OPINION | We need to look throughout our region and make use of what’s available to house 3,000 people this year “They’re not homeless when they are housed.” That’s what a Creston-Kenilworth neighbor told Kevin Cavenaugh when he was surprised they weren’t ...
16 Mar 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | The $400 million legislative housing package protects human rights; no city can use the funding for sweeps People survive in tents in Deschutes National Forest, along the Umpqua River of Roseburg, on the sandy knolls of Lincoln City. In Medford, ...
2 Mar 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | We can go bigger — and kinder I’ll hand it to Sam Adams. Putting aside the alarming nature of his idea to warehouse 3,000 people in militarized spaces, he was thinking big — but not big enough. It’s the same thing with the People 4 Portland camp ...
23 Feb 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | The order lacks constructive measures. Where are people expected to go? Mayor Ted Wheeler invoked an emergency declaration to prohibit people from living along many major streets where people camp often seeking visibility as a form of safety. It ...
9 Feb 2022 - Kaia Sand
Opinion | Knowledge from the unhoused provides critical insight The Street Roots ambassadors grew animated discussing the topic of ranked-choice voting. They considered how this method of voting could motivate people to vote because they might feel like t ...
2 Feb 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | Public education is a right in this country. Why not housing? What if people had a right to housing in the way that they have a right to a K-12 public education? That’s a question Andy Nelson, executive director of Impact NW, posed to me. Impact ...
26 Jan 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | The crisis response program is designed to meet people with compassion in their greatest times of need The Portland Street Response pilot is slated to transform into a city-wide program — still with a limited scope — this spring. It’s really hap ...
19 Jan 2022 - Kaia Sand
In memory of longtime Street Roots elder Art Garcia, a column from the vaults Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. This column represents her views. The work we do at Street Roots is built on the work of people who have come before us. A b ...
12 Jan 2022 - Art Garcia and Kaia Sand
OPINION | Pay attention to local government responses, homelessness in 2022 I hear a sense of despair from so many of you over the humanitarian crisis of homelessness. While many community members volunteer with community organizations and through mutual ...
5 Jan 2022 - Kaia Sand
OPINION | Archbishop Desmond Tutu taught that we are ‘bound up with others in the bundle of life’ “ In our fragile and crowded world we can survive only together,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died Dec. 25 at 90 in Cape Town, South Africa. The great ...
29 Dec 2021 - Kaia Sand