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Thread as my open letter to @tedwheeler: I am furious, discouraged and perplexed that Mayor Ted Wheeler would have the gall to peddle camp sweeps as humane ... https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/11/portland-mayor-says-homeless-camp-sweeps-are-a-humane-response-key-to-his-strategy.html
I am astonished that, after 4 years, that this is where @tedwheeler is at in his understanding of homelessness & poverty & trauma in our community. This is the *spectacle* of a solution that, in actuality, compounds trauma. Makes it worse. It's a spectacle. A regressive one.
Humane? @tedwheeler, you absolutely need to go down & talk to people. Bring a thermos of tea. Learn their stories, their ideas. When I went down to Laurelhurst camp sweep, it was deeply sad, but it was also a privilege to get to talk to people who were kind & insightful.
My life is enriched by the insights of unhoused people. I am grateful for the patience of those who manage kindness toward me and other housed people. Their poverty is not separate from my comfort.
At the Laurelhurst camp sweep, one woman told me she was escaping domestic abuse. “We need more love and support,” she said. “Society doesn’t know how to treat victims of abuse. They either ignore us or add to the abuse.” Humane? @tedwheeler, talk to people at the camps.
I am astonished that you would order the displacement of people in the winter & in a pandemic. If anyone has COVID-19 in those camps, well, dispersing people into new living formations is dangerous. I pray that COVID does not spread as a result of these actions. It could.
Mayor @tedwheeler, if you are going to peddle this as humane, you at least owe attention – your time, your conversation – to the people who are suffering your policy. Engage them. Don’t forcibly inflict suffering on the poorest people in our community without knowing their names.
There *are* humane actions taken by the city with these camps -- garbage service, portable toilets, shelter referrals. I'll champion these efforts again and again, as I did with the portable toilets. https://www.streetroots.org/news/2020/11/04/kaia-sand-access-hygiene-sanitation-human-right
Today, a staff member at @StreetRoots who was formerly homeless talked about the trauma of experiencing a sweep. I wanted to weep: The helplessness, the sorrow. It stays in her bones. I wish you could hear her, @tedwheeler.
And the fact that there’s poverty that people have to see in public spaces? Well, that’s who we are. Societally. A society with widespread poverty. A society where wealth grows in a pandemic, while the poor get poorer.
Clearly, when billionaires see their wealth grow by more than 25 percent while homelessness increases – it’s structural. No, there isn’t a quick fix. We have to keep working at a more just society – not avert our eyes.
There are beautiful things happening in our community. Big ideas. The state legislature has managed to fund an extraordinary effort to buy financially distressed motels and transform them into emergency winter shelter that eventually can be long-term housing. #ProjectTurnkey
I’ll be writing about #ProjectTurnkey in the next issue of Street Roots, and I’m incredibly hopeful that we can build from there. I'm also hopeful about the homeless services tax and what that can fund starting next year. We have to keep going with big and *truly humane* ideas.
I write this letter with sorrow, but I also write with hope, @tedwheeler. Please talk to the people in the camps you are ordering swept. The fixes are't superficial, but how could they be? Justice is a far-off horizon, but let's be a city that sets our sights there.
