A New Portland Group is Advocating for the Rights of Homeless, Willing Workers to Form Therapeutic, Well-governed Gardening Communities on Idle Public Lands.

The number of people experiencing homelessness is growing very fast. A study relied upon by our City government says it's up 11% in Portland since last year. More recent statewide studies, however, suggest that the real numbers are actually much higher. Statewide, there were over 17,000 homeless people on a given night in January 2009 -- up a whopping 37% from the 2008 statewide count. These cold numbers amount to unprecedented misery among us. The fear and uncertainty experienced by the homeless can lead to debilitating despair or desperation, which can lead to higher (and costlier) rates of crime, domestic abuse, and health problems of every kind. See, http://www.ohcs.oregon.gov/OHCS/RA_2008_Poverty_Reports.shtml

 

Lots of jobs and housing are badly needed, and quickly. We must insist that our leaders wake up about the true numbers -- not allowing them to be in denial about the real SCOPE of this suffering, nor the gathering momentum of this trend!

 

At the same time, the City and the four counties of the metro area are currently trying to determine urban growth boundaries and rural preserves -- as part of their longer term 'comprehensive planning' for our Metro area. While idle public lands abound, new jobs are few, and traditional housing is becoming less and less affordable for thousands more people every month lately. THIS would be a very good time to be asking the City/ Metro planners to consider setting aside some public lands for the purpose of facilitating formation of green work/training-focused, therapeutic community projects for the homeless.

 

Properly planned, we could develop encampments on public lands which are largely self-supporting -- provide opportunities for green work, green training, nutritious food, and housing for people too poor to afford these currently. It is possible to develop very LOW COST HOUSING AND WORK/ TRAINING programs -- for thousands of people now seeking shelter locally -- if we'd just 'think outside the box' of traditional feeding programs and HUD/ TPI definitions of "housing." We can and should be facilitating alternative housing options -- including straw bale, earth bag, cord and cob construction. Using these less traditional methods, we can stay within our limited public budgets, while providing housing for people who would otherwise languish on impossibly long 'housing waiting lists.' Properly built, such alternatives are strong and clean, and best of all, affordable. Note: there is growing support for such alternatives locally. See, http://www.recodeoregon.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

 

A new Portland group, which has grown out of the Portland Town Hall Meetings, is calling for extraordinary cooperation among government policy makers and local charitable service providers. We are asking that Portland's charitable providers to come together with a single voice to say what we know to be true: that government and charities nationally (globally too) are simply unable to keep pace with the trend - the fast increasing number of newly homeless.

 

We of the newly formed G.R.O.W.S. Initiative (formerly the Committee for the Development of Residential Work Sites for Green Training in Agriculture & Economics) are here to say as loudly and as cooperatively as we can:

WE NEED TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES OF HOMELESSNESS MORE EFFECTIVELY!

WE ALSO NEED A NEW GREEN ECONOMY for the sake of the Earth, and for all who are jobless and poor.

If organized properly -- with a nurturing but deliberate focus on work, mutual respect, health/ recovery, dignity and community --

WE BELIEVE that green work/training-focused community can help end the cycle of homelessness for many, while helping the Earth!

WE BELIEVE that homeless, willing workers should be given opportunities to garden, build simple low-impact shelters, barter, share, and receive practical education -- in well supervised communities on idle public lands.

IMAGINE hundreds – maybe thousands – of new, local organic gardens, whose workers are living on-site, in simple low-impact, low-cost shelters which they themselves helped to build.

IMAGINE these formerly homeless resident-workers enjoying the dignity of self-support, of a space of their own, and of the privilege of sharing their surpluses with others who still hunger.

IMAGINE these people, with basic housing and nutritious diets, learning how to develop and grow their communal barter economies in green/ sustainable ways, and receiving educational certification for learning earth-friendly work.

WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN HERE in Portland!

This is a simple vision, really. Even though it will require a great deal of skilled cooperation among us, simplicity is actually the goal. We will be asking our local governments to simply allow supervised groups of people to subsist and become better educated on certain public lands. In ways this is a vision and a hope that poor folks have carried all through human history! To live in a simple, sustainable, low-impact, do-no-harm manner - close to the earth, in largely barter-oriented communities -- who hasn't dreamed of this?! All of our ancestors somewhere down the line have lived in this way, we'd find, if we look far enough back.

Helping the poor and homeless to live simply, and to enjoy the dignity of self-support and a private space -- someplace where they'd have a RIGHT to be -- this is not a new idea. However, we strongly believe that this is AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS DEFINITELY COME. Other such projects are already out there helping people, and going strong. Learn more about the community which we would use as a model, "The Homeless Gardening Project" of Santa Cruz, CA. See, http://homelessgardenproject.org/ . Such ongoing projects prove that work, self-support, and sharing/ bartering in community can restore dignity and feelings of belonging - in a way that can make up for years of alienation -- allowing for real spiritual growth.

Here locally, you can visit, volunteer or read about Blanchet Farm at: http://blanchethouse.org/site/?page_id=46. Even the down-est and the out-est can find better health through green living, work and community! There are lots of other great models we can look to as well, as we try this bold, more-inclusive-than-ever experiment here in Portland. What such work-oriented projects tend to show is that through green work and self-support comes healthy dignity, which in many cases helps lift individuals out of their long established cycles of homelessness-inducing despair.

The invitation to join G.R.O.W.S. (Green Residential Oregon Work Sites) is open and ongoing to EVERYONE.

ALL who are experiencing homelessness are especially welcome. 

In short, we want to develop local, low-cost, self-supporting, green-work and training-focused therapeutic communities for the poor in the Portland area. G.R.O.W.S. is a new group. But our vision is not new. We are looking at what has been done elsewhere, and wanting to copy that locally -- hopefully on a scale not yet attempted anywhere in the U.S. (many such communities are needed, given the growing homeless population). 

For now we are focused on simply TRYING TO START THIS CONVERSATION here in Portland !!! Please write your llocal leaders, and your favorite charitable service providers, and encourage them to think in terms of COMBINING housing with green work programs, with other therapeutic and educational programs ON PUBLIC LANDS. Is is likely the only way we will be able to effectively and affordably address the fast growing number of jobless poor among us.

 

If you would like to help, please contact us: GROWS.Committee@gmail.com

or visit our websites at  http://dignityadvocate.wordpress.com/ 

or at  http://green-projects-for-homeless.wikispaces.com/

 

Peace & Thanks,

 

-- The G.R.O.W.S. Initiative

(Green Residential Oregon Work Sites)

P.O. Box 3482 Portland, OR 97208