Aisha
I do see your point and recognize the inequity of the city providing private space for commercial businesses ignoring the issues of access.
Peter Finley Fry AICP PhD MUP BS
Strategic Land Use Planning
Cultural Anthropologist
303 NW Uptown Terrace; Unit 1B
Portland, Oregon 97210
503 703-8033
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From: Aisha Musa via groups.io
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2022 3:07 PM
To: pdxshelterforum@groups.io
Subject: Re: [pdxshelterforum] WW: Mayor Will Announce Plan to Ban Unsanctioned Camping Across Portland and Build 500-Capacity Homeless “Campuses”
In the last photo of two violations, it should be "they care about the violation on the left and not the one on the right." I apologize.
AYM Education and Consulting
On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 3:05 PM Dr. Aisha Y. Musa <draymusa@...> wrote:
The proof that it is exploitation is clear. The non-disabled people behind the suit do not care about accessibility. That is what makes it exploitation. They care about the ADA violation
on the right, but not the one on the left. If the people behind the suit cared equally about both, it would not be exploitation. Like you, I have been disabled all my life, and if not for (to quote Reba) "my mama's will and God's amazing grace," I would have
been locked away in Fairview sixty years ago, and not had the opportunity to do all I have done, and six people over three generations (my children, grandchildren, and great grandchild) would not exist. know exploitation when I see it, and this lawsuit is
exploitation. Guess which of these two violations was cleared and which is still there today.
AYM Education and Consulting
On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 12:20 PM Peter Finley Fry <peter@...> wrote:
Thank you for your response Aisha.
With all respect, the lawsuit is not in anyway an exploitation. I do agree that it is shameful the way that all people exploit and ignore those with disabilities and I am driven
in all ways and all times to compensate for this.
Peter Finley Fry AICP PhD MUP BS
Strategic Land Use Planning
Cultural Anthropologist
303 NW Uptown Terrace; Unit 1B
Portland, Oregon 97210
503 703-8033
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Mail for Windows 10
Dear Peter,
As I said to Tom, the problems are real. The lawsuit, however, is shameless exploitation of the disabled by the non-disabled. I know this because they attempted to recruit me late last
year. The proof that they don't actually care about accessibility is that they are not concerned when trendy upscale businesses violate the ADA.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 10:40 AM Peter Finley Fry <peter@...> wrote:
Dear Group
With concern, I must strongly disagree with Dr. Musa. I have lived with my mental disability personally and with others my entire life. As a child, our society drove me away.
Now, our society ignores and dismisses us, if we can not aggressively compete; we will walk done the middle of the street rather then confront this stranger who sits on the sidewalk in our way.
Expressions of anger and conspiracy only harms those who are forced to suffer in silence because of the verbal violence unleased.
Peter Finley Fry AICP PhD MUP BS
Strategic Land Use Planning
Cultural Anthropologist
303 NW Uptown Terrace; Unit 1B
Portland, Oregon 97210
503 703-8033
Sent from
Mail for Windows 10
The problems are real, but the ADA suit is shameless exploitation of the disabled because the people behind it are non-disabled
and they are not actually concerned about accessibility. Again, if they were actually concerned about accessibility, they would be as upset when trendy upscale businesses violate the ADA. They are not. The ADA suit is weaponizing the ADA against the unhoused
and pitting the needs of the disabled against those of the unhoused for the benefit of those who are non-disabled and housed.
AYM Education and Consulting
I think it is real. I spoke to Sam Adams last winter about finding a better place to shelter the folks in the Delta Park
dog walk (which is a swamp in the rainy season and closed during that period by PPR due to toxic waste in the sludge, making it unfit for dogs). He turned and pointed to the Delta Park baseball pentagram, and said he planned to turn each field into a cluster,
with hygiene and services established in the central clubhouse. He offered no timeline, and shortly thereafter the Dog Walk residents were swept away without follow-up support.
On the other hand, given the way Dan Ryan's team seems to be slow-walking the Safe Rest Village project, I suspect they will all be out of office before the proposal can be implemented. Further, the major obstacle for SRV seems to be finding management capacity.
They keep looking away from that problem.
Tom Hickey
On 10/13/2022 9:21 PM, Tim McCormick wrote:
[note from Tim: I am inclined to not put too much stock in this story, because it is based only on unnamed sources' info, not any confirmed or shared source
at the Mayor's Office. It could be a plan tactically leaked or alleged without source in order to test reactions or to influence or oppose some anticipated official plan.
Local newspaper reporters covering homelessness have, in my assessment, in the past quite misrepresented Mayor's
Office plans & statements, eg from Sam Adams earlier in the year, and most have evident strong opinions/positions about these issues that deeply shape their reporting in ways they don't acknowledge or perhaps even realize.
For example, regarding a crucial legal point, the reporter repeats here once again a common but contested advocacy
interpretation of the Martin v Boise case, that has recently been explicitly rebutted by the 9th Circuit in Johnson v Grants Pass case: see ruling text & excerpts at
The article also seems to be speculating when it says "if the judge grants the [disabled] plaintiff’s requests,
the city will be forced to remove all tents from the sidewalks and build enough shelter capacity to house all homeless Portlanders." Evidence is not presented to indicate that the suit seeks the latter].
Mayor Will Announce Plan to Ban Unsanctioned Camping Across Portland and Build 500-Capacity Homeless “Campuses”
Many details remain uncertain, but one thing is clear: The mayor’s office is taking aggressive steps to move homeless Portlanders into large sanctioned camps.
SLEEPING ROUGH: Residing in a tent in Old Town. (Blake Benard)
WW has learned
that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler plans next week to announce a sweeping strategy to ban unsanctioned camping across the city and build three massive sanctioned camping areas, called “campuses,” each with capacity for 500 people.
Each campus would be divided into four camps with a 125-person capacity. The city intends to fill one of each of the 125-person camps in each of the three
campuses, and then expand from there. The city will seek to hire an outside contractor to run the three campuses.
Campus sites have not yet been confirmed, nor has the funding.
If actually enforced, the ban would signal a massive public policy shift for the city, effectively ending a policy of allowing people to sleep on sidewalks
that has existed since then-Mayor Charlie Hales sanctioned camping in 2016.
Currently, the city and county do not have adequate shelter space to accommodate everyone sleeping on city streets. Because of the Martin
v. Boise ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court, cities cannot arrest homeless campers if there is not adequate shelter to offer them. If the mayor’s plan comes to fruition, the city would likely be allowed to issue criminal citations to people who
are living on the streets.
Sources tell WW the plan is just one aspect of a broader initiative by the mayor’s
office to address the housing and homelessness crisis; another component is establishing aggressive targets for the construction of affordable housing.
Many details remain unclear about the mayor’s plan: what enforcement mechanism—if any—would be used to enforce the ban, where funding would come from
for the sanctioned camping areas (the mayor’s office is courting all three gubernatorial candidates, hoping to get state money from the next legislative session), and how the camps would function.
The plan is akin to the top-line item on a blueprint plan mayoral aide Sam Adams shared with elected officials earlier this year, floating the idea
of building 1,000-capacity shelters with the end goal of banning unsanctioned camping. While the plan was widely denounced, the mayor has incrementally implemented portions of Adams’ plan over the past eight months, incuding emergency orders to
ban camping around schools and along high-crash corridors.
The timing of the mayor’s announcement is also significant: It is scheduled to occur the same week ballots arrive in voters’ mailboxes. Democratic candidate
for governor Tina Kotek is struggling in the polls, and the sight of large camps along Portland highways is a political millstone for her and other statewide Dems in tight contests.
All three gubernatorial campaigns have been briefed on Wheeler’s plan.
Another thing to keep in mind: Last month, 10 Portlanders
with disabilities sued the city of Portland, alleging that tent camping was blocking public access protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In September, as WWreported
yesterday, Portland city attorneys asked the lawyer representing the plaintiffs to also
name Multnomah County, Metro and the state as additional defendants in the lawsuit.
That’s because if the judge grants the plaintiff’s requests, the city will be forced to remove all tents from the sidewalks and build enough shelter capacity
to house all homeless Portlanders. That’s an expensive project—and the city of Portland doesn’t want to foot the bill alone.
--
Tim McCormick
Housing Alternatives Network
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