Downtown last night...

I stopped by the protest that's happening in front of City Hall on my way home from the Lompoc last night... The city has passed a no camping within city limits ordinance and begun sweeping people off the streets, confiscating their belongings and generally making it illegal to be homeless in Portand.
Our friends on the street responded by moving in front of City Hall, where it's not "camping" but "protesting" and so they can't be forced to move on.

There have been numerous talks with the mayor/city leaders, which led to funds for 100 more shelter beds being freed up (a number of the "beds" were mats on a floor... not sure what kind of funding that requires, but...

The real issue that I heard from the folks last night was the need for more than shelter beds. Those are fine if you are single/not part of a couple, if you don't have a pet as many do, if you don't have a lot of belongings... but it's not really a plan to get you off the street.

Portland does have a ten year plan to end homelessness in PDX- we're in year 4 and so far it seems to be working. From yesterday's Oregonian: "Over the past three years, city government has developed more than 1,008 new low-income housing units and replaced more than $20 million in federal housing money cut by the Bush administration, much of it money meant to help people pay their rent.

Portland's 10-year plan to end homelessness recently won plaudits from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The number of Portlanders considered chronically homeless has dropped from 1,284 to 386 in the last two years, although advocates say the annual census of who's on the street can't count everyone."

A number of evergreen people have been hanging out with those protesting, building relationships, hearing stories and drawing the rest of us into their heart for the people they are meeting...
And in my mind, that's exactly how it's supposed to work.

Comments

[e. barrett]

So in all seriousness, how do you fix a problem like this?

It doesn't seem particularly compassionate to let people sleep on the streets. Nor is it particularly compassionate to arrest them for doing so.

I've recently become involved in my church's benevolence ministry. Some of the stories are truly heartbreaking. And for some of these people, I don't know if there's a "good" solution for them.

So how do you help?

[Pistol Pete]

Sounds like a great ministry opportunity.

[andy]

If you want to end homelessness you don't criminalize the poor and homeless - you create good programs to get them well and keep them alive. I live in Seattle and the 10 year plan here is a complete joke, the city is just not putting enough money into providing/building affordable housing for the chronically homeless. Putting more mats in a shelter is better than sleeping on the street, but not a permanent solution.

If you want to help donate your money or time to a shelter/organization that believes in housing first principles. Unfortunately many of the religiously affiliated shelters want people to clean up their lives before offering them services, which seems awfully backward to me.

More here: http://www.huduser.org/publications/homeless/hsgfirst.html

[Aaron Stewart]

"Unfortunately many of the religiously affiliated shelters want people to clean up their lives before offering them services, which seems awfully backward to me."

I completely agree. In my mind ( and I hope this makes sense ) there is a double standard that says no drinking, cursing or drugs of any kind and then we'll feed you and give you a hand out. I would imagine that the people making these rules ( or those that criticize the homeless ) do not hold themselves to the same standards when it comes to beer, swearing and Prozac.

But suddenly if you have a house you are a different kind of person that is allowed to determine those things for yourself.

[Aaron]

Also I'm not saying that rules are a bad thing.

[e. barrett]

I think that's a good point about expecting change before you're willing to help. One of the things that I believe is that God "meets us where we are." And out of that relationship comes change.

But how do you decide who "gets" the low income housing if it's a limited supply? How do you justify giving housing to someone who has a gambling and drug addiction, while denying someone who has a baby and both he and his wife lost their job?

Is "justify" even the right thing to consider?