At the Oregon Historical Society (OHS), a new exhibition by photographer Jim Lommasson highlights the work of Street Roots, Portland’s nonprofit newspaper and social justice force. The exhibition not only honors 25 years of the publication but also sheds light on the realities of homelessness — and points to ways forward in addressing the crisis.
Street Roots: Journalism Meets Survival
Founded in 1999, Street Roots is much more than a weekly paper. It employs more than 100 vendors, roughly half of them unhoused and all living below the poverty line, who sell papers for $1 apiece. Vendors earn modest income while forging human connections with regular customers in neighborhoods across Portland.
The organization, now led by interim executive director Rebecca Nickels, recently moved into a new building in Old Town. Beyond publishing, the site provides showers, laundry facilities, administrative help, educational programming, and community gatherings. But with new space comes new financial strain, leaving the group to raise funds for expanded operations in an uncertain political climate.
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Humanity Through Photography
The OHS exhibition combines historical material, artwork, and objects from vendors with Lommasson’s acclaimed photography. His project, What I Carry, asks unhoused participants to select items of personal meaning — possessions that help them survive hunger, cold, and displacement — and to add handwritten reflections.
One wall, filled with images of dogs beloved by vendors, underscores the companionship and loyalty that persist even in hardship. Other images document survival tools: blankets, food supplies, and mementos that connect participants to lost homes or families.
Lommasson has previously photographed refugees, genocide survivors, and Holocaust victims, documenting the possessions that endured amid displacement. Exhibited nationally, his work insists on the shared humanity of populations often dismissed or criminalized.
In Portland, the challenge was logistical as much as emotional: tracking participants in a community constantly uprooted by sweeps, relocation, and the daily instability of life on the streets. Street Roots provided a stable entry point, connecting Lommasson to vendors eager to share their stories.
Breaking Stereotypes
Working with vendors challenged assumptions. Many participants displayed deep literary knowledge and intellectual sophistication, upending stereotypes about the unhoused. As Lommasson emphasizes, the project is not about academic credentials but about human dignity — reminding viewers of shared vulnerabilities and resilience.
As Kaia Sand, former executive director of Street Roots, once noted: “There is a lot of courage out there.”
A Hostile Political Climate
The exhibition arrives against a backdrop of increasingly punitive national and local policies.
In July, President Donald Trump issued an executive order mandating civil commitments for homeless individuals, banning urban camping, ending housing-first policies, and encouraging federal law enforcement support for encampment sweeps. This followed the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling, which in a 6-3 decision held that enforcing anti-camping bans — even when no shelter is available — does not violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The rhetoric has been extreme. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade recently suggested that unhoused people should be subjected to involuntary lethal injection before walking back the statement as “callous.” For many unhoused individuals, such public comments deepen stigma and dehumanization.
Portland’s Local Crisis
Locally, the crisis is no less severe. Multnomah County estimates over 7,000 unsheltered homeless residents as of May 2025 — a figure likely undercounted.
Mayor Keith Wilson, elected on a platform of compassion, has added 430 new shelter beds this year, raising the city’s total to 1,300. Combined with county-funded shelters, that leaves just 2,454 beds available nightly — far short of demand. As a result, at least 4,500 people face criminal penalties if found sleeping outdoors.
Wilson has also escalated encampment sweeps, averaging 26.6 per day in the first half of 2025 — more than 4,800 sweeps in six months. That rate outpaces other West Coast cities, while mortality rates for unhoused residents in Multnomah County are the highest recorded on the coast.
The Limits of Temporary Shelter
Critics argue that Portland’s investment in temporary shelter has overshadowed the long-term solution: permanent housing. While the city has delivered 2,238 permanent supportive housing units since 2017, with another 361 in development, the scale lags far behind the growing number of residents falling into homelessness.
Short-term fixes, combined with criminalization, risk perpetuating the cycle. As the National Alliance to End Homelessness notes, criminal records make it harder for unhoused people to secure housing in the future. Punitive policies may reduce visible encampments temporarily but do nothing to address underlying causes like poverty, addiction, and lack of affordable housing.
Structural Solutions Needed
Experts stress that only structural remedies will break the cycle:
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Investing in permanent supportive housing at a scale matching the crisis.
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Expanding rental assistance to prevent evictions.
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Repairing and expanding public housing stock.
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Funding mental health and addiction services, which remain under-resourced.
Without such investments, criminalization remains a costly, ineffective stopgap that shifts the burden without resolving it.
The Power of Street-Level Interventions
Organizations like Street Roots show another path. By providing income opportunities, daily necessities, and platforms for creativity — from poetry workshops to collaborative photography — they restore agency to people often stripped of it.
The Street Roots model demonstrates how small-scale, community-driven programs can make tangible differences while advocating for systemic change. Vendors like Karen, selling papers from her wheelchair with a smile and determination, embody the resilience that these support networks nurture.
Toward a Way Forward
Lommasson’s exhibition ultimately underscores the humanity of Portland’s unhoused residents. His photographs of cherished belongings and personal reflections collapse the divide between “us” and “them,” revealing a shared need for security, connection, and dignity.
The show also issues a quiet challenge: that solutions to homelessness must begin with recognition of humanity. Criminalizing poverty and addiction only deepens despair. Empowering people with resources, stability, and opportunity offers a way forward.
As the crisis deepens both locally and nationally, the lessons of Street Roots and the work of artists like Lommasson highlight a truth too often forgotten: homelessness is not an individual failure, but a societal one. And like all systemic failures, it requires systemic solutions.
