DIRECTOR’S DESK | Proposed portable toilets would shift funds used to clean up homeless camps toward facilities that foster dignity and public health If you soon see plaid- and PDX-carpet patterned portable toilets around the city, see, too, the promise o ...
17 May 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | As teachers demanded stability for Oregon’s youths, GOP senators refused to make the investment Wednesday was a day of contrasting walkouts. Brightly visible in red T-shirts, students and teachers across the state walked out into the sun ...
10 May 2019 - Kaia Sand
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. Kaia Sand is the executive di ...
26 Apr 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | Since day one, this organization has been about journalism, vendors and advocacy I walked up three stories of Central Library marble staircases, across woolen carpet woven with roses, to reach “ Get It On Paper,” an exhibit reflecting on ...
12 Apr 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | If there's no funding for a compassionate response to crises on the streets, then support of the plan goes nowhere We’ve heard a tremendous response to the Portland Street Response plan published in our March 15 edition. The grounds ...
29 Mar 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | Learning from Eugene's CAHOOTS program, Portland must make it clear that a non-police response is available Just under three hours south by train and I was in Eugene, there to witness their mobile crisis support program, CAHOOTS. I ...
15 Mar 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | It was the last day for our vendor program director; it was the first day for 12 new vendors Outside, the afternoon wind was gusting hard, branches rattling on Northwest Second Avenue. Few people were visible from their bundles of blanke ...
1 Mar 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | To whom it may concern... Rich taped a valentine to the brick wall in the vendor office. He made it during a recent vendor office valentine-making party and addressed it this way: “To Whom it May Concern.” He was grinning when he showed ...
22 Feb 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | Plan includes some gains for homeless The Portland City Council voted unanimously to approve the Central Eastside Enhanced Services District Wednesday after an all hands-on-deck effort by the staffs of Commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty, Ch ...
6 Feb 2019 - Kaia Sand
DIRECTOR’S DESK | White boys who mocked a Native American elder were afforded a nuance that people of color are rarely afforded in the media Donald Trump disparages Native Americans frequently and relentlessly. He refers to mass killings as though they ar ...
25 Jan 2019 - Kaia Sand