COMMENTARY | The 9th Circuit ruling prevents cities from criminalizing homelessness Americans have a powerful and unique urge to blame homeless people for their own circumstances. This common misperception — that people choose to be homeless — is too ofte ...
12 Apr 2019 - Sara K. Rankin
DIRECTOR’S DESK | Criminalizing people for being homeless is cruel and inhumane, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled A lot gets written in a day, and on Tuesday, Sept. 4, Donald Trump managed to punch out 16 wild and furious tweets. But among this frenzy, it’s ...
7 Sep 2018 - Kaia Sand
Portland needs to be all-in as a national leader Calling a city a cesspool certainly grabs attention. That’s how Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner started his public Facebook statement on July 16, decrying the new Independent Police Revi ...
20 Jul 2018 - Kaia Sand
Policing the poor just means there’s so much more work to do Now we know: More than half of the people arrested in Portland last year were homeless. Rebecca Woolington and Melissa Lewis reported in The Oregonian on June 27 that unhoused people comprised ...
6 Jul 2018 - Kaia Sand
An emphasis on sweeps is an emphasis on making life more difficult for our neighbors who live outside Mark jotted a letter on a sheet of amber-green colored paper that he tucked into a Street Roots newspaper. He did this over and over, writing letters to ...
9 Mar 2018 - Kaia Sand
Those who have the least are being displaced and forced to downsize – to discard the possessions they hold dear “I can only carry so many backpacks on my back at the same time with my precious items,” Barbara told me. She was tired, upset, exhausted. Stan ...
16 Feb 2018 - Kaia Sand
Oregon legislation sought to end criminalization of sleeping while homeless and other basic human rights A newly released ACLU of Oregon report, “Decriminalizing Homelessness: Why Right to Rest Legislation is the High Road For Oregon,” finds that there is ...
6 Apr 2017 - Israel Bayer