Community Safety & Livability Meeting Tue, November 17, 2020

Agenda
  • 10-15 Minutes Lucas from HUCIRP –  brief overview of team HUCIRP
  • Further discussion on houseless crisis relief efforts in Sunnyside
  • Assistance we can offer neighboring Laurelhurst NA and Oak Street Camp
  • Action items from the Community First Strategy
  • Propose alliances and assurance from the City of Portland for holistic, fair and humanitarian responses to the community
Tue, November 17, 18:30 – 19:30

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December 10, 2020 SNA General & Board Meeting Agenda

December 10, 2020 Agenda


This meeting is open to the public.
Times are approximate.  Agenda items subject to change.

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Getting to Know Your Neighbors

Ashley Toliver helps organize the weekly kid-centered March for Black Lives that starts at the Sunnyside Environmental School on Tuesday evenings, alongside her friends Chenoa Knight, Jamie Newell, Tiffany Houston, and Destiny Lane. A published poet, she lives with her partner, Joseph Mains, three blocks from the school, where their daughter Djuna (7) is in second grade. (Mains’ son, Ovid, also attends Sunnyside Environmental School and his daughter Onnavah is a sophomore at Franklin High School.) Toliver’s poetry collection, Spectra, won the Oregon Book Award for poetry earlier this year. She also teaches poetry writing workshops at the Attic Institute.

How long have you lived in Sunnyside? We’ve lived in this place for 3 1/2 years. When I first moved to Portland (about 13 years ago now), I lived on SE 32nd and Grant. Then I lived in Northeast Portland. I was so excited when we finally moved back to this neighborhood!

Do you rent or own? Rent. I was not in a position to buy at that time, but I dreamt about it.

What do you love about Sunnyside? One of the things I love most are the gardens. You just walk down any street and people have these absolutely beautiful gardens that seem to be gorgeous all year round!

What’s one thing you would love to see change about Sunnyside? Housing prices. The cost of living is a barrier to entry in this neighborhood. And more people of color, I think, would be phenomenal. It’s hard to have a daughter who is half black and there aren’t a whole lot of people at her school who look like her.

Tell me about the Sunnyside marches.

Typically we have an indigenous group, Awakening Thunder, and they play drums as people are filtering in. They start at 5 p.m. with chalk drawing and sign-making, so kids can show up and do that. A group called Resistance Assistance brings pizza and snacks. At around 5:30 p.m., we have a few speakers, one of which is always a kid. Sometimes they’ll read a poem they wrote, or share lyrics from a song, or speak about an experience.

At our highest, I’d say we had about 1,000 people. That was the first one—pretty close to the murder of George Floyd. But we usually have 100 people or so. After the first one, I don’t think Jamie had any further plans, and I was like, “This is amazing, we should totally keep doing it!” We’ve got escorts—there are ten of them—who do security for us and help block off the streets. They’re volunteers—folks who believe in BLM. We have a medic who is there every Tuesday in case anyone skins her knee. So much beauty has come out of all of this.

 

Sunnyside Civility

Like a garden, our Sunnyside neighborhood consists of a variety of residents. Some homes have been owner-occupied for generations, while others are newly built or remodeled. Some people are leasing condos, and others are renting apartments. But one thing we all have in common is the place where we shop, exercise, dine, and mix, whether it is on the roads, the sidewalks, or in the store aisles. And, in order to do so peacefully and successfully, we need civility.

It is my hope through the SNA to write a small newsletter column on civility – to begin a conversation on how we can each feel heard in spite of differences, and yet achieve the consensus we need to make progress on important issues that impact the quality of life in our community. By doing so I hope to feel more connection and more peace. But I’m also doing it for my 8 year old son, to model for him that we can have tough talks with people, disagree, and explore solutions in a constructive way without our passions getting the better of us.

A coach once told me to “consider other people’s rights before my feelings and other people’s feelings before my rights.” With all the challenges we are facing today a little more thoughtfulness will surely help all of us.

 

SNA Safety & Livability Update

Attendance at the past few Safety and Livability Meetings has been sparse. I suppose, since COVID-19 weighs on everyone’s mind, the neighborhood has been fairly quiet. But with so many folks living without shelter throughout Sunnyside, the primary concerns around houselessness and camping are still relevant.

Of the perspectives and ideas proffered at several meetings over the past 2 years, I’m firmly not of the opinion we should abandon people in the street through the winter, toxic wildfire smoke, summer heat, or for any reason. Leaving people in scattered, unmanaged camps without sanitation and services isn’t good for anyone.

We share these challenges with many inner Portland neighborhoods and together we can seek relief and a civically engineered, humanitarian response. In a new neighbor’s words, “having to step through human suffering to walk in the park is a grim reminder.”

The focal point of the next Safety & Livability Meeting is a discussion of a draft of the North Portland Statement on Homelessness. The SNA board would like to join our fellow Neighborhood Associations to form a broader coalition and appeal to the city.

Please feel free to join us at the next Safety & Livability Zoom meeting, October 6th, 2020 from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.. There is more information at https://sunnysideportland.org.