Communities

One of the most basic needs we have is to feel safe and secure in our community. Whether walking down the street, watching TV in your home, traveling on the bus or on the road in your car or on your bike – being able to live life without looking over your shoulder or holding your breath is one of the most important measures of a good life. We also want our children to be safe – at school, in the park, and on the street. 

Safety and security is the interplay of many things: neighborliness, urban and street design, the consideration of other people, and, when this breaks down, having support available and appropriate to help repair what broke. If we have a medical emergency, does the ambulance arrive on time? If we have a crash or a fire, can we rely on the fire department? If we are threatened or offended against, will the police get there? 

We have created complex systems to ensure we can live peacefully with others, to encourage and support good behavior and to hold accountable those who hurt others or themselves through their actions. 

I’ve met with advocates for police accountability, police officers and their union, firefighters and their union, and supporters of the Portland Street Response project. They all support the vision of Portland as a safe and secure place to live and raise a family. Each also struggles with competing priorities and tight resources. And they all hope to have the trust of the community that they serve. 

We also live with a history of discrimination, actions that we regret, and failed attempts to create a shared vision of community safety for everyone.

What Portland needs:

• A functional response to public camping, street crime, and drug use with measurable outcomes and accountability. We are finally moving in the right direction but more is needed. Individual-focused interventions to direct people living on the street to the services they need – housing, rehabilitation, mental health treatment, health care – is proven to work. Making sure diversion is meaningful and people are held accountable is an obvious first step. 

• A holistic approach to safe communities. Currently, we treat the many components of community safety in a scattershot approach spread among many City bureaus and area governments. (See second paragraph above: we need Planning, Parks, and Transportation sitting down with Fire, Police, and Emergency Services)

• Resurrection and support of Neighborhood Associations. There will be three Councilors representing each Neighborhood Coalition’s area, with District offices and staff, that could provide a jumpstart to creating real community engagement. Councilors could work with and support neighbors in building stronger connections, thereby bolstering our resilience, multiplying the benefits from our shared resources (eg, Parks and Schools), and building a sense of a shared future. 

• Reward innovation and collaboration. We should be learning from other communities about what they are doing to build safe and secure communities. We should encourage those working to keep our communities safe to bring good ideas forward rather than engage in zero-sum politics that create resistance to new ideas. We need to be thinking “yes, and” rather than “no, we never did it that way.”