For Street Roots reporter Jeremiah Hayden to cover in person what is likely the most significant U.S. Supreme Court case impacting people experiencing homelessness in decades, Street Roots had to apply for a special press pass.
As Hayden and the editorial staff pulled together the application, it became clear that no paper in the nation was better positioned to cover this case. It’s a local case gone national from the very state where the Street Roots newspaper has covered homelessness — including numerous Oregon Law Center lawsuits and the Grants Pass v. Johnson case specifically — for over 25 years.
Most significantly, how the newspaper staff covers these stories matters. Street Roots is a street paper and belongs to an international journalism movement centering the stories of people in poverty. This means that when Street Roots reporters consider sources for a story, they look to people impacted by the factors at hand.
Look no further than how Hayden covered the Grants Pass case in Street Roots’ April 3 issue (available at streetroots.org, as are all past articles). He began to unravel the tangled yarn of the Grants Pass case by starting the story with Laura Gutowski, a woman now homeless in the park where her son used to play baseball.
It matters what Gutowski has to say. The case impacts her life.
Another Grants Pass person experiencing homelessness in Hayden’s story, Helen Cruz, delivers meals to other people in that park and has endured repeated fines for sleeping there. It matters what Cruz has to say.
It’s not that Hayden neglected to interview local leaders. They are sources, too. But if people’s lives are upended by those with more power, well, shouldn’t they be key to the story? This approach is rooted in a commitment to democracy. If people are dispossessed of power in political processes, the media needs to step up.
That April 3 story ran in other North American street papers, too — Real Change in Seattle, Street Sheet in San Francisco and Street Sense in Washington, D.C. Hayden also discussed the story on a podcast hosted by StreetWise in Chicago.
Real Change, Street Sheet, Street Sense, StreetWise and Street Roots are 5 of 17 street newspapers in North America — and 93 papers internationally in the International Network of Street Papers, or INSP, based in Glasgow.
Hayden got that Supreme Court press pass, and he was in the courtroom as attorneys made their arguments before the nine justices on Monday, April 22. Watch for his reporting in Street Roots’ next issue. He has also provided commentary for OPB, KGW and a Crooked Media podcast based on his coverage.
The street paper approach is a powerful antidote to the occasional parachute reporting on homelessness by some national media outlets or sensationalized reporting by others. Street papers bring together the local with the national and international perspectives. Street papers share stories via the INSP wire service. These outlets have a sidewalk view of the outsized focus on policing rather than solving homelessness — in other words, suppressing rather than solving structural suffering.
It only takes a quick glance at newspaper covers from Street Roots’s first decade — the first decade of the 21st century — to witness a churn of policies around arrests, displacement, fines and fees.
Headlines like “Homeless camp sweeps create greater problem,” “Portland officials criminalize homelessness,” “Camping ban overturned,” “Trespass rule a homeless roadblock,” “Standing on sidewalk to bring 6 months in jail,” and “Notice: Illegal Campground,” donned Street Roots’ pages then, as similar headlines do now.
This relentless fixation by our local government shows a lack of constructive imagination and energy. Street papers across the nation bear witness to this, too. It might be tempting to adopt a jaded response to this shortsighted, repetitious policy, except that each accumulated fine, fee, arrest and stress response drives each person further into hardship. No matter how unoriginal the law, the suffering is distinct. Hayden reported the Grants Pass restrictions were designed to make people “uncomfortable enough.” Enough to leave, that is, and suffer elsewhere.
It’s a history municipalities appear doomed to repeat, something the city of Grants Pass is so determined to enact that it appealed this case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, not accepting the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that these actions amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Given the makeup of the Supreme Court, it is a long shot it will uphold the 9th Circuit decision, but it would alleviate a lot of suffering if it did. We will find out their decision soon enough.
While Hayden covered the Supreme Court case, the Portland City Council yet again advanced a public sleeping ban April 25, with a second vote scheduled for May 8. The churn continues.
This ban is slimmed down from the one City Council passed last year that a court injunction halted after the Oregon Law Center filed a lawsuit in response. Gone was a “daytime camping ban.” Gone was language around whether a person was “voluntarily homeless,” replaced with the still-to-be-defined language around a need for “adequate shelter” (a positive step).
Still present were punishments — fines leveled against the poor (up to $100) or up to seven days in jail.
Commissioner Rene Gonzalez proposed an amendment that would consolidate power with the mayor, not City Council, to enact future bans on homeless Portlanders.
Since he didn’t do the work to line up votes with fellow council members, Gonzalez’s move seems designed to signal a stance, but a bizarre one — stifling democracy. He made this move the same week university presidents clamped down on dissenting students and a presidential candidate stood trial for election interference. Stifling democracy is a disturbing zeitgeist.
That’s the opposite direction street papers bend. Policy is too often created to control the lives of people for whom little else is offered — without their input. If democracy is truly about vesting power in people, street papers won’t lose sight of the people left behind.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2024 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 40