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houselessnessdowntownpdx · 4 years

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5- Academic Perspectives

Community-derived recommendations for healthcare systems and medical students to support people who are houseless in Portland, Oregon: a mixed-methods study by King et al. (2020) discusses how Portland's houseless community experiences healthcare. People who are houseless experience more drug, alcohol, and psychiatric problems than those who are housed. In this study, medical students interviewed houseless people at two community locations within Portland. These interviews were designed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The main issues found were the stigma around mental health and drug addiction; doctors think that a person is just trying to get their hands on drugs when they go to the ER. In reality, people experiencing homelessness are three to four more times likely to die than the average population.This study has identified four things the healthcare system can do to better help the houseless community.

Listen to and believe people in their communities and in clinics

Destigmatize houselessness, addiction and mental health conditions among their peers and within the systems they are a part

Engage in diverse clinical experiences

Advocate that healthcare systems better care for people, in the ways they request.

Securing Legal rights to place: mobilizing around moral claims for a houseless rest space in Portland, Oregon (Przybylinski, 2020) focuses on how creating spaces for houseless folks opens up the discussion for the lack of resources and opportunity that marginalized people face systematically. By claiming a space and insisting for visibility, specific issues that affect the community are able to be highlighted and addressed, with experiences and claims that directly support the movement towards change. It’s agreed upon that the issue is grossly systemic, and the right to place is something that is not granted to the houseless community in Portland. The article highlights the work of Right 2 Dream 2 (R2D2), a “self-governed houseless encampment” located on the east side of Portland's waterfront, and their work to create a space, and a discussion, about the right to place in this city. By extension, the city of Portland’s actions against those experiencing houselessness imply that those who aren’t given the right to place are not given the right to exist.

Both articles focus on how community attitudes are a huge influence on the wellbeing of marginalized groups, and how community and medical support are absolutely necessary for the safety of Portlands houseless community.

King, C., Fisher, C., Johnson, J., Chun, A., Bangsberg, D., & Carder, P. (2020). Community-derived recommendations for healthcare systems and medical students to support people who are houseless in Portland, Oregon: a mixed-methods study. BMC Public Health, 20, 1-12. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1186/s12889-020-09444-4

Przybylinski, Stephen. (2020). Securing legal rights to place: mobilizing around moral claims for a houseless rest space in Portland, Oregon. Urban Geography, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1719307

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houselessnessdowntownpdx · 4 years

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4- Radio

Retrieved from Facebook on February 7, 2021

Podcast:

Harbarger, Molly and Theen, Andrew. 2019. Molly Harbarger on a new approach to homeless camp cleanups. Retrieved February 11, 2021.

https://www.oregonlive.com/podcasts/2019/11/beat-check-podcast-can-a-portland-program-prevent-chronic-homeless-camps-support-the-vulnerable-at-the-same-time.html

The topic of the podcast chosen is how to clean up houseless camps. Molly Harbarger, the Oregonians houselessness reporter, talks about this new method, which is to bring the same social workers every day to houseless camps and have them offer resources such as cold weather gear, and offer shelter as well as ways to sign up to get on the waitlist for housing. By doing this, their hope is to familiarize themselves enough so that the people in the houseless camps trust them and feel safe to take their help. The podcast also touches on why houseless people may not choose to seek help (drug use, mental health, etc) as well as how to keep houseless camps clean so that people living in houses nearby don’t complain so much about their presence. Lastly, they touch on why houseless people die at such a high rate-- as they are only about 3% of Portlands population. They talk about homicide, as well as health factors that contribute to lower life expectancy within the houseless community.

Song: Brown, Kane. 2020 Worldwide Beautiful. Retrieved February 11, 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oI8haxRuPo&list=PL4INChKWpKPIWaV7GEBr5RB5izelAooRq&index=15

We may not look the same but we are all equal. No matter what color we are we are not that different from each other. We all have dreams and hope. We can be the change we want to see no matter where you are, it all starts with you. We are in this together. #WorldWideBeautiful

Image retrieved 2/17/2021 from http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_15yjI-RtaW4/S_HZQvLR5GI/AAAAAAAAAx8/MsJExFaqZwQ/s1600/community.jpg

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houselessnessdowntownpdx · 4 years

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Transition Projects Instagram Page

https://www.instagram.com/transitionprojects/?hl=en

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houselessnessdowntownpdx · 4 years

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3- Interview with Pastor Bruce Arnold on Houselessness During Covid-19

Pastor Bruce believes that COVID-19 has “given steroids to the issue” of houselessness. As community resources shut down there has been less access to food and water as well as internet access to find out “what is rumor and what is the truth”, electricity to recharge cell phones, and it is harder to access hygiene supplies and restroom facilities. HomePDX has been tripling their efforts to help fill the gaps of other closed facilities.

Pastor Bruce has been staying in a church and returning home only on weekends in order to be on the front lines helping the outdoor community. Something that personally impacts Pastor Bruce is being away from his family for long periods of time because of this. Pastor Bruce sees negative impacts due to COVID-19 as someone directly serving the houseless community. In our interview, he mentioned that the food pantry is no longer somewhere that houseless people can shop through, they have to point through a window at what they want now. Additionally, there is no more closet shopping for clothing items, it is something that has to be brought out to them. These things require more volunteers, as well as give houseless people less freedom of choice. Something that hasn’t changed due to COVID-19 is Sunday lunches, which happens to be outdoors.

Interview transcript: Melody “What is your view on the topic we are talking about- on houselessness in Portland right now and especially since COVID-19 started?”

Bruce: “So COVID-19 has basically just been giving steroids to the problem...and...I mean we’ve had people living outdoors in Portland as long as we’ve had Portland. So it’s not a new problem, it’s not a unique problem. What happens is there’s this eb and flow based on policy of where people live, how visible they are, how concentrated they are. So, what happened with COVID, I actually, I kinda saw this coming way back in March of last year and I negotiated with this church that I’m in right now, First Christian Church, to lock down in the church if there was a lock down, so that I could be on the front lines helping our people instead of hiding away at my house. Thought it might be 4-6 weeks, I’m still here, go home once a week and see my family, but I’m basically living downtown, and part of what happened is other people closed their doors and went home. We suddenly had a population that had less access to food, almost no access to water at the beginning, no where to charge their phones or get on the internet and figure out what’s going on, what’s rumor and what’s truth. Fewer showers, all those other fun things. So we basically tripled what we were doing in the space of a week to try and fill some of those gaps.”

Stephanie: “What other groups are you working with on this issue?”

Bruce: “So...there’s a whole bunch of groups working downtown. Before COVID-19 I was told there’s 84 different groups that offer at least one meal a week in downtown Portland. So that’s what it takes to feed everyone who’s outdoors. I know that number has gone down, I don’t know entirely who’s still serving and who isn’t, but I work pretty closely with Clay Street Table. I have referral rights to Portland Rescue Mission. I’m on a first-name basis with the chaplain at the jail..and the chaplain at the police force, actually, so we’re partnering with a whole bunch of churches right now who are supplying us with resources and volunteers.”

Evan: “Yeah, so do you mind clarifying just a little bit what specifically you’re most involved in right now?”

Bruce: “Home PDX is chartered as a church, and I am officially a pastor. I don't usually throw that around unless I want to get inside a jail or a hospital. But we are first and foremost a community, and actually that's one of the things that COVID has really challenged because as we've stepped in to provide more services, people are starting to get confused as to whether we are a community, or a service provider and even in the midst of COVID, we are trying to concentrate on community. So I'm still walking around in the mornings on the streets with coffee, still walking into camps and seeing how people are doing and delivering food. Our biggest event is a Sunday lunch and because it's actually outdoors, we've never actually paused for COVID, we've kept delivering all the way through.”

Stephanie: “Which we at Outlandia miss doing”

Bruce: “Yeah, they’ve changed who is providing the meals, but we are still doing the meals”

Evan: “So working around COVID things, so you guys haven't had to pause your Sunday lunches, are there any specific events that you have had to cancel that come to mind?”

Bruce: “Not really, we have just had to reframe everything. So for example, we loved that people would come and walk through a clothing closet and shop for what they want, but we can't do that anymore, so we go outside, ask them what they need, go inside, grab a couple items, come outside, do you want one of these? It's a little more labor intensive but it's a lot less contact. We have a food pantry where people, again, get to pick what they want instead of just being thrown a box of whatever and instead of having them come indoors and do that, their looking through a window saying 'I want one of those, one of those, one of those'', we’ll pack the bag right there and hand it outside the door. So we are still doing services, even more service, but we are doing them differently. It slows things down, it takes more volunteers, but it still works.”

Melody: “I was going to ask, do you get any like funding from the state, or like private organizations?”

Bruce: “All of my funding is pretty much individuals, and churches, a couple organizations. We did get a COVID grant just to continue doing what we are doing”

Melody: “Was that federal or state?”

Bruce: “It was, I believe it was county. And Multnomah County also gave us one thousand masks to hand out.”

Stephanie: “So what are the issues that you are finding in some of the camps?”

Bruce: “Oh boy, thats so complicated right now. So early on in COVID the city made a promise to stop sweeping camps because they didn't want people to mix around and spread around and as a result, a whole bunch of tents showed up all over the place, especially downtown where we aren't used to seeing that many tents. So the big challenge now is, they are starting to sweep again, they are doing it very quietly, but how do we manage, I mean your question is talking about stakeholders, downtown businesses, the downtown church associations, hotels, restaurants, they've got a stake in what happens here, the county has a stake in what happens here, so the question is, how do we humanly let people live without letting them, sort of take over, and destroy the usability of the city. And what i'm finding is that there are a lot more tents in the city itself, there are a lot more camps showing up outside the downtown core, but i'm not sure, i'm not sure its a lot more people. It is some more people, but I think they are just more visible. Because they aren't getting chased as much, they don't have to hide as much, they are just much more visible.”

Stephanie: “So do you think they are congregating more?”

Bruce: “In the especially north town, like old town area, yes for sure. Out in the camps I think its about the same as it always has been. People do like to be in the camps where they can watch each others stuff and be a kind of pool of resources. The one change that i have noticed that i think is kind of interesting is just in the last couple of months, most of the camps have a car or two. They didn't use to ever have a car. And that I'm assuming is either newly outdoors, like just got kicked out of an apartment and drove and started camping, or in some cases it might be outdoor residents who have gotten a stimulus check and therefore gotten a vehicle.”

Stephanie: “I was thinking that maybe it was somebody that had lost their job, and then a couple months later lost their apartment, and then ended up outside in one of these community camps.”

Bruce: “My impressions is that is what it is. We are also seeing more RVs than ever before just parked on the side of the road in clusters.”

Stephanie: “So do you think that is because people have lost their jobs and income and in turn lost their homes? And they are turning to RVs?"

Bruce: “Yes. We’ve always had a certain number of RV campers, the city used to chase them around mercilessly, now they are allowing them to congregate in certain areas.”

Melody: “Have you noticed in those certain areas if there happens to be a trend about which areas they are allowing people to congregate at or is it kind of just random around the city? Is it in poorer parts of the city, wealthier parts of the city, that kind of thing.”

Bruce: “Its in areas where they’re not going to get chased out. So it’s not near a big store or a hotel or anything like that, its industrial areas, or abandoned areas. So one of them is on 33rd street for basically most of the mile south of marine drive, and there is nothing out there. One whole side of that street is just the airport property. So the city will come through about once a month and tag everything that is all broken down and unusable and will tow it away, but they aren't telling people to leave, they are just cleaning up after them to a certain degree.”

Stephanie: “Now, we as a group read an article about the Laurelhurst sweep in Street Routes. First of all, Ted Wheeler states that there were notifications put up two weeks in advance to the sweep. Have you seen notifications going up in any of the areas, warning them that it will be happening?”

Bruce: “So there is a statewide law that they have to give notice at least 72 hours before a sweep. So legally they are supposed to do that. It happens most of the time, not all of the time. What happens is they will put one up and they will immediately take a picture of it because within moments of their leaving, someone will tear it down. So you or I walking up to a camp seeing a notice is pretty rare. They do post it, they do let people know in the area that it has been posted. They will usually actually tell them “We will be here at 8 O’clock Monday morning”. They will tell them pretty specifically. Then when they show up its okay, its been posted, you've been warned, you have ten minutes to pack what you can pack, the rest of it is going in this dumpster here.”

Stephanie: "Another question, with the rapid response team that does come to clean, have you seen any altercations between the camps and rapid response? Or heard of any?"

Bruce: “I have not. So rapid response used to be the people who would do the sweeps. The cops would come through, get it started and then leave, then rapid response would do the sweep. The thing that has changed that i actually like is now rapid response is coming through and most of the time saying hey can we pick up the trash, tell us what's trash and we will take it away, they are not doing nearly as many sweeps. I actually talked to the guy that heads that whole bureau just last week actually, and he said they've gone from 15 sweeps a week to three. So rapid response has become better in terms of its worked together with the camps, let’s figure out where the trash is and we’ll take it away, but not let’s necessarily up end everybody and send them packing a couple blocks.”

Stephanie: "So in that article, it did state there are less sweeps, but there are also less garbage pick ups. Which is making the camps even more undesirable.”

Bruce: “That's true too. Yeah, so the reason we were talking to this last week was because we were trying to organize a thing where we are talking to people, we are getting into relationships, and they want to clean their camps up, so can we schedule a time for a garbage pick up? What rapid response is saying is right now is two to four days, we can't promise you a day. And what the camps are saying is you know, if we put garbage in a bag and put it at the curb, overnight that garbage is opened up and scrounged through and theres is garbage all over the place. So if you are saying two to four days, you are worthless. It's going to be a pile of trash, not a pile of garbage bags. And that's kind of what is happening and it does make the camps look really bad, the ones that are actually trying to clean themselves up, but rapid response isn't rapid anymore.

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houselessnessdowntownpdx · 4 years

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Deliverable Two- Contrasting Articles

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many houseless people have had to build a community on the streets of Portland, in this case the sidewalks near Laurelhurst Park, due to the closure of shelters and lack of space in them. Although Mayor Ted Wheeler has offered houseless people indoor spaces to stay, this doesn’t address the pain and displacement that houseless sweeps cause the people who are staying in these camps. It’s not just a place to stay for them. It’s their sense of home and community being destroyed, their items- some being vital medications, that are being taken from them and thrown away. It’s the city deeming their personal items a “bio hazard”. Houseless sweeps do not make houseless people any less houseless, it only displaces them and puts them at further risk of contracting COVID-19 or spreading it.

While trash and drug use are stated as the main reasons for the removal of the camps, it can also be said that the city is also liable for the conditions that the camps find themselves in. When the city reduced the trash pick up and support they set the camps up to fail.

We believe that if there were more empty, abandoned, city lots designated to camp set up and support it would be a step in the right direction in helping a broken system.

The author, John Balentine, poses this question: Why doesn't Portland enforce laws regarding loitering and disturbing the peace? When the Preble Street Resource Center homeless shelter shut down due to the coronavirus, the homeless population set up their camp on the sidewalk in front of City Hall and Deering Oaks Park. Balentine states that the Portland taxpayers "have been dealing with loitering, disturbing the peace, public intoxication, lewdness and open-air drug dealing for years now,” blaming it on the City of Portland for allowing it to continue. He argues that because the houseless population is politically protected, loitering and disturbing-the-peace laws are unenforced. Balentine continues on and poses another perspective; what if they were KKK members instead of houseless people? The city would indeed "invoke existing laws to nip that social ill in the bud," he says.

Balentine says that he appreciates the plight of houseless people and recognizes drugs and alcohol, mental illness, and family breakdown are potential causes of houselessness. He understands that there is no easy solution but claims government aid doesn't work and uses the increasing number of houseless people as proof. According to John, "the homeless don't deserve special rights or exemptions from established law. The law must be applied equally, no matter if you're rich, poor, Black, white, politically protected or not."

Balentine, J. (2020). Heres Something: Why do Portland's Homeless Get Special Rights? N.p.: Press Herald. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://www.pressherald.com/2020/07/28/heres-something-why-do-portlands-homeless-get-special-rights/

Brannon, Henry. 2020. After a painful sweep of Laurelhurst Park, unhoused residents want a space to exist. Retrieved January 28, 2021 https://www.streetroots.org/news/2020/12/02/after-painful-sweep-laurelhurst-park-unhoused-residents-want-space-exist

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houselessnessdowntownpdx · 4 years

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The escalation of houselessness in cities Portland has skyrocketed since COVID-19

Houselessness is an important topic that affects our community in Portland, OR. In 2019, an estimated 4,015 people were houseless in Multnomah County. Due to COVID-19, there has not been a head count of how many houseless individuals there were in 2020, but it is clear that because of these unprecedented times, houselessness has skyrocketed in the community. Houselessness is most simply defined as “lacking a place to live” by dogoodmultnomah.org. The word “houselessness” is preferred over “homelessness” because home is a concept of connection and community; lacking a place to live does not mean you lose your sense of “home”. Using the word homeless implies that people without housing have lost these connections and can isolate people from their community. Houselessness is an important problem to address because it has affected so many people this year, and with COVID-19, more people have lost their jobs and ended up being houseless and at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. If this problem remains unsolved or is only partially followed through with solving, many people will be at risk of staying houseless or becoming houseless again after finding a place to live. The impact of not solving this problem sends waves through the community. It affects the health of the community, its economy, and more.

With the situation drastically changing in the past year, houseless folks have had to adapt immensely to worsening conditions. In the summer of 2020, the protests and uprisings against the Portland Police Bureau were focused in central areas of Downtown Portland. The overuse of chemical weaponry, like CS gas, aerosol irritants and pepper spray, against protesters affected those who were simply trying to sleep, eat and live in whatever areas they could. The chemical weapons lingered in the air, along with settling onto the cement and foliage around wherever it was dispersed. Although this is no longer an immediate threat to the Portland houseless community, issues due to COVID have increased immensely. With Shelter-in-place orders, the privilege of being housed brings safety in a whole other aspect. Portland currently has upwards of 300 event spaces, not including concert halls and movie theaters, that are shut due to coronavirus. While these spaces remain empty, the rate of death for houseless people increased by 50% in 2020.

The city of Portland's latest houselessness reports is from 2019. Their 2019 Point-In-Time Report shows a total of 4,015 houseless people. Of the 4,015 people, 2,037 (50.7%) were unsheltered, 1,459 (36.3%) were in emergency shelter, and 519 (12.9%) were in transitional housing. Though the total number of people counted as houseless was down 3.9% from 2017 to 2019, the total number of people reported living unsheltered increased by 22%. They also reported a 34.2% increase in the number of people with disabilities experiencing unsheltered houselessness. The 2019 Point-In-Time demographics reports that 58.4% of the houseless population is non-Hispanic white, 38.1% are people of color, and 3.5% are race/ethnicity unknown. More importantly, it reports that though people of color account for only 29.5% of Multnomah Counties' general population, they represent 38.1% of the houseless population. In contrast, 70.5% of the general population is non-Hispanic white, but only represents 58.4% of the houseless population. Though there isn't a 2020 report showing how the houselessness population increased due to COVID-19, the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment has risen from 3.8% in 2019 to 13.4% in 2020 in Multnomah County.

The programs and assistance available to the houseless can be hard to access and understand. There are also different programs to help different communities that are experiencing houselessness. Veterans have available to them a Program called HUD-VASH, Currently the VA is asking all, “Veterans who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness are strongly encouraged to contact the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans'', (US Department of Veteran Affairs, 2020). There are also different programs for men and women. Through the Transitions Project (TPI) it is staffed with “people of lived experience of homelssness”. There is Doreen's Place for Men as well as Jeans PLace for women.There are multiple programs to assist people experiencing houselessness as well as emergency shelters. The Salvation Army also has a special program for women called S.A.F.E.S West. This program is specialized for women experiencing domestic abuse, at risk women identifying as female, and children. With support services, shelter, housing assistance, and childcare, this is one of the lesser known programs due to the sensitive nature and anonymity needed for at risk women and children. All of these programs need to have more advertisements geared towards the houseless. The street roots handbook is not enough. Most houseless people do not know where to get a handbook or they are outdated. Street Roots is an amazing resource but needs to be more accessible to those in need as well as updated annually.

Literature Cited:

Byrne, M. (2020, December 22). Portland sees dramatic rise in deaths of homeless people. Retrieved January 26, 2021. https://www.pressherald.com/2020/12/21/portland-sees-dramatic-rise-in-deaths-of-homeless-people/

Hunt, Kimberly (2019, June 5). Why Do We Say “Houseless”? Retrieved January 24, 2021. https://dogoodmultnomah.org/blog/why-do-we-say-houseless

Salvation Army (2021) https://westwomens.salvationarmy.org/west_womens_and_childrens_shelter/housing

Street Roots (2021). https://www.streetroots.org

The City of Portland. (2019). 2019 point-in-time (pp. 11-21). N.p.: Author. Retrieved on January 21, 2021. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566631e8c21b864679fff4de/t/5d434f685800cf0001847e20/1564692373569/2019+PIT+Report_FINAL.pdf

Transition Projects (2019). Outreach. Retrieved on January 21, 2021 https://www.tprojects.org/get-assistance/outreach

U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2020). Unemployment in the Portland area by county, June 2020. N.p.: western information office. Retrieved by January 21, 2021. https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/2020/unemployment_portland_20200811.htm

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. (2020). Veterans Experiencing Homelessness. N.p.: VA. Retrieved on January 21, 2021. https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/coronavirus.asp

Vespa, Maggie (2021, January 5). Amid surging COVID-19 rates, Multnomah County seeks to delay federally mandated homeless count. Retrieved January 24, 2021. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/homeless-portland-multnomah-county-seek-delay-point-in-time-count/283-ed67008b-ccc5-4770-b942-0649cea4d949

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