| Here are updates on two stories that likely deserve their own post, but as we've covered both here before, and both are updates connected to the ongoing homeless struggle in Portland, we'll combine them. (Also in common is the strong coverage of the issue by the Street Roots newspaper and blog.) Freshest news first: we've received our answer to the campaign seeking emergency funding for hundreds of Oregon Section 8 voucher-holders to stay in their homes--but who aren't scheduled to do so for much longer, due to overextended assistance budgets that threaten to almost literally toss them onto the streets. It was not a mild and insignificant campaign, either; a coalition of grass roots advocacy organizations pressed for relief, and much of the Democratic Congressional delegation was incited to make a plea to the federal bureau of Housing and Urban Development. The answer was a written metaphor for turned out pockets and a fairly terse "Can'tdonuttinfoya, man:" The [Northwest Oregon Housing Authority--NOHA] contract with the Department covers a total of 1077 vouchers. For the first three months of 2009, the NOHA assisted an average of 1129 households per month. Because funding eligibility is based on prior year costs, the NOHA is actually funded this year for a total of 1040 households per month. The NOHA must either find another source of funding for some of the households or terminate households from the program. The Department has no additional source of funds to provide. What's the best word to describe the situation here? 'Sucks' might be a good one. Hundreds of billions of dollars for Citibank and Chrysler et al, but not enough to keep 1100 families from getting kicked back down the ladder. That's the state of social equity in 21st Century America. The SR article and a firewalled piece by the Astoria Times indicate that NOHA is trying to buy time for its families, but someone somewhere is going to have to step up. Story 2, below... |
| While the struggle to keep people housed is a natural and expected outgrowth of recessionary times, complex and full of hard choices, there's no such excuse for what's going on in Portland regarding sit-lie laws, known in the parlance as "sidewalk obstruction ordinances." If you're not familiar, basically the deal is that you can be moved along and/or cited for taking up more than what is deemed your fair share of the sidewalk. As a tool for keeping unkempt people off retail doorsteps it's not a new one; California has recently tried the same thing as well, for instance. ...and failed; the 9th Circuit Appeals Court found that the major flaw in the state's argument is the failure to recognize that homeless people have little other option than to occupy the public square, as it were. It criminalizes poverty, essentially. This hasn't seemed to deter the tidy-town types at City Hall, however; they keep tweaking and molding, explicitly trying to preserve the hammer while redesigning the specs to meet Constitutional muster. As recently as this year, Council voted 4-1 (excepting Randy Leonard) to study the issue for another six months while still using the ordinance to roust ne-er-do-wells. Then last week, this: Multnomah County Circuit Judge Stephen Bushong noted that the sit-lie ordinance was found unconstitutional by the Oregon Court of Appeals in 2005 and, although the city made changes, it is still unconstitutional. He also noted the ordinance conflicts with state law, which trumps city law. Bushong noted that state lawmakers created a law -- disorderly conduct -- that cities can use to crack down on undesirable behavior on sidewalks, such as blocking passers-by with the intention of annoying or inconveniencing them. Clayton Lance, Perkins' attorney, said the law targets homeless people because the city is worried about the impact homeless people have on business and tourism and, ultimately, the city's tax collections. Lance, who took on Perkins' case pro bono, celebrated Bushong's ruling. "When will they start to listen -- that's the $10,000 question," said Lance, who believes city commissioners have little choice but to let the ordinance expire. "I think this ordinance is dead. They can tweak it all day long, and that won't make it constitutional. It does not pass the smell test." Lance obviously has a vested interest in seeing it a certain way--and he was probably feeling pretty good about his victory while being interviewed--but he also happens to succinctly nail why his client was right to prevail, and why the ordinance should quickly wither under the scrutiny: the ordinance is simply a callous attempt to shove the evidence of social problems under the city's rug, er, sidewalk. So but, uh, it DID wither, right? Mmmm...sort of; the letter from Police Chief Rosie Sizer does officially suspend enforcement of the sit-lie ordinance--but immediately avers that the judge told the city to simply use a different statute: "A Multnomah County Judge issued a ruling stating that persons who get in the way of pedestrian traffic on downtown sidewalks should be prosecuted under the disorderly conduct statute rather than the City's sidewalk obstruction ordinance." I really don't think that's true, actually. If you read The O's account, it indicates that Bushong suggested the disorderly conduct statute for people who are actively "blocking passers-by with the intention of annoying or inconveniencing them." Sizer doesn't settle for those who are actually blocking passers-by out of spite; that fits almost nobody the City is targeting, and thus has no impact on the real objective, which is sweeping the streets of the downtrodden. To keep the focus on the goal, Sizer interprets the judge as saying merely obstructing the sidewalk is grounds for disorderly conduct. The difference is in the apparent presumption by Sizer that blocking the sidewalk by itself is disorderly; Bushong instead seems to be saying that if a city has a problem with disorderly people who are intentionally blocking rights of way, they don't need sit-lie. For Sizer, sitting on the sidewalk IS the disorderly conduct. Council seemingly intends to go on "studying" the ordinance, now toothless and once again adjudged to be unconstitutionally unfair to the shelter-challenged. I really wish I knew what Commissioner Fritz was hoping to discover: if she didn't already know that the point of sit-lie is to clear away the riffraff and spruce up downtown for the Banana Republic and Macy's shoppers, and that doing so per se has been repeatedly found to be of fairly great ethical-legal repugnance, how will her listening tour of the previous follies make any difference? I'm not optimistic; hopefully her role will be primarily one of irrelevance going forward. |
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