Drawing the Circle Wider
Our Justice & Witness Ministry Team weighs in on Portland Mayor’s new plan to address the city’s housing crisis.
Mayor Wheeler's plan to relocate houseless neighbors into massive camps is not what is best for people who currently live on the streets. We at Bridgeport UCC know the power and restorative healing that comes from being in community. For people to be safe, we need to provide smaller shelters where people are seen and known and where health and social services can meet the needs of people who are staying there.
We know there are a myriad of reasons people end up houseless and believe ultimately that prevention is the key. We need solutions that keep people in their homes when they experience job loss, have huge medical bills, face major health issues, lose family support, cannot afford increases in rent and living expenses, and other unforeseen life events.
People who have lost the stability of living in an apartment or house need social workers and full wrap-around services. Providing transitional housing with the ultimate goal of stable housing for all human beings is what we are working toward at Bridgeport with our commitment to seek justice for our houseless neighbors. We support the plan of organizations like HereTogether and believe Mayor Wheeler's plan is misguided and potentially harmful to people.
We strongly feel that the key to restoration is repairing community, which cannot be accomplished in the incarceration model of the Mayor’s plan. One member encourages, “It strikes me that the better approach for Mayor Wheeler is to engage those pushing for interning houseless so they don’t have to be seen, to join a group preparing food for those experiencing houselessness in order to meet them and learn their stories, starting with the Mayor and his aide. Having a relationship with some houseless residents will allow them to learn that these are just people like those in houses, except they had less resources to remain housed.”
Another member chimes in, “I have had more than one person say to me when hearing that we are working to help people who are experiencing a lack of housing that “most/some like living that way” “they don’t want to live inside” and so on. I usually respond that that is what people like to tell themselves so they can justify looking away from the problem. Paraphrasing the words of Father Greg Boyle: We just have to draw our circle wider yet, until the margins are erased and no one stands/lives outside of it.”
Graphic by Reese Walker