Thoughts on recent developments

Author

Lisa Freeman
July 08, 2024

Dear readers,

I wish I had more flowery topics to discuss this time, but the past couple weeks since our last newsletter have been rough for our neighbors experiencing houselessness (and for democracy, IMO, but that's a subject for another edition). 

We saw one of our elected leaders giddily announcing his glee at the decision to halt purchasing tents and tarps for people living outdoors, as we also prepared for a heat wave over the weekend. We started enforcing a new camping ban that criminalizes being houseless if an individual rejects shelter - regardless of the shelter option and the reasons an individual may not want to go. 

My friends at SW Outreach report that the rate of sweeps have increased demonstrably - sometimes requiring people to move multiple times a week. Many of these people are waiting for spots to open in the expanding Multnomah Safe Rest Village, and sweeps make it near impossible to find people when those spots open up. 

And, perhaps most devastatingly, our U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can criminalize houselessness, even if there is no other shelter or housing option. What are our houseless neighbors to do? Where are they allowed to exist and take up space in our community? I am opposed to these policies because they lack moral standing, but also because they are both costly and ineffective. They don't help our neighbors experiencing houselessness, they don't help housed people who want to see change on our streets, and they don't help our police officers, jails or courts who are already overworked and backed up. 

Volunteering with South West Outreach, a grassroots effort to help the unhoused campers in our neighborhoods in the 4th District survive and find their way into shelter and supportive housing, I have met some remarkably resourceful and resilient people. And I have seen them stressed out and desperate after having their camps dismantled and their belongings carted away six, seven and more times in a month. 

I've seen people desperately trying to find camping locations that are out of the way, as hidden and out of sight as possible, away from residential streets and schools, not bothering people and actively working to keep their campsites clean. I literally met one woman for the first time as she was actively sweeping out her family's tent. And I've seen these same campsites posted for removal, residents asking us: "When are the Safe Rest Village spots opening? I don't know where I'll go from here until they do." 

This makes no sense. As your City Councilor, I will commit to housing and houselessness policies that support people in need and address the root causes of our housing crisis. But don't take my word for it... I'll now turn this newsletter over to someone much smarter and more experienced on this issue than me, one of the people at SW Outreach who helped train me, Manny Frishberg.

Lisa Freeman (she/her)

503.383.9677

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to spend a few hours with Lisa Freeman. As a long-time news reporter, this was hardly the first time I had spent time with a politician for of. But this was different, I’ve been retired for years, and Lisa was not there as a candidate. We spent the afternoon visiting several of our unhoused neighbors – and looking for others who had been forced to decamp and move since the last time we’d seen them. 

When we do find them, we offer basic survival needs – a case of bottled water because clean water to drink or wash with is hard to come by when you don’t have a sink, a bus pass so they can get to and from work. (Yes, most homeless people in and out of shelters are working or trying to find a job. According to a report released earlier this year by the University of Chicago* found “about half of those in shelters and 40 percent of those at unsheltered locations had formal employment in 2010,” the last time they have statistics for.) When we can afford it, we give people tents and sleeping bags to replace the ones that get ruined in the rain or carted away in a sweep of their camp. Some people call that “enabling.” 

I prefer to call it compassion. Because in the two plus years I’ve been getting to know the homeless campers living in hiding around our community, I have learned that the most important thing we bring is ourselves and the assurance that someone still sees them as human beings and cares if they live or die. 

There are any number of reasons for me to support Lisa’s run for City Council from the 4th District. Like her, I also chose to come home to this community recently, so I know you can be a newcomer and also deeply attached. At the moment when our city is embarking on a radically new governing structure and way of voting, she has spent a career helping chart government transitions in even more difficult and challenging circumstances. But most of all because I know her to be, in my grandparent’s word, a mench – a real, caring human being.

Manny Frishberg

Multnomah Village

July 4, 2024

Again, thank you for reading. This campaign is kicking into high gear this summer, and we need your support! If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out! And remember, Lisa is the only candidate in the race with government transition experience and expertise!

Stumping at the Bike Loud Splash Ride! Photo credit: Aaron Kuehn (@aaronkpix)