Sneak peak at the new Street Roots tomorrow

The new issue of Street Roots will hit the streets tomorrow. The cover story this issue includes an in-depth look at rural and suburban housing in Clackamas County and around the state. It also includes an update on private security downtown and news pieces on key measures that need a nudging along in Salem, including a new housing fee that's in the works. All of this and much more in tomorrow's Street Roots.



Street Roots has raised nearly $4,000 in its first two weeks on the Summer Fund Drive. We are excited to be working with readers to continue to bring you news from the streets. Money raised through the fund drive will go towards outreach to improve the quality of the newspaper.

We are developing a series of roundtables with vendors, people experiencing homelessness and poverty, potential readers and gearing up for an extensive readers survey in the fall. We are also looking forward to unveiling a newly formatted Rose City Resource Guide in partnership with 211 Info and the City of Portland. We will be hiring a full time staff to be the organization’s resource specialist and to help vendors. And we will be adding four more pages of news and commentary to the paper.

None of this would be possible without generous supporters like you. We thank you for believing in vendors by buying and reading the newspaper, while building relationships with people on the beat.

Thanks to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development the organization is in the process of developing a wallet size "Know your rights" guide specifically for people experiencing homelessness. Education is the first step to taking power back.

The organization also is working with the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center and Sisters Of The Road to develop a complaint system for private security agencies in the City of Portland. Complaint forms will be available for Portlanders throughout the city in the coming weeks and we hope to document the need for transparency and oversight of private institutions that enforce public policy, often with taxpayer money.

It’s important for Street Roots to note that the investigative articles we’ve been generating on private security is about a larger institution at play. Our reporting is not about individuals and hard working people doing wrong, it’s about the public getting the accountability it deserves. If you have thoughts on these important issues, please feel free to drop off letter to the editor at streetroots@email.com. Your voice matters!

You can find out more about the organizations Summer Fund Drive on-line at

Summer Fund Drive