Street Roots recently finished its 2007 Readers Survey with the help of volunteer consultant Sarah Johnson. Below are some of the comments people left on the survey. Look for a more in-depth report from the survey in the up and coming paper on September 28th.
“I have been pleasantly surprised by much of the recent content, both new editorial focus on local issues and on "canned" material that has an impact on issues that affect homelessness and social services. I have long wondered why Street Roots wasn't more political and topical. While I think the poetry and cultural information has fans, I am more interested in the hard news and political opinion.”
“More pages! Thanks for continuing to put out a quality publication!”
“How about at least two different views shared by writers on crucial issues?”
“The Vendors are the ambassadors of the paper, they have changed the hearts and minds of many Portlanders about the realities of homelessness, thanks and respect to them! Street Roots is the best op-ed section to all of the other papers in town!”
“I appreciate all the substantive writing, and would have liked to have been able to check more that one box above. My usual reading pattern is to skip the horoscope, sometimes read some poetry and sometimes not, and read all the rest. Keep up the great work.”
“I like the fact that I support Street Roots and what it stands for!”
“Every vendor I have done business with was informative and friendly!”
“I truly appreciate and enjoy reading the newspaper -- a great addition to local media. I also really enjoy buying a paper each week and chatting with the vendors. I have always had great experiences with them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“I love the paper and the social and economical networking it provides the community.”
“Really enjoy this paper, I'm very satisfied that I bought it. I like the fact that it helps the homeless people. I have been homeless and I know what its like. The person that sold this paper to me was very kind and a talented person. He showed me his artwork.
“The writing has improved, but the paper has lost its edge.”
“I came from Frisco where they have Street Sheet. Street Roots is far superior
“Keep the vendors respective not in your face!”
“More articles that inform and inspire citizens to become involved in our community... especially voting in national and state-wide elections, developing creative housing alternatives and helping the homeless to help themselves.”
“I love this paper for it's truth and for what it does to help the vendors. Buying the paper has changed me from a person who was not comfortable with all homeless people. Now, I strike up conversations and enjoy chatting with the vendors and they, in return, must be feeling better also!”
“I enjoy the articles on Portland street culture and vendor biographies and news articles relating to Portland politics and justice issues from a street perspective instead of a suite perspective. Thanks for all you do!!! Also, this paper is a comfortable way to give a homeless person a buck and have some interaction.”
“If you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly bear.
“Stick with homeless focus. Don't become just another left-wing press.”
“Try to improve the quality of writing Misspellings - looks unprofessional.”
“I have been reading SRs for years and I am very pleased with how it has grown over time. I am happy to support SR vendor. I was homeless once for less than a year.”
“Keep it going. A great platform that fosters understanding among different segments of the PDX community.”
“Street Roots is a great opportunity for the homeless and other minority groups. I also donate when my finances allow.”
“It's a person-to-person contact that I appreciate.”
“The current level of alarm over PPI is a bit over the top. Why don't you send a reporter to the Downtown Neighborhood Association meeting? You might be surprised that the people who live downtown are fed up with panhandlers, drunks, drug addicts, and criminals. I would think that homeless people would be just as afraid of these low lives as the rest of us. Neighborhood residents are very much in favor of PPI.”
“Keep it up. Even though there are people who pass you by, there are supporters in the community.”
“I appreciate your hard work and the independent perspective you provide in reporting both Portland news and news from the homeless community.”
“I think the changes being made in the content of the paper are exceptional. The featured articles seem more in depth and the choice of stories (the environment, PBA/PPI, Hurricane Kat) are timely and engrossing.”
“Do not be agenda driven in the reporting. Just report the stories factually.”
“Street Roots, while serving to provide voice to the homeless community, is supported by the local community members. If you think about your target audience, working class urbanites, you should change the content to reflect their interests. I don't want to buy a newspaper to support someone, when the paper itself is going to make me feel terrible or is completely interested. It’s a waste of time and resources for printing. It needs to have content that people want to read and will make them feel good. Not make them feel horrible. (Just one person's perspective)
“I have had a chance to read a lot of street papers and yours is overall the best I have seen (seriously, not just me blowing smoke).
“I agree with the Willamette Week article that the feel of the paper has shifted from edgy street articles toward mainstream articles that are better cover on the Internet and other progressive news sources. It is sad that one source of empowerment for homeless people has faded from Portland. The rough writing and unabashed opinions were honest if sometimes crude. Something seems to have been lost.”
“I feel like Street Roots has elevated the playing field for activism and news in Portland. Great work!”
“I think the changes being made in the content of the paper are exceptional. The featured articles seem more in depth and the choice of stories (the environment, PBA/PPI, Hurricane Kat) are timely and engrossing.”
Friday, September 21, 2007
Rose City Resources on the streets!
The Rose City Resources are in! More than 5,000 have already been distributed to numerous community organizations. Four-thousand more will be delivered or picked up in the next week. If you would like copies you can stop by the office at 211 NW Davis between 7:30AM and 3PM, or you can call 503-228-5657 or write pdxrosecityresource@hotmail.com for delivery. 
The Rose City Resource booklet is a publication of Street Roots, and is Portland's most comprehensive, updated list of services for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. This booklet serves people who may not otherwise have access to a computer or social service agency, and allow individuals the opportunity to be independent in their search for services that fit their specific needs.
The Rose City Resource is made possible by the cooperation of the City of Portland, 211 and Street Roots. This guide is published quarterly with updated information and seasonal events. All locations are in Portland, unless otherwise noted.
If you would like your information listed in the Rose City Resource, or to make updates or changes to the listings, please call Eddy Barbosa at Street Roots. You may also email your information directly.
With the creation of the new resources Street Roots will have four more pages of in-depth news starting September 28th. The four pages will have a vendor/street culture page, an international and national page in cooperation with the Street News Service, and one-more page of local news and/or commentaries.
Enjoy!
The Rose City Resource booklet is a publication of Street Roots, and is Portland's most comprehensive, updated list of services for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. This booklet serves people who may not otherwise have access to a computer or social service agency, and allow individuals the opportunity to be independent in their search for services that fit their specific needs.
The Rose City Resource is made possible by the cooperation of the City of Portland, 211 and Street Roots. This guide is published quarterly with updated information and seasonal events. All locations are in Portland, unless otherwise noted.
If you would like your information listed in the Rose City Resource, or to make updates or changes to the listings, please call Eddy Barbosa at Street Roots. You may also email your information directly.
With the creation of the new resources Street Roots will have four more pages of in-depth news starting September 28th. The four pages will have a vendor/street culture page, an international and national page in cooperation with the Street News Service, and one-more page of local news and/or commentaries.
Enjoy!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Street Roots takes a ride with Portland Police
Street Roots takes a ride on the east side with Portland Police officer Michael Castlio, the feds meet with homeless advocates to discuss a strategy on criminalization, and Alejandro Queral talks civil rights post 911. Other features this month inlude an excerpt from our sister paper in St. Petersburg on how to survive on Russia's streets and a call to re-open the James Chasse case. 
Street Roots took a tour of the Central City Concern facilities last week. It’s amazing to think how much the organization has done for Portlanders working in recovery. We still have a long way to go in how we treat addicts in this country, but Central City is doing its best to bridge the gap between the inhumane practice of jailing addicts and dealing with the realities of the streets. They also employ a hell of a lot of people who once lived on the skids. Kudos to the entire crew over there.
The Bush administration’s top agency on homelessness met with advocates for the homeless in Washington, D.C. to discuss ways to deter cities from criminalizing people on the streets. Many advocates think the goal for the Interagency Council on Homelessness is to bridge the gap between the advocacy communities making noise around the country, and the work of the 10-year plans to end homelessness.
In the past year, advocacy groups around the country have been picking up steam. Groups such as the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a coalition of grassroots homeless organizations along the West Coast — including Street Roots and Sisters of the Road — along with coalitions in rural amd urban communities in the Midwest and South are all pushing one consistent message: You can’t solve homelessness without the federal government’s commitment to public housing. Couple this with criminalization and a power struggle at local levels with different strategies by local housing bureaus, chambers of commerce and law enforcement, and homeless and housing advocates, and it doesn’t bode well for a national movement to maintain results over the long term. The feds seem to recognize the hypocrisy of criminalization along with the advocates. Whether they can pursuade law enforcement, private security and business communities to back off is another question.
New Orleans and Los Angeles have exposed the brutality of using criminalization as a method to deal with homelessness and poor people, as their affordable housing vanishes and county jails are filled with the mentally ill and homeless. Both of those cities are a living nightmare for poor people and have been abandoned by the federal government.
Locally, Portland has become the racehorse for the 10-year plan to end homelessness. And to be honest, because many of the tools were already in place when the tides rose, and having a city that is strategically moving out of the box and striving to prove ending homelessness can be done, we are doing a bang-up job. Let’s just hope the feds don’t leave us holding the bag.
Street Roots took a tour of the Central City Concern facilities last week. It’s amazing to think how much the organization has done for Portlanders working in recovery. We still have a long way to go in how we treat addicts in this country, but Central City is doing its best to bridge the gap between the inhumane practice of jailing addicts and dealing with the realities of the streets. They also employ a hell of a lot of people who once lived on the skids. Kudos to the entire crew over there.
The Bush administration’s top agency on homelessness met with advocates for the homeless in Washington, D.C. to discuss ways to deter cities from criminalizing people on the streets. Many advocates think the goal for the Interagency Council on Homelessness is to bridge the gap between the advocacy communities making noise around the country, and the work of the 10-year plans to end homelessness.
In the past year, advocacy groups around the country have been picking up steam. Groups such as the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a coalition of grassroots homeless organizations along the West Coast — including Street Roots and Sisters of the Road — along with coalitions in rural amd urban communities in the Midwest and South are all pushing one consistent message: You can’t solve homelessness without the federal government’s commitment to public housing. Couple this with criminalization and a power struggle at local levels with different strategies by local housing bureaus, chambers of commerce and law enforcement, and homeless and housing advocates, and it doesn’t bode well for a national movement to maintain results over the long term. The feds seem to recognize the hypocrisy of criminalization along with the advocates. Whether they can pursuade law enforcement, private security and business communities to back off is another question.
New Orleans and Los Angeles have exposed the brutality of using criminalization as a method to deal with homelessness and poor people, as their affordable housing vanishes and county jails are filled with the mentally ill and homeless. Both of those cities are a living nightmare for poor people and have been abandoned by the federal government.
Locally, Portland has become the racehorse for the 10-year plan to end homelessness. And to be honest, because many of the tools were already in place when the tides rose, and having a city that is strategically moving out of the box and striving to prove ending homelessness can be done, we are doing a bang-up job. Let’s just hope the feds don’t leave us holding the bag.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Housing advocates take over HUD office in New Orleans
Public housing residents from St. Bernard’s, and several community organizations from New Orleans and around the country took over the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) office last Friday, demanding they reopen four public housing developments operated under its direction.
The coalition included groups from New Orleans, Miami, Georgia, Texas, Rhode Island, and California along with Public Housing Residents of the Lower East Side (PHROLES) from New York City and the Coalition to Protect Public Housing from Chicago.
Two years after the developments were evacuated in the post-Katrina floods, the public housing developments have remained empty despite having sustained only moderate damage from the storm. Residents and groups have been prevented from rehabilitating and filling the vacant units.
The sit-in set off a three-hour confrontation with police, the National Guard, and SWAT teams after 25 residents and activists were denied a meeting with officials to discuss community demands. Under threat of arrest, the groups decided to cease their occupation of the building and to hold a national press conference before the media covering the anniversary of Katrina.
“What is happening with the public housing in New Orleans is just a preview of what can and will happen to public housing around the country if this story is not told,” said Lisa Burriss, director of organizing for PHROLES, who participated in the sit-in. “We must remain united, fighting for the rights of all low-income people in this country to have decent, safe and affordable places to raise their families. Housing is a human right!”
Street Roots reported this month that in January 2005, homeless outreach workers counted 6,300 people living on the streets in the city and its immediate suburbs. A count in 2007 estimated 12,000 people experiencing homelessness, though only an estimated 60 percent of the city’s general population had returned.
PHOTO BY TED JACKSON –The Times – Picayune
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