Criminalization Doesn’t Work
After a prolonged period of silence, we wrote to you last October to announce that we were seeking a new permanent home. Three days later, we wrote about the Mayor’s plan to build mass encampments and begin enforcement of the city’s camping ban. Since then, Sisters has continued to speak out against the city’s harmful plans to further ostracize and criminalize our unhoused neighbors.
We know that we remain in the minority in our opposition. We know that the majority of Portlanders are frustrated with the growing humanitarian crisis on our streets. As that frustration grows, any solution seems better than the status quo.
Friday, the city’s camping ban went into effect without any plan for enforcement. Officials have said that this will be a “summer of education.” Meaning, the status quo continues yet again with the threat of criminalization looming over an indistinct horizon. The implication seems to be that if we just “educate” are unhoused neighbors, then things will change? If not, there’s always the stick.
Criminalization Doesn’t Work
If we want to make real change, then we need to educate ourselves and our community about the real root causes of homelessness and poverty. We need to undo the harmful narratives about our unhoused neighbors that are fueling the policies that we’re seeing now.
What are these narratives?
Homelessness is driven by drug addiction and mental health problems.
Most unhoused people come from other places, because we make it too easy to be homeless in Portland.
People chooseto be homeless, because they don’t want to take personal responsibility for their lives.
We also need to understand how these harmful narratives are part of a long lineage of marginalization and harm done to people deemed unacceptable by society. This generational cycle of harm and exclusion is part of what has led many people to be facing homelessness and poverty in the first place.
We must first win over the hearts and minds of our neighbors if we want to see a change in the actions of our leaders.
If you stand with us in working to make this change, make a donation today to Sisters’ Gather & Grow campaign to help us continue to be a voice against this harmful status quo.
