🧵The backlash is disheartening. 💔 As people emerge from devastations of the still-roiling pandemic (nearly a million deaths in the US, so many new heartbreaks), there’s too much backlash against the difficult, equitable work of a more just future. Unhoused people are too often spoken about like a surplus population — as “other” rather than among. How can we rise to this moment in history with grace and grit? With a commitment to do the hard things, not the easy things?

A tool can be transformed into a weapon. @StreetRoots helped found Dignity Village, championed Right 2 Dream Too, Hazelnut Grove, pushed for C3P0. But we are also watchful, too, lest "alternative shelters" are turned against people. streetroots.org/news/2022/04/1… I'm grateful that @homelessnesspdx published this Village Guide based on 42 interviews with villagers. Recommended reading! 📖 pdx.edu/homelessness/e…

(Thread). There are vacant apartments around our city, but they are mostly inaccessible to people experiencing homelessness. We can change that. streetroots.org/news/2022/03/1… #3000Challenge There are two buildings on SE Gladstone that include a juice bar, a hair salon, a bakery — and apartments where people who exited homelessness live. It’s called Jolene’s First Cousin. streetroots.org/news/2022/03/1…

🧵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)

(thread) This is why I write / this is why I fight:
More than an hour ago, I was biking home from @StreetRoots, southward on 3rd Avenue through downtown. I saw a man lying in the middle of the street. He was sobbing. Blue hair, bright paint smudged on his face, a children’s rainbow-keyed toy piano next to him – he was a man covered in rainbow colors.

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.

Thread | It is important for more of us to know what the C3PO camp villages in @pdx actually are — to counter the reckless lies launched in a video (I’m not going to give it any more oxygen by linking to it). I’ll do my best to lay out some of what I know: These three camp villages were set up in April through a grassroots coalition working with the city of #pdx. As services receded like the tide in the pandemic, many unhoused people were left, standing on barren land — no libraries or day spaces & few services.

Thread. Unhoused people should be sources in stories about them — not objects of disdain.

https://twitter.com/JulesBoykoff/status/1261511166515240960

As services recede, unhoused people have been taking care of each other. With few places for recovery, one man set up tents for his neighbors trying to stay clean. Another feeds people all along his strip of tents.

The phone calls started coming in this week: complaints about people in tents. I felt terrified. Defying public health needs, people antsy to open up business could infect unhoused people trying to shelter in place. So I wrote my column about this. 👇
news.streetroots.org/2020/05/08/has… 🤎 If people are in their tents, please don’t push for them to be moved. They need to shelter in place. Push instead for more options, such as opening up hotels and motels or opening up shelter-in-place camp villages like C3PO elsewhere in the region. news.streetroots.org/2020/04/10/3-t…

Thread: Mondays at @StreetRoots are intense. People struggle more than ever in Old Town. With humanity. With grace. First, I want to share with you this beautiful tent festooned with a wreath above its front door. Services are shut down & changing (that’s why @StreetRoots launched a digital COVID-19 edition: rosecityresource.streetroots.org ... to try to keep up with the changes and communicate them)

Thread: I’m not going to lie. Today was very hard. At @StreetRoots we prepared for three days to be able to support unhoused people apply for one time cash assistance from the Portland Housing Bureau. We paid five unhoused people to run computer stations. 70 people lined up for hours to be ready for the 10 a.m. time when this application process opened. We paid two more people to help folks social distance while serving them coffee to keep morale okay.

The city of Portland is poised to spend more money on sweeps at a time when courts have called this cruel and inhumane treatment of unhoused people. I'll expand ... A five-year, 5 million/per year contract to pay Rapid Response Bio Cleaning LLC to sweep homeless camps goes before City Council on Wednesday: portlandoregon.gov/auditor/articl…

(Thread)With the spotlight on philanthropy that #GivingTuesday brings, today I’ll share 10 @StreetRoots highlights from the past year to share why I love it, and to encourage you to support it through @GiveGuide. giveguide.org/#StreetRoots 👉#1. Last week two vendors signed a lease on an apartment. Last year they were living outdoors; over the summer, they moved into a couple’s shelter. When anyone from the @StreetRoots community moves into housing, everyone rejoices🧡 #GivingTuesday giveguide.org/#StreetRoots

Listening to @RevDrBarber call for “moral analysis, moral articulation and moral action.”
#poorpeoplescampaign #MeyerEquitySpeakers @OCPPnews @UniteThePoor @meyermt @colorcoalition @TheAlbertaAbbey “Moral crisis is not new, and there is a need in every age for people to raise moral dissent.” @RevDrBarber @UniteThePoor

(1/5) People in poverty deserve inclusive public spaces where they can gather and be treated well. There are too few such spaces.

https://twitter.com/MollyHarbarger/status/1189678518289850368

(2/5) For those of us with money, there are many places to loiter (private residences, commercial spaces in which we purchase our admission); for those of us who are poor, this is not the case

Witnessing ⁦@StreetRoots⁩ vendors and ⁦@homelessnesspdx⁩ volunteers survey on #PortlandStreetResponse, ⁦@alex_zee⁩ of ⁦@portlandmercury interviewed some of the “top experts” who were surveyed — unhoused people. portlandmercury.com/news/2019/08/0… “It would be nice if it wasn’t just someone telling me to move,” said a middle-aged man, rolling up a sleeping mat under the Burnside Bridge. “Someone with empathy,” writes @alex_zee @portlandmercury @StreetRoots #PortlandStreetResponse

We’ve been building toward this for months. Now we’re ready. In the new @StreetRoots, we unveil our plan for non-law enforcement street first responders. We’ve laid it all out as #PortlandStreetResponse. Please find your vendor tomorrow so you have the plan in hand. Momentum began last summer for the need for non-law enforcement street first responders when @rwoolington and @iff_orMelissa reported in @Oregonian that 52% of 2017 arrests targeted unhoused people. @StreetRoots #PortlandStreetResponse oregonlive.com/portland/2018/…

Heart-breaking. This is why we must have better ways for the public to deal with non-criminal crises than call the police. oregonlive.com//news/2019/01/… Models are out there. Cahoots in Eugene. Developing capacity within Fire & Rescue. Lives are at stake.

Listening now to @KBOO to hear @colemerkel, Leo Rhodes and Aileen MacPherson talk about @street Roots to host @S_ohm and read poetry. Live. "I love being on this committee. There's raw talent and raw emotion in there. There were times it really got to me," said @StreetRoots vendor Leo Rhodes about editing the new @StreetRoots zine on @KBOO

Good morning! I will be live-tweeting from sales posts around the city today, celebrating the Street Roots vendors who are out selling the new issue and our holiday zine on this rainy day. Support your Street Roots vendor! #tuckabuck #buckthesystem I just visited @StreetRoots vendor Aimee who is selling the new edition at NW11 & Lovejoy by Safeway. Her message for @StreetRoots customers: “Thanks for everyone’s support, and try to stay dry!” #tuckabuck #buckthesystem

From @KateBrownForOR voted in as governor to @joann4portland in city council to Kathryn Harrington as the Washington County Chair, local voters supported women in leadership! I celebrate that more women of color have been voted into national leadership!