Wow. Patrick Nolen at Sisters of the Road has written to the San Francisco journalist C.W.Nevius, who quoted the PBA’s Mike Kuykendall extensively over the weekend in an article encouraging San Franciscans to adopt a similar sit/lie law to the one we adopted here at the end of August. Kuykendall, who went to San Francisco with the mayor’s public safety manager Maria Rubio and Central City Concern director Richard Harris, apparently insisted to the Chronicle “that [the PBA hasn’t] alienated homeless advocates” by pushing through the law. Nolen’s letter, perhaps, challenges that assumption:

Mr Nevius,

I was very surprised yesterday to read the article by C.W. Nevius titled “San Francisco Leaders Hear About Portland’s Approach to Homelessness”. I am always saddened when I read something by a person who is in the business of educating the people of our country on what is happening around them and they get basic facts wrong.

I am the community organizer of a non-profit in Portland Oregon named Sisters Of The Road. We have a 28 year history in community organizing and advocacy around the issues involving homelessness. Through many years of effort on our part, we are invited to the table when issues involving are being discussed. This is the case with the Mayor’s SAFE (Street Access For Everyone) initiative. I am one of Sisters’ representatives on the oversight committee for the SAFE Ordinance.

Sisters has always felt that the services part of SAFE should be instead attached to the City of Portland and Multnomah County’s 10 year plan to end homelessness. Over the past couple of decades we in Portland have had several sit/lie style laws, not one of which in my opinion has ever proven to be successful or was needed. The acts that a sit/lie law prohibits are already prohibited usually by other ordinances. This law is instead, at least by the community that I represent, considered a “move along” law, much akin to the Jim Crow laws from America’s history. Of the 13 citations or warnings issued to date every one of them was issued to a homeless person. this law should not exist as in my eyes at very least this is proof that it targets homeless people.

Mr Nevius, I appreciate that you want to cover the homeless issue. I wish that you would cover it a little less biased though. I wanted to take this chance to mention a few mistakes I found in your article.

First, not everyone in Portland agreed with the SAFE process. Sisters Of The Road and the ACLU both came out against this process. Sisters stating clearly in the press, before city council and at the SAFE oversight committee itself that we disagreed with a sidewalk obstruction ordinance, myself stating that I found it morally objectionable. Secondly, Mike Kuykendall is not the head of the Portland Business Alliance but is instead their vice president in charge of Central City/Downtown Services. Sandra McDonough is their president and CEO. Third, as I hear always that crime has gone up since our Drug Free Zones are no longer in effect, I would want to see the background behind Mike’s numbers on crime going down 40 percent. Fourth, as the person that is quite proud of the fact that it was at least partly my idea originally to have city hall open its restroom overnight and fund it publicly, I would call in to question the statement that the public restroom shortfall is addressed by using private funds. Fifth, mister Kuykendall suggests that 10% of the people on our street were homeless, I do not understand the context of this statement at all as depending on how you work the numbers you can make people living without housing anywhere from 0% to 100% of the population of something. Sixth, I would like to disagree with Neils Tangherlini, this is not a question of loitering, this is a question of their not being enough affordable housing dollars in the federal budget and therefore there not being enough places for people to live. Seventh, I would like to mention that if I was Mr. Elsbernd I would be happy with one letter of complaint a month if I was San Francisco or any other major city, that is really quite small. Lastly, and on kind of a lighter note, Portland often gets overlooked, I would like to point out that Portland is anything but a “mini San Francisco”. Our population in Portland is about 200 thousand less, but spread over about 8 times the area.

Thank you,
Patrick Nolen
Community Organizer
Sisters Of The Road