🧵Okay. @SamAdamsPDX proposed mass shelters for 3000 people. Putting aside what's alarming (national guard, warehousing): he’s thinking big — but not big enough. Transform that into something positive: create/open up good livable spaces for 3000 people w/out criminalizing them.
How about we as a community take up the challenge of finding livable spaces for 3000 people more quickly than – but alongside –the slow build of affordable housing. A lot of housing, even deemed affordable, still is focused on middle incomes (that’s how unaffordable our city is)
How would we do it? Project Turkey on a statewide level turned 19 motels into livable spaces — shelters, transition housing, apartments) within about six months thanks to the able-steering of the @TheOregonCF. Could we have a *Portland Turnkey*?
Mult County and City Council put aside surplus budgets in the fall for motel purchases. Where is that at? How can we speed that up? How do we keep using the motels used for COVID isolation should we reach the point where we don't need them for COVID?
How can the government support more master leases to sustainably provide housing? What can landlords do? What the heck do we do with the fact there are empty apartments and people who desperately need apartments?
And what about all the villages that neighborhood groups and collectives have been planning? What can be done to support those/speed that up? What *has* happened to any will for legal spaces for people to park their RVs and cars? And projects faith communities have planned?
And how can our communities better support Safe Rest Villages so 1.) they can really happen; 2.) they don’t come with sweep conditions (which takes us back to the issue that solutions should be about addressing, and not criminalizing, poverty and health).
A few more necessary caveats:
Stop offering schemes that “require” people to go in, as if poverty & health struggles (physical, mental health, substances) *sentence* people to being rounded up. Can’t we, as a society, imagine living conditions that don't involve imprisonment?
Stop offering schemes that “require” people to go in, as if poverty & health struggles (physical, mental health, substances) *sentence* people to being rounded up. Can’t we, as a society, imagine living conditions that don't involve imprisonment?
Beware of pushes to fund more shelters by simply subtracting from other services (re: the Metro Housing Services) because 1.) that’s a zero sum game; and ...
2.) People are suffering on the streets, and some will need support to manage that suffering indoors. How exactly are folks who need support with recovery, mental health management, etc supposed to get that if that money is gutted?
Plus, that services money is helping with rent assistance (i.e. one more person who's not homeless. Why would we take that away? That's just making a bigger problem.
Can we collectively meet the challenge of opening up/creating good 3000 livable spaces *without* criminalizing anyone’s existence? I sure hope so. What do you think? #3000Challenge
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