If you happen to be awake right now, perhaps you should listen to KBOO 90.7fm, where Sisters of the Road Community Organizer Patrick Nolen is talking about the community campaign to suspend the sit/lie ordinance until 9am.
“You or I have a place where we can go sit during the day, where a lot of people don’t have a place that they can go sit. And that’s really kind of unfair to say, well, you can’t sit here, but we have nowhere else to sit,” Nolen says.
“Our co-founder, Genny Nelson, was part of the original group that started this. At that point [the ordinance] was framed as something that wouldn’t affect our community a lot. As a matter of fact, the Portland Business Alliance, one of their vice presidents said in the Oregonian that ‘probably about 10% of the tickets would go to ticket someone who was homeless.’ But it’s been used almost exclusively against the homeless.”
If you’ve been reading the Mercury over recent months, you probably know all about the sit/lie ordinance. If not, this is a great way to brush up on the controversial issue. Especially given that there’s ways you can get involved in fighting the ordinance over the coming months.
The stats reflect the fact that everybody besides the homeless learned and moved on. Are we going to start complaining that the cops are using speeding laws to target speeders? OMG, they’re PROFILING.
Which stats are you talking about, Logan, and what do you mean by “learned and moved on?” I have a home, I live downtown, and I haven’t learned, or moved on. This law makes me more and more furious about Portland’s city government every hour.
I think the stats show that of the 88 times the sit/lie law has been used, 79 of those occasions have been against homeless people. When the mayor and the SAFE committee was crafting the law, they made explicit statements saying this was NOT a law targeting homeless people. Now the law is being used to target homeless people.
I don’t see how that’s profiling, so much as lying to pass a Jim Crow anti-poverty law, and then going back on your word. And that’s unconscionable.
Logan,
I beg to differ. unlike speeding, most people that sit or lay on the sidewalk have very few options. if I am speeding, I am breaking the law as a concious choice. if I am sleeping and wake up to a sidewalk obstruction ticket, I did not choose to be homeless, I certainly did not choose for Portland to not have enough SRO’s and low income housing units, so I would be targeted by soemthing that was not my choice, in my humble oppinion.
thanks
Patrick
Here’s Kuykendall quoted in the Oregonian.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2007/08/sidewalk_isometrics.html
I’d be interested to hear how he feels about his estimate, now that a year has gone by.
Matt, yes, I am very, very aware that you are still here. It’s almost as if a Matt Sign shines up and illuminates the bottom of our persistent overcast. But, I was referring to the people who (to me) are not really homeless by some kind of misfortune but the street kid types who migrate here for some reason. They seem to have adapted and know how to keep the police or the rent-a-cops from harassing them which is alluded to in the story you link to in your 2nd comment.
Patrick, everybody has choices unless they’re seriously mentally ill. Many of those people made a choice to sleep where they do which seems to be in highly visible locations in the downtown core. Somehow I don’t think people would be getting tickets for sit/lie if they slept out in industrial NW or even the inner east side. Perhaps you know different based on the work you do. But their misfortune doesn’t mean they can sleep whereever they want. We HAVE to have laws to curb this behavior or things will get out of hand quickly. Getting them a place to live or other help is a different issue altogether.
I’m not at all clear about how consistently Portland’s finest apply this ordinance.
Saw a fellow collapse on the sidewalk in front of Nordstrom’s last Spring. One officer vigorously administered first aid while another intently wrote a citation for the man’s violation of the Sit Lie Law. Most confusing, don’t you know.
In England, we give the violater a stern warning followed by a sobering look. Doesn’t keep people from sitting, laying or collapsing, but it fills the letter of the law and makes us feel we’re doing something humane yet constructive.
However, not funny,
Next!