PORTLAND’S MOST outspoken leader against the city’s
controversial sit-lie and anti-camping ordinances has been fired from
his job at homeless advocacy group Sisters of the Road.
Patrick Nolen was let go as Sisters’ community organizer—a
move that might greatly affect the sit-lie debate as the ordinance
comes up for a crucial city review in May.
Nolen was often Sisters’ de facto spokesperson on sit-lie issues,
sitting in and speaking up frequently at meetings of the city’s Street
Access for Everyone committee, which drafted the ordinance back in
2007. Last June, Nolen coordinated a protest delivering 1,950 postcards
written in opposition to the ordinance to city council.
The ordinance sunsets this June, but there is a strong coalition of
business, law enforcement, and pro-tourism interests who support the
policy. City council will make the final decision about whether to
reinstate the ordinance in May, but homeless advocates will likely face
an uphill battle against such a move especially with a primary
organizer of the opposition being cut loose.
Nolen’s pink-slip letter from Sisters lists a long and confusing
narrative of interpersonal conflicts and confrontations within the
nonprofit. Supervisors reprimanded Nolen five times within the past 16
months for various behavior infractions, says the letter. The final
straw came when another employee told Sisters directors that Nolen had
lied to and intimidated him, according to the note. An employee also
raised an allegation of racism against Nolen.
“Most of this is patently untrue,” says Nolen, whose firing became
official in early March following an unsuccessful appeal to Sisters’
board of directors. Nolen believes Sisters was searching for a reason
to fire him for months because of personality conflicts with his
bosses. In Nolen’s eyes, some of the conflicts resulted from his dogged
activism against the sit-lie ordinance, which bans anyone from sitting
on downtown streets during the day.
“There’s been a few times when I felt like they would rather have
small victories than big ones,” says Nolen, referring specifically to a
time when his boss showed him a heated letter from the Portland
Business Alliance (PBA) about his work. “It was made clear that the PBA
didn’t like me in my job.”
The day after Nolen was fired, his supervisor, Varner Seaman, quit
Sisters, allegedly upset over the handling of Nolen’s case. Seaman did
not return multiple requests for comment.
Sisters of the Road Executive Director Monica Beemer could not
comment on any aspect of Nolen’s firing because it is a private
personnel issue, she said.
Nolen was an asset to Sisters of the Road, and one of the few homeless rights activists who wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power. Whatever the truth of his firing, Portland’s homeless have lost a passionate, articulate, and dedicated voice.
i promised myself i would not say anything about this, as i am a member of cag and have loyalty to sisters of the road, but i want to say that what happened with patrick really pisses me off. he was a leader that everyone trusted and was aiming for real changes. no one knows the whole inside story, but from what i have seen and heard from people, he got fired over a fight with the director at sisters. i have known patrick for years and this is a bullshit hack job.