OPINION | WRAP Director Paul Boden discusses why it matters to pass the Right to Rest Act
The Right to Rest Act was born on the streets.The Western Regional Advocacy Project — of which Street Roots was a founding member in 2005 — crafted it based on reports from people on the streets of how their daily lives are criminalized.
After its appearance over several Oregon legislative sessions, it has a new shot as Oregon House Bill 2367 with a pubic hearing this Tuesday at 1 p.m. There's still time to submit written testimonies as well as sign up to speak.
Rep. Wlnsvey Campos (D-Aloha) sponsored the bill, and it was co-sponsored by Reps. Khanh Pham (D-Portland), Dacia Grayber (D-Tigard), and Maxine Dexter (D-Portland). Rep. Andrea Valderrama (D-East Portland) – who was recently selected by Multnomah County Commissioners to fill Rep. Diego Hernandez's vacated seat – has now joined the bill's co-sponsors.
"We were looking for the common thread. What kind of police enforcements issues collectively are we all dealing with?
– Paul Boden
WRAP Director Paul Boden has fought for the Right to Rest Act for years. For my column this week, I asked him give Street Roots readers a sense of what’s at stake.
Kaia Sand: Paul, could you give our readers some history of the Right to Rest Act?
Paul Boden: Oh yeah. It has run eight times in nine years in three states. It’s got a rather lengthy history.
It started shortly after we created the Western Regional Advocacy Project, along with Street Roots. We embarked in having all of us collectively, and allies of ours, do a documented street outreach form that was created by the members to do outreach in their communities in English and in Spanish, and we collected over 1700 completed forms.
In order to do this volume of documented street outreach, we have check boxes and tight yes-no questions. One of the questions was, “do you know of a safe, legal place for you to sleep.” And 76% of the people said no.
We were looking for the common thread. What kind of police enforcements issues collectively are we all dealing with? Standing, sleeping, and sitting in public spaces far and away were the top issues people were being harassed, cited and arrested for. In every community that we’ve done this outreach in. That’s 12 cities in eight states.
This laws are called “tools” by local governments to address homelessness. And these "tools” are being enabled to criminalize someone who’s sitting, standing, sleeping, laying down, eating, in a non-obstructive manner. That’s all the Right to Rest Act says, is that if any community member is doing these things — standing still, sitting still, laying down, sleeping and eating in a non-obstructive manner — that activity can no longer be criminalized.
The bill wasn't even conceived until after we had done the outreach.
Sand: If we could get the Right to Rest Bill passed, what are some of the laws that this would change?
Boden: The laws criminalizing people sitting, standing, lying down, eating and praying are the only laws that are impacted by the Right to Rest Act. It also ensures unhoused people are given the same property protection rights as housed people. That’s it.
We all know these laws are only enforced against certain people. If they were enforced uniformly against everyone, nobody can stand still in a public space. Nobody can sit in a public space. Nobody can eat in a public space, they would have been taken off the books back when they were used to implement "sundown towns," "anti-Okie laws" or "ugly laws." This enforcement is a “tool” to implement discriminatory enforcement. Always have been – Always will. Unless we change them.
The little tag names are different but loitering is loitering and it’s enforced in Portland just like it is everywhere else. You could look at the ACLU report. There’s 224 laws in the 86 cities (in Oregon) they looked at that pertained to this shit.
And when you look at the anti-gay and lesbian laws of the 60s, 70s and before that I”m sure -- but in San Francisco, the sitting on a sidewalk is a criminal offense started in the Castro district and targeted gay & lesbian community members that were moving in to the Castro district before it became the gay mecca that it became. "Ugly laws" (targeted) disabled people. Sundown laws.
If this shit was easy it would have been done a long time ago. They say “we don’t do sundown towns anymore. We don’t ugly laws anymore.”
Yeah, we do. We just call them something different.
FURTHER READING: Paul Boden writes about anti-poverty laws
Sand: I think I learned about the Right to Rest Act in 2015 when I ran into people at Right 2 Dream Too. They were going down to the legislature to testify, they were so empowered, and the language of the bill was even painted on a door.
Boden: Those trips to Salem were a lot of fun.
Sand: Can you talk about the difference between House Bill 3115 and 2367?
Boden: Yes, absolutely. 3115 addresses the process by which these laws can be enforced. And has a very oblique, “reasonable standard” requirement and the determination of what constitutes a reasonable standard is left in the hands of the local government.
What does that do for anybody? It’s local governments that are discriminating against us now. It’s like passing a law that codifies that the KKK can set reasonable standards of equality. But then we are talking about Oregon so maybe that is not so far fetched. And if they want to fight the reasonable standard defined by local government, they have to go to court. Hence the League of Cities wrote the fucking bill. The fact is that local governments are so aggressive in maintaining the authority to discriminate against community members that they want to hassle and they want to leave. I mean, how difficult can it be to say, if someone’s standing still and not obstructing anybody else’s freedom to be there, that’s not an illegal act.
Why are they so vested in maintaining the ability to criminalize someone who is just simply standing still? Or sitting down? Or laying down? Or eating?
2367 (the Right to Rest Act) just says nobody, homeless or not, can be criminalized for standing still in a non-obstructive manner.
Sand: What do people need to do right now in terms of the hearing on Tuesday?
Boden: They need to get the written testimonies submittedand they need to sign up to speak. They can go to the website for WRAP and there’s links to submit written testimony and there’s links to sign up to speak at the hearing. There’s talking points, there’s fact sheets.
Sand: Can you imagine a day when it passes?
Boden: They think we are just going to accept getting told to fuck off and go away. That just proves they don’t know us very well.
Director's Desk is written by Kaia Sand, the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. 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.
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