SAFES is working to provide for some of the most vulnerable to violence on the streets It’s the middle of December and the temperatures are dwindling dangerously close to freezing. It’s about midnight — the time the doors of the Roseland Theater open and ...
6 Jan 2015 -
Allison Strange came to Portland to leave behind the old memories of her son, whom she lost to cancer, and to be with her boyfriend. She came looking for a fresh start in a new place. And that’s exactly what she found at Street Roots. “A better one than I ...
31 Dec 2014 - Sarah Hansell
Paulette Bade started selling Street Roots in Portland to fill the days in between her nights at the shelter. She experienced homelessness for the first time this year. But her reason for continuing — at least one of them — is a little different now that ...
6 Dec 2014 - Sarah Hansell
Danielle Johnstone and Charles Mitchell sell Street Roots the same way they do everything else in their lives — together. “I wanted her to be able to do it with me,” Charles said. “I wanted for us to do it together.” The couple have been together since th ...
2 Dec 2014 - Sarah Hansell
Sarah Mirk decided to write her book “ Sex From Scratch ” because, in her words, the majority of what she found in the dating section of her local bookstore “sucked.” Mirk set out to write a book that, rather than offering a series of rules to follow, off ...
19 Nov 2014 - Sarah Hansell
When Marlon Crump is standing on his turf in front of the Standard Insurance building on SW 4th and Salmon with a stack of Street Roots in his hands, even on a week in between new papers, it seems like everyone knows who he is. Maybe it’s his contagious e ...
31 Oct 2014 - Sarah Hansell
As early as five in the morning, you can find refugee growers kneeling in the dirt of the Refuge Gardens in Damascus. among the rows of broccoli, kale, squash, onions and other autumn crops. Neatly planted vegetables and fruits stretch out across the two ...
23 Oct 2014 - Sarah Hansell
After being in and out of homelessness since age 26, Justin Harris finally had some steady housing in Portland through Transition Projects. But when his brother Bryan left their hometown in the Yakima Valley to join him, he moved back to the streets. “I w ...
20 Oct 2014 - Sarah Hansell
José Gomez was a teenager when the bloody Salvadoran civil war started in 1979 — a war that would last for 13 years, perpetuated by funds and weapons supplied by the U.S. government. Next month, Gomez will his own experiences to Portland where he will spe ...
1 Oct 2014 - Sarah Hansell
The first thing I notice about Betty Jo Griffiths is more than just her immediate smiling personality or her kindness. It’s the joyful calm of her spirit. So much so that I forget what questions I have planned to ask that day. Betty Jo’s youngest child ha ...
24 Sep 2014 - Sarah Hansell