At the most recent Community Safety & Livability meeting, we discussed a draft of the Community First Strategy to Address Houselessness in Portland, Oregon and shared it with members of the neighborhood who attended the meeting to get their thoughts and feedback. We started the process of brainstorming how we might take actionable steps to help the houseless neighbors in our community immediately and voted unanimously to do so.
We like the Community First Strategy as a high-level, inclusive guideline to work from, as it attempts to address many perspectives. Of particular interest is the Action Plan near the bottom, which begins with the sentence “There must be programs for short, medium and long term solutions.” If you’d like to look it over, it can be found on our website at https://sunnysideportland.org/comfirst-draft/.
We are reaching out to adjoining Neighborhood Associations to get their thoughts, and to examine processes already in action to address the emergency of houselessness as winter approaches. We’re also seeking strategic alliances with other organizations who can help.
The Houseless emergency will likely encompass most of the discussion at our next meeting which has been moved to November 10th to provide everyone undivided attention to vote in the Tuesday, November 3rd election.
Please join us at the next Community Safety & Livability Meeting Tuesday after Election Night. Discussions have remained collaborative and solution-focused with all perspectives shared and respected.