New Street Roots on the beat

The new edition of Street Roots is on the streets. This issue looks at takes a look at modern day slavery with journalist John Bowe, who has spent the better part of the past decade looking into workers exploitations. Other articles include a look at recommendations given to the City of Portland by Street Roots, Sisters Of The Road, and the Western Regional Advocacy Project and

One step out of the past, many still ahead takes a hard look at the drug and free prostitution zones.

Editorial

Jay Thiemyer, Alejandro Queral, Art Garcia, and Jeff Kleen bring us some great opinion pieces, while this week's Act Now asks you to take action to stop federal plans to clear-cut Oregon's old growth forests.

Act Now

All this and much more in these in the October 12, edition of Street Roots.

Director's Desk: Help us lower the price vendors pay for the newspaper!

Street Roots is gearing up for the start of our Winter Fund Drive on Nov. 1. We have some super-exciting things in the works, the first of which is to lower the cost of the newspaper for vendors from 30 cents to 25 cents in 2008.

In 2003, Street Roots had no paid staff and was publishing the paper on a monthly basis. At that time the newspaper cost 25 cents for vendors. The vendors said they would pay up to 35 cents for the paper if we could deliver a biweekly publication. The organization knew that 35 cents was too much, and we all agreed to 30 cents. Still, the five additional cents was not going to cover the costs for an additional paper, and the staff needed put the publication together. With your support, dedicated vendors and a crew a ragtag volunteers, we made it happen.

Four years later the organization is at another crossroads. We are growing and looking toward a redesign in 2008, and eventually going weekly in 2009. While our readership has grown over the years, some of the same trends have continued. We believe by going weekly in 2009 we can expand our readership, and continue to increase the profit going into the hands of people experiencing homelessness and poverty.

First things first, right? Last year we received more individual donations from people like you than ever before. With your help we updated our technology for the newspaper and for vendors in the office, we finished our strategic plan, updated our bylaws, gained health insurance for our employees, and hired a formerly homeless vendor as our resource specialist. We developed a series of trainings for vendors, created an advisory panel and an editorial committee, and continue to bring Portland a professional street newspaper.

This year we will be redesigning the newspaper, which will help bring curb appeal for vendors to sell the newspaper, update our technology with a vendor sales database, and obtain online databases to improve our fund-raising and advocacy abilities. We will also be providing vendors with a new sales training video, additional sales items (buttons, stickers, chapbooks) and providing fresh hot and cold water in the office. With your help we can attain these modest goals.

If you are interested in becoming a Street Roots Block Captain for the Winter Fund Drive please contact me in the office. Each block captain can adopt a business, themselves, and/or family or friends to raise $400. You can do it! All it takes is getting 20 of your peers to donate $20, 10 people donate $50, or four people to donate $100. Each Block Captain will be highlighted in the 2007 Annual Report.

Office: 503-228-5657
E-mail: streetroots@hotmail.com

Park exclusions handed out by PPI climb near 2,000

We reported last week about the recommendations offered by Street Roots, Sisters Of The Road Cafe, Western Regional Advocacy Project and the Oregon Law Center to the City of Portland for the Portland Patrol Inc., a private security firm that has the capacity to enforce public policy with no government oversight. Read the story...

City mulls recommendations for private police

Last week, the groups met with Randy Leonard personally and with staffers from Erik Sten, Dan Saltzman, and the Mayor's office. The discussions were healthy and we hope to move forward in a productive manner.

Today, SRs received the latest PPI Parks Report via the Parks Bureau. The report concludes that 1,980 park exclusions have been handed out by private security since November of 2006. In September, the private firm handed out 275 exclusions, the most of any month this year. Street Roots believes many of these exclusions are individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty.

SRs, Sisters and WRAP announce PPI recommendations

Press Release: 10/8/07

Street Roots, Sisters Of The Road, and the Western Regional Advocacy Project are announcing recommendations for the Portland Patrol Inc., a private security group charged with enforcing public policy in Portland, Oregon. Since November of 2006 the private company has excluded 1,444 individual from public parks with no government scrutiny.


Below are the following recommendations to the City of Portland.

Letter to Mayor and Commissioners:

Dear Mayor and Commissioners,

Oversight and accountability for the private security guards that are enforcing public policies of the City of Portland are of great concern to our organizations. These concerns are motivated and informed by the experiences of homeless people with whom we work and advocate. We believe that many if not most security guards carry out their duties responsibly and do not intend to harm or target homeless people. But we also believe that oversight is crucial to ensure that individuals’ rights are protected and that the public remains safe – and that the current system is deficient in this regard. Therefore, we ask you to support and help implement several strategies that would assure greater oversight and accountability, and, we believe, ultimately make the City of Portland safer for all residents and visitors, especially the most vulnerable and disenfranchised.

Our recommendations are as follows:

• Individuals who experience problems with Portland Patrol should have clear recourse for their grievances, and at least one chance to appeal any negative decision. The grievance and appeal(s) should go through a line of authority that includes the City of Portland. The grievance and appeal processes should be straightforward, unbiased, and uncomplicated. Even if grievances are unable to be substantiated, they should be tracked so that any patterns can be identified and investigated.

• Private security guards who enforce public policies and laws should be accurately and thoroughly trained on those policies and laws. The content of the training, and the protocols or standard operating procedures (SOP), should be made available to the public. All trainings should include an individual experiencing homelessness, a social service provider, and an attorney either from Legal Aid or the Public Defender.

• Private security guards should wear different uniforms that clearly identify them as a separate entity from the Portland Police Bureau.

• Private security guards who enforce public policies and laws should not carry guns, detain people, or search personal property.

• The decision to allow private security guards to issue exclusions in parks should be revisited. Currently, Portland Patrol is issuing hundreds of park exclusions every month with no public oversight or clear recourse for complaints. If private guards are allowed to enforce public policy and restrict individuals’ right to be present in parks, then at minimum a public official should be reviewing every exclusion to ensure that it complies with basic due process requirements.