Activists Call For New Approach to Homelessness

Friday, December 04, 2015

Brendan Murray, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Winter has arrived in Portland, and with it the cold temperatures and harsher conditions that can make life even more difficult for the city’s homeless population. Activists told GoLocal that with the change of the seasons should come a new approach to the homeless issue by city officials, with an emphasis on awareness.

“We need to make more people more aware,” Ibrahim Mubarak, co-founder of Right 2 Dream Too, a homeless camp in northeast Portland. “More aware of what these people are going through and more aware of what needs to be done.”

Ptery P. Lieght, an activist who has spent time at the camp, told GoLocal he agreed with Mubarek.

“Everything needs to change if we are going to understand the crisis we are in,” Lieght said. “A huge shift needs to be made from the heart.”

Raising Awareness

Mubarak said that a large part of the problem are widespread myths about homelessness that persist in the minds of many Portland residents.

“They don’t understand who these people are or what they’re going through,” Mubarak said. “So many of the people who are homeless are regular people with families or who were living indoors not too long ago.”

Mubarak also said that many homeless people fundamentally misunderstand their situation. He pointed to the fact that many do not understand what rules exist to protect them.

“They don’t know that they have the right to have up to four people in a 50 foot space,” Mubarak said. “No one is going to tell them that. The cops or Clean and Safe Security certainly aren’t going to tell them that.”

Last week, Lieght and Mubarak talked to GoLocal last week about reports of harassment and property seizure that homeless people have experienced from private security forces in the city.

Mubarak said that efforts need to be made to raise homeless individuals’ awareness of what rights and programs exist to them.

“People don’t know that they have the right to sleep or to gather in certain places,” Mubarak said. “They don’t know where they can go to get help or to sleep. That’s what we’re trying to do. Let people know that there are places where you can sleep and the cops and security should not be able to harass you. People not knowing about that is half of the problem.”

A New Approach

Lieght said that he believes by sweeping the streets of homeless individuals, including during times when they are supposed to be allowed to rest, creates more problems than it solves.

“The cost of sweeping is gigantic,” Lieght said. “Not sleeping causes madness, sickness, disconnects people further. Security efforts are expensive, both sides of this conflict are still not getting their needs met. Medical, physical and mental, costs are not considered.”

Cameron Whitten, Executive Director of Know Your City and a longtime activist in Portland, told GoLocal that public safety personnel like Clean and Safe officers are not actually helping to improve safety when they force homeless people out of their camps.

“How we can we have public safety that doesn’t have a lens that looks at safety and how to help people,” Whitten said. “Currently, public safety really isn’t helping more making anyone more safe. They just make the problem go from one place to another, rather than trying to solve it.”

Other homeless advocates in Portland agreed with Whitten.

“That’s really tough and something we’ve heard a lot of stories about from members of our community,” Justin Hufnagel, manager of communications at Sisters of the Road, a resource center and social justice advocate group for the homeless located in Portland, told GoLocal. “I know that some people feel sweeping the streets keeps things safer, but we don’t agree. These people have nowhere to go, and you’re making them move, all while harassing them and taking their things. That is frustrating.”