also study the impacts over time, with research led by Uma Krishnan, housing program coordinator for the Portland Housing Bureau.
If people can get their records expunged – those old trespassing charges, say – how does that remove other barriers? And what barriers are we not aware of?
When Damon McPherson, outreach coordinator for the Metropolitan Public Defenders, announced the legal clinic during our new-paper meeting last Friday, one vendor – whose criminal record accumulated in her early years and who now is determined to help others – said, “You mean I could become a federal judge?” As she said this, I wondered what other dreams in the room might be unloosed, given fewer barriers, more opportunities. It’s extraordinary to think about.
There’s a lot of work to remedy the system. It’d be better to prevent those barriers in the first place. That’s why we are fighting so hard for the Portland Street Response.
We’re working on two timelines. One is immediate: There are only a few more days to let Mayor Ted Wheeler know how urgent it is to fund a pilot to design the Portland Street Response through the Bureau of Emergency Services. He will release his draft budget May 1. If you feel strongly about this, please write an email or make a phone call to the mayor and city commissioners. We’ve pulled together resources for you to do this at portlandstreetresponse.org .
While you are at it, share on social media the call to both write the mayor and endorse the plan online. Our pinned posts on both Facebook and Twitter are easy to share through #portlandstreetresponse.
The other timeline is for the larger movement, one that will span the next year and a half. The Portland Street Response has to be designed with robust training and implemented with the support of the public to fortify political will.
That mandate is growing. Read the trove of testimonies that people are leaving at portlandstreetresponse.org when they endorse, and add to these. It’s inspiring. We are building a manifesto of hope.
People all over the city seek to coalesce around something big and constructive. This is not to give Portland Street Response too much weight. This is about first response, not a place to go. By drawing a clear line about what this is – first response – we also draw a clear line around what is missing – the housing, the safe places.
The inequality is deep, the suffering is strong, but it is from this place that we can, indeed, toggle our collective thinking. Looking at what is going terribly wrong, how do we right it with a whole, big, system change? We can do this.
Since the beginning, we’ve been learning from vendors, digging in with our reporting, and using that knowledge to advocate for systemic change. Sustain this work. In our 20th year, we aim to raise an additional $20,000 through recurring donors. Sign up to pitch in $5, $20, $50, $100 a month. It’s all a big help. It keeps it all going. streetroots.org/donate
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org . Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand .
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Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots
