Thread by @mkaiasand

Thread. I have two concerns I’d like to highlight regarding @tedwheeler's comments in this article by @EvertonBailey – (1.) public health during COVID-19; (2.) policy that might be motivated by concerns other than the wellbeing of unhoused people… oregonlive.com/portland/2020/…

First, though, in the context of the grievous inequity around housing, I'll start with the fact that housing must be a right.

Over the last several years, voters passed housing bonds at the city of Portland and @oregonmetro levels, as well as a Metro tax measure for services to support people in their housing that will kick into action next year. These are important steps.

The scale of homelessness is much larger than what the eye can see. This important metro-wide study estimated that 38,000 people were unhoused in 2017, and many people on the brink. It’s just going to get harder. @DrMarisaZapata1
@homelessnesspdx streetroots.org/news/2019/08/2…

More people will be homeless because of the fires and other climate related disasters @KatMcKelvey
streetroots.org/news/2020/09/2…

More people will be homeless when rent comes due after eviction moratoria are lifted. Lots of folks are struggling.

While shelters are one important way to support people who are struggling, shelters are not a good public health response to COVID-19.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…

Motel rooms and safe camping for RVs are both better public health responses to COVID-19, allowing people to physically distance and have some autonomy.

One survey of people living on Portland streets showed their preferred COVID responses were motels, camps, & RVs. A few factors to consider: this survey was early in the pandemic, not when winter was approaching & this survey was about people’s top choice streetroots.org/news/2020/05/2…

But even so, it’s important that only 3 percent of unhoused people survey declared a shelter as their top choice from the stated options.

Also, many people who were surveyed were sleeping on the ground or in tents, not in RVs, so if more people surveyed possessed cars or RVs – as many unhoused people do – the results might have been different.

We saw with fire evacuations, that with political will, RVs camps can be supported. At Clackamas Town Center, there were showers, water trucks, cell-phone stations. Instead, people are parking their RVs in more desperate conditions. #OregonFires2020

And here’s the aspect of the Mayor's comments that activates my “spidey sense,” so to speak. Some people argue for shelters to get unhoused people out of sight. Sometimes this motivation is bald-faced, like how Donald Trump stated it last year: streetroots.org/news/2019/09/2…

But often this objective is more artfully veiled – and yet, still, the well-being of the poorest people in our society – their autonomy, their futures, their dreams, their health – is not prioritized.

Who are the mayor’s comments catering too? I don’t know. But I can smell enough danger to be alert – particularly since he connected them to this idea that the city is limited in how it is “remediating” (sweeping, that is) camps because of CDC guidelines.

But sweeping camps doesn’t get people into shelters or housing. It (1.) adds trauma; (2.) just moves people. They still exist. So either the Mayor’s comment on “remediation” – in connection to discussing shelters – was a non sequitur or … revelatory.

Poor people should never be used as pawns in power moves.