Portland State Vanguard Volume 77 Issue 21

THE TINA KOTEK VISION

OPINION

Portland’s Clean public bathrooms are a human right P. 11

ARTS Blue Sky Photo Gallery showcases work of two pioneering photographers P. 8-9

NEWS City of Portland recruits citizens to care for Greenspaces P. 6-7

MISSION STATEMENT

ABOUT

established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Wednesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.

TANNER TODD

After a month-long hiatus from publishing, the Portland State Vanguard is back—with an update! We will be reviving our “Letters to the Editor,” a recurring Opinion feature that publishes and spotlights voices from around PSU, as well as the larger community of Portland, Oregon. This is a section devoted to spotlighting the opinions and feelings of our readsers, rather than the writers and contributors in our newsroom, and we welcome submissions from anyone. We’re particularly interested in perspectives related to current Portland events and community issues, as well as circumstances that impact the Pacific Northwest overall. We’d also love to hear your thoughts on stories we’ve covered—if you have a strong opinion about something we’ve reported, write us! We’ll happily read your submissions.

To share your letters for publishing consideration, email your thoughts to opinion@psuvanguard. com with the heading LETTER TO THE EDITOR, followed by your subject line.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

The Vanguard Editorial Staff

NEW KOTEK ADMINISTRATION DECLARES GOALS

KOTEK’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS HIGHLIGHTS HOUSING CRISIS

AIDEN TUAN

Jan. 9 marked the beginning of a new chapter for Oregon as Tina Kotek took her place as Oregon’s 39th governor. A former state House speaker, Kotek won the gubernatorial race by several percentage points over Republican Christine Drazan, a former state legislator, in November’s election. Her inaugural address took place at the Oregon House of Chambers on a Monday afternoon.

At the forefront of her commitments, Kotek declared a housing state of emergency, an echo to her campaign promise of being more aggressive on the homelessness crisis within the state. Within her inaugural address, Kotek said that aside from declaring a state of emergency, she will also sign an executive order to push the state government to create 36,000 homes a year—an 80 percent increase over recent construction trends.

To meet trends of a burgeoning population, Oregon needs to build more than 550,000 new housing units over the next two decades, as state demographers and economists have estimated In a surprising callback to Governor Vic Atiyeh, who served as Oregon’s 32nd governor from 1979 to 1987 and was the last Republican governor in the state to date, Kotek paraphrased his words in her inaugural address.

“I have and will continue to listen, and not just only to those people who have the means and the urgency to press their case in Salem,” Kotek said. “I will be in your own communities, not talking to you, but meeting with you… I will listen to you, the elected representatives of our people, and to the many dedicated workers in our government who truly want to serve people. I will listen to all.”

Kotek referenced a conversation she had with a member of the Portland community who worked at a nonprofit shelter serving survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The shelter offers a safe place to stay, but only temporarily. In this particular case, the shelter would only provide housing for 30 days, after which the survivors would be caught between a rock and a hard place—either becoming homeless or going back to their abuser 30 days is often not long enough to find affordable, permanent

housing. In data presented by the Oregon Housing Stability Council, the waiting lists for government-subsidized housing are several years long, particularly in metro areas like Portland and its surrounding areas. A growing concern of safe, affordable housing grips many Oregon residents, not just those affected by domestic abuse.

Douglas Byrd, an assistant professor of political science at Portland Community College, offered another perspective.

“I think that there’s multiple interesting aspects to [Kotek’s inaugural address],” Byrd said. “The first is that she said she’d do this in the campaign and she has done it. The other thing is that it raises all sorts of questions that are very complex, such as her being the speaker of the Oregon House for 13 years. That does raise questions why all of a sudden now that she’s governor she’s taking steps when it could have been taken many years ago.”

Byrd wasn’t the only one that has been asking that question. Even before the Democratic primary for Oregon governor, questions were raised towards Kotek and her predecessor, Kate Brown, who share similar political profiles. Both hailing from Portland and the progressive wing of the party, the two shared much in common, not just in traits and ideals but also within the legislation. However, fractures appeared between the two as Kotek distanced herself more from Brown as the latter faced scrutiny and a weak approval rating from the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The biggest question is how is the plan [for solving the homeless crisis] going to look,” Byrd said. “The state legislature makes the decisions about these types of funding. Building all those homes sounds like a wonderful idea, but it’s not clear to me or anyone how it’s going to be paid for and how it’s going to specifically address people living on the streets. How are they going to afford to live in these houses?”

Another concern among constituents is accountability within all branches of the state government. Questions were raised about where the money for building new homes will come from, and the government has answered in the past. However, Kotek noted that more could be done and promised to make government

benefits and services more accessible and friendly to the public.

“I am directing agency leadership—with my support—to prioritize customer service,” Kotek said. “That means being more efficient, more effective and creating systems that will empower the state’s 42,000 public servants to deliver for Oregonians. So many state employees are working incredibly hard to do their jobs, but struggle because of unnecessary bureaucratic barriers or outdated systems that do not meet the challenges of the day.”

For Portlanders, homelessness remains at the forefront of many people’s minds. Just several months ago, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler passed a ban on homeless people around schools.

“This is an existential crisis for the city [Portland],” Byrd said. “Anyone that has gone into the city in the last couple of years has noticed that significantly, has seen a number of people on the street. The city center is going through a significant decline… really, I think the biggest issue for people is safety.”

Kotek also emphasized strengthening connections across the state. She pledged to visit every county in Oregon within her first year of office. Kotek emphasized that by listening to one another, finding more within details and coming together to create solutions, the governance will be able to deliver results on complex issues currently affecting the state.

Towards the end of Kotek’s address, the new governor welcomed the idea for people to help, to participate with not only ideas for the future but also for the communities. In an echo to her previous comments of coming together united in the way forward, Kotek made a call to action for all Oregonians to believe in our state and its future.

“I hope there’s some sort of ability to come with new leadership,” Byrd said. “So maybe there’s a zeitgeist and a feeling of a real possibility for change to be better. Not just for the people of Portland who are living in homes, but perhaps also for the thousands of people who are living a daily nightmare… maybe.”

Reporter Abby Jobe contributed to this story.

CASEY LITCHFIELD

GREEN STREET STEWARDS INVOLVES PORTLANDERS IN URBAN CONSERVATION

THE PROGRAM INVITES VOLUNTEERS TO HELP MAINTAIN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

PIPPA MASSEY

It’s 2023 and we’re starting off Vanguard’s Greenspace series with a story on how Portland State’s students can be a part of the greener good through a program called Green Street Stewards. The program, which is organized by Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services, is designed to allow community members to take part in the care and maintenance of Portland’s green streets.

“It started in 2010 and it was created as a six-month pilot project in a targeted area in north Portland,” said Svetlana Hedin, a Green Street Steward manager at Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services. According to Hedin, the Bureau had just installed a system of “bioswales,” which are drainage ditches filled with grasses and vegetation. When contaminated rainwater runs through the ditches, the bioswales are designed to filter out pollution.

According to Hedin, the Green Street Stewards program came out of the community’s response to the new bioswales in their neighborhoods. “We sent out letters to people just letting them know that we created lots of bioswales or green streets,” Hedin said. “Then we got replies from people [saying], ‘well can we actually look after them? Can we do stuff with them?’ We said, ‘well, why not?’ And so that’s how the program got its feet under them.”

The Bureau responded by enlisting the community in the upkeep of the bioswales. The program was enough of a success that Hedin said they replicated it elsewhere around the city. “By 2012—so two years later—the [bioswale] program was city-wide,” she said. “We then incorporated communities to look after them as well.”

Hedin emphasized the importance of the bioswales themselves, which are the green infrastructure that the volunteers are maintaining. “The green street planters are all rain gardens, so all of those things collect stormwater runoff from the street and sidewalk and then manage that stormwater on sight,” she said. “Basically it captures that stormwater, it slows it down and filters the stormwater runoff from streets and sidewalks. They help keep stormwater and pollutants out of our waterways and that reduces the risk of sewer backups into the streets and basements.” The stewardship program takes place all around the city, not just downtown, with over 2,400 bioswales.

When asked how a PSU student can sign up for the program, Hedin said that it was open for all. “Anybody can sign up for a project,” said Hedin, who is also a PSU alumni. “Anyone can be a

steward. It’s pretty easy. Anybody’s invited. It’s a voluntary basis, and people can sign up online … and they can adopt any stormwater planter near their homes, or even PSU has multiple ones.”

“Portland is known to take action to help protect our rivers and streams by volunteering to plant trees, remove pavements, you know, with depaving or building rain gardens or clean up along streams and all sorts of things,” Hedin continued. “Students definitely can participate and if they want to do it as a volunteer project for Capstone or whatnot, or if they need to fulfill some sort of hours, then we can sign off on those too. They would be responsible for managing their own hours and going at the time that is convenient for them.”

The program activities are not organized by anyone in particular—it’s up to the volunteers to decide when they’d want to tend to the stormwater facilities. This allows for a more flexible schedule, a potential boon for busy PSU students. In addition, there are no allocated times for stewards to work. “Any time it’s convenient for you, but we want to encourage people to go during the day… because there’s green infrastructures located by the roads so we want to make sure that you are visible,” Hedin said. “So we do provide safety vests and gloves and grabbers for people to pick up garbage with—so safety is our priority. If it’s dark and you don’t feel like going, then we do not want you to be there.”

The most active times of the year in the program are the seasons of spring and fall. “Spring because… people have been cooped up at home for the whole time of the winter and they want to come out and do something fun and exciting and dig in the dirt, and so people get really excited,” Hedin said. “Fall because the leaves fall down and so there is a lot more debris and people are more conscientious that there are leaves maybe even in the storm drains… by the end of each block there are storm drains, so people might remove those storm drains and they’ll notice that ‘hey, there is a green infrastructure next to that storm drain, why don’t I clean up that too?”

The Green Street Steward program, as widespread as it is throughout the city, finds it important to record activities within the program to track how much debris is generated in different areas throughout the city. “We ask people to report their activities so we know how much time people actually spend in different areas of Portland, and how much garbage do they collect and how many buckets of yard debris—you know, leaves and sticks and so on—but it’s very hard to get that information from people,” Hedin said. She then emphasized the importance of a volunteer logging their information. “Maybe there is this particular weed that is obnoxious and people are constantly going after it, and then… boom, it’s not there anymore, so we can see that hey, this works actually,

whatever this person is doing is great,” she said. “But the other reason is that we collect the data and then at the end of the year we provide awards for people that remove the most debris or most trash or spend most time at the facility doing these activities… we provide a little something for people. We will write an actual certificate and give people certificates.”

As for the challenges faced within the program, Hedin emphasized the difficulty of transporting debris. “I think the biggest challenge is that when people collect yard debris or litter, most people… can drop it in their garbage can and that’s no problem,” Hedin said. “But if they’re volunteering, let’s say… half a mile away from their home, it’s not necessarily easy for them to carry a lot of litter with them… so that’s probably the hardest thing.”

Hedin indicated that getting people to volunteer as stewards does not appear to be hard. When asked why Hedin thinks that volunteers are eager to jump at the opportunity, she emphasized the desire to feel good about volunteering. “You can do something with the green infrastructure in front of your home,” she said. “You can just come out and pick up garbage and clean the leaves from the openings so the water can get in so that the facility can function and… it feels good! You know? It’s simple enough.”

Portlanders who are interested in volunteering with the Green Street Stewards program can do so at the Green Street Stewards page of Portland.gov.

WHITNEY McPHIE

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: ELI DURST

JESSE ROPERS

Throughout the past few years of pandemic isolation, the value of in-person community has become more apparent than ever. Eli Durst’s photography project, The Community, explores a variety of gatherings and settings where people come together and foster connection. Blue Sky Gallery, also known as Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, will display the exhibit until Saturday, Jan. 28. Durst’s current work originates from his undergraduate time at Wesleyan University, where he majored in American Studies and took his first photography classes. “My undergrad work focused on using the camera to look at the construction of that normative American identity,” Durst said. “Not that it actually exists, and of course, that’s the great thing about America, but of course we think it exists. It’s a politicized issue and is obviously extremely contested on who gets to be a normative American.”

After graduating from college, Durst moved to New York City, where he began his work at the printing lab Griffin Editions and assisted photographer Joel Meyerowitz. “Both were great real-world educations in photography, printing and the consumption of imagery,” Durst said. Durst decided he wasn’t interested in a flat-out critique of suburbia. “Obviously, the deficiencies or issues of suburban America are well-trodden areas in the art world,” Durst said. “So I shifted my focus to, ‘Can I convince myself of poetry or meaning or value in these spaces? Can I find something meaningful or sensational in an extremely mundane space?’ Something that felt beautiful but kind of disposable in the way that so many things we consume in America are.”

After three years in New York, Durst knew he wanted to return to school. “For me, it was really important to go back and be part of an art school community,” he said. “That there were things that I needed to learn and know.”

At Yale University, he continued his work as usual but received a lukewarm reception. “I think from the point of a grad school critique, it’s like, ‘If you are gonna work the same way you were before, do you need to be here?’” he said.

He switched from his comfort zone of 4:5 color photography to black and white digital and began experimenting with flash and strobe.

These changes allowed Durst the freedom to expand his reach and get to the heart of what he was trying to say. “I started casting a much wider net,” he said. “You had to really know the people with 4:5 [film format], but with digital, you could shoot with whoever.” Durst captured various events, such as bingo halls, teen skating groups and male strippers. He started photographing everything he saw, not knowing or caring what it meant or if it would end up in his final portfolio.

Durst’s time shooting the project was full of one-of-a-kind experiences. He pointed out a shot of a well-dressed man in a Dunkin’ Donuts.

“I really felt blessed by the photo gods with this one,” he said. “I was in grad school driving around Connecticut photographing and really just failing. Not getting anything good. There was this man in a suit seated in a sort of faux living room library inside the Dunkin’ Donuts.

I loved the beauty of it. I had all my photo gear and was like, ‘Should I ask if I can photograph him?’ And was like, ‘No, I’m not going to bother him.’ So I went back to dejectedly eating my muffin and drinking my coffee when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was him. His name was Dr. Hans Gandhi, and he came up to me and said, ‘Will you take my photograph?’ It felt like I had earned it because I had failed so miserably… Sometimes in photography, it’s like, ‘Oh, you got lucky,’ but you make your own luck by taking pictures and failing, and shooting hours and getting nothing—like, you make your own luck.”

Eventually, Durst realized he needed to narrow the project’s scope. Around this time, he was going to boy scout meetings in a church annex’s basement, and fell in love with how the space felt. “I loved the architecture of it, the genericness, the specifics, the linoleum floor, how everyone knows that space, how familiar the space is in America,” Durst said.

“I started thinking about what else could be happening in a church basement. That was my first real idea of what this project was going to be. That could be boy scout meetings, bible classes, new age spiritual groups, corporate team building exercises.”

“It expanded from a church basement to a community center-type space,” Durst said.

“The idea for me was, at a certain point, can I

create my own fictional community center? Can I make it feel like all these activities could be happening simultaneously in different rooms of the same building?” It was here where The Community was born.

The Community was photographed from 2015–2018, during which Durst traveled to various places across the country. Despite this, the sameness of the spaces he visited gave the work a unity that transcends specific space or time. “The places don’t really change,” Durst said. “The places are timeless—not in an elegant way—but more of just not knowing what time it is. I think that the black and white helps with that, as well as helping it feel more like fiction. In color, it looks a bit more familiar, but in black and white, there is more defamiliarization. That’s the exact area I want to be as an artist.” Durst also pointed out how the use of flash enhances this disconnection from reality. “With flash, it’s not what you see,” he said. “It’s not what the world looks like. It’s something strange.”

Something he enjoyed about the process was the ability to explore communities he knew nothing about. “The camera is such a passport to go places you never go,” Durst said. “That’s something I love about taking photos in the world. They are real people and communities I

never knew about. I’m Jewish, so I didn’t grow up in these church spaces and was really curious about learning more about them.”

One of Durst’s goals for The Community was finding the commonalities between all the groups. “What were all these people looking for versus the differences?” Durst said. “In an age of the internet with everything online, why go to the church basement? Why go to these groups? What are you after? What does it mean to be in this physical space in proximity of other human beings, and what meaning can we derive from it?”

After seven years, Durst had a few ideas. “Underlying all these communities, I think there is this search for faith or self-improvement,” he said. “Sometimes just the company of others. In suburban spaces, we are so sequestered.”

Once completed, The Community was published in May 2020 as Durst’s debut monograph. Despite the pandemic’s horrendous timing, Durst wanted to publish it anyway. “I just felt like I needed to get the work out there,” he said.

Durst has one wish for potential attendees of the exhibit: “I hope that the more you look at images, the stranger they become. That nothing is perfectly clarified. I hope that when you’re done going through the exhibit, you’re more confused.”

PHOTOS BY ELI DURST AT THE BLUE SKY CENTER. PSU VANGUARD/JESSE ROPERS

BLUE SKY GALLERIES PRESENTS THE ARCHITECTURE OF L’ANCIEN VILLAGE

CAPTURING THE JOY, STRENGTH AND SPIRIT OF WEST AFRICA

MACIE HARRELD

Representation of West Africa within the contemporary Western world is hardly present, and what little exists is highly skewed. To this end, a celebrated professor of photography at Santa Clara University, David Pace, devoted his craft to a more genuine portrayal of Burkina Faso, a country teeming with vibrancy, festivity and community.

From now until Jan. 28, Blue Sky Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts is exhibiting Pace’s photographic collection showcasing West African heritage. Titled The Architecture of L’Ancien Village , this series captures the everyday essence of a scenic village in Burkina Faso: Bereba. The photos feature earth-toned buildings supporting wooden ladders in the foreground of sprawling greenery and brilliant blue skies. The lack of human subjects provokes an appreciation for Bereba’s architecture and striking aesthetic.

The imagery of The Architecture of L’Ancien Village serves to preserve a way of life that may not endure much longer. Even though many physical structures within Bereba date back more than a century—some being rebuilt and maintained as homes for generations—the village and others like it face threats in Burkina Faso’s ongoing civil war. Lamentably, Bereba itself fell victim to a violent insurgency in Nov. 2022, resulting in the closure of integral institutions such as schools and health clinics and, ultimately, an exodus of people.

Nevertheless, Pace’s photography broadens a restrictive view of West Africa by capturing its joy, strength and vivacious spirit. Pace was invited to Bereba in 2007 in order to photograph for the non-governmental organization Friends of African Village Libraries. Each year for the following decade, Pace returned to Burkina Faso for multiple months at a time in order to photograph. In addition to The Architecture of L’Ancien Village , Pace published many other series dedicated to life in Bereba. These include a collection showcasing the colorful energy of Bereba’s market day, another documenting the people’s specialized labor skills and one showing the village’s weekly dance party fueled by a CD player and starlight.

In a recent gallery presentation at Blue Sky, Pace’s wife, Diane Jonte-Pace, stated that “his goal with this larger project was to counter the negative portrayal of life in Africa that one often sees in the Western media. It’s not all poverty. It’s not all illness. It’s not all war.” Instead, Pace’s photography evokes a keen sense of nostalgia for the people of rural West Africa. For them, these images contain fragments of childhood and memories of a place rarely portrayed in print.

Diane Jonte-Pace explained the significance of Pace’s photography for the villagers themselves. Many residents had never had a photograph taken of them, and the photographs that Pace gifted to the people of Bereba served as meaningful mementos. In addition, his prints were used in such spaces as village funerals for esteemed elders.

Pace also co-led a Santa Clara University study abroad program in the village of Bereba alongside professor of economics Michael Kevane. Kevane is a member of the board of directors for Friends of African Village Libraries. FAVL’s mission to establish and maintain libraries for rural Africa would coincide with Pace’s efforts in the region. In addition, the photography students participating in the study abroad program would compile images from Bereba to create printed books to donate back to the village library.

Kevane described the need for greater educational accessibility in Burkina Faso, saying that “adult literacy right now in a village like Bereba is only about 10 percent for people over the age of 25 or 30.” FAVL serves as a community resource for reading and literacy materials. A central goal of the organization is to provide literature relevant to the experiences and identities of the local communities. Thus FAVL seeks out books written and illustrated by West African creators. “In schools, they have very little to read,” Kevane explained. “So the first thing that readers like them are comfortable and enjoy reading is stuff that’s close to them.”

Pace produced a beautiful contribution to the authenticity of Bereba through his photographic art. The proceeds from Pace’s work continue to benefit rural African communities through FAVL.

DAVID PACE'S WORK AT THE BLUE SKY CENTER. PSU VANGUARD/MACIE HARRELD

WE NEED TO RETHINK NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

DON’T SET A RESOLUTION—SET A THEME

NICK GATLIN

The way we think about New Year’s resolutions is making us miserable.

Every year, millions of motivated people in the United States—about 44% of the population, according to a 2020 study published in PLOS One—seize on the new year as an opportunity to dramatically reshape their life. Every year, millions of people fail at that task. This isn’t a failure on their part, but rather a failure of how we think about self-improvement. New Year’s resolutions, if we ought to have them at all, should be less like a strict rule for how to behave for 12 months, and more like a gentle reminder to nudge our actions in a certain direction.

The evidence against “rule-style” resolutions is overwhelming. According to the study mentioned above, titled “A Large-Scale Experiment on New Year’s Resolutions: Approach-Oriented Goals Are More Successful Than Avoidance-Oriented Goals,” only 19% of participants followed through on their goaloriented resolutions two years later—even one week in, 23% had already dropped off. This is hardly a model for long-term positive change.

As the title suggests, the study found that “approach-oriented” goals were significantly more successful than “avoidance-oriented” goals—“I want to cook more at home” is more likely to be effective than “I want to avoid

eating out.” In other words, you are better served by putting agency in your own hands to do something, rather than to avoid something.

What does a good approach-oriented goal look like? Nearly every publication out there extols the virtues of “SMART goals”: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and TimeBound. The New York Times, Forbes, NPR and countless others recommend these SMART goals as “your best shot at success.” The idea, they say, is that limiting yourself to a narrow goal will lead to better adherence.

However, the authors of the PLOS One study note that resolutions which are “specific” and “time-framed,” like SMART goals, often lead to a greater feeling of failure and disappointment in oneself. For example, if you were to set a New Year’s resolution to “exercise for 60 minutes, three times a week,” there are twelve opportunities to fail in the first month alone. Say you only exercise for 45 minutes one day because you don’t feel well, or you only exercise two times one week because your schedule became unexpectedly hectic. The authors write that “a participant with a specific resolution… might consider oneself unsuccessful if he/she has not fully adhered to that pledge.”

To give an example from my own life: last year, I set a New Year’s resolution to “read one book

a week; two weeks if the book is particularly large.” How generous of myself to add that caveat. Did I read more last year? Certainly. Did I read a book a week? Of course not. Life got in the way—heavy classwork, unexpected plans, an irregular work schedule—and even though I accomplished my goal of reading more, I wasn’t able to meet the specific, stringent goal I set for myself in January. As a result, whenever I thought about my resolution, I felt a pang of guilt, as though I had failed—I read over 30 books that year, but it wasn’t enough.

It’s tempting to attribute this failure to a simple defect in my character—that I just didn’t try hard enough. I would imagine many people feel the same way, if they haven’t sworn off of New Year’s resolutions altogether. So let’s take a step back from the treadmill of increasingly hyper-specific goals and embrace the uncertainty of life.

Why do we set New Year’s resolutions for ourselves? They’re usually motivated by a wellmeaning desire to guide our lives in a positive direction. In this case, any improvement is a positive development. All that matters is that the trend line goes up, even by a small amount.

In the spirit of New Year’s leniency—and here I’m shamelessly stealing from CGP Grey—I suggest that we abandon New Year’s resolutions

KELSEY ZUBERBUEHLER

altogether, in favor of a New Year’s theme.

Setting a New Year’s theme simply means taking your self-improvement goal and describ-ing it in the broadest, most fundamental terms. If your goal is to eat better, for instance, your theme would be something like “The Year of Health.” For me, I would have a “Year of Reading,” or even more loosely, a “Year of Knowledge.”

If these sound vague, it’s because they’re supposed to be. The benefit of having a New Year’s theme is that it is entirely adaptive to your circumstances: if you’ve had a hard week and can only get yourself to the gym for two days, that’s still action on the “Health” front. The same goes for if you make dinner at home one night and have takeout the next— the trend is net positive.

Setting a theme is a method of centering yourself toward your goal of positive change without the rigidity of a specific target or deadline. The target, after all, is consistent improvement in the long-term. Following your goal loosely for a year is a more desirable outcome than following it perfectly for a month, then quitting in February.

This year, think of your New Year’s goals like throwing darts: as long as you make it on the board, it counts. A bullseye is just a happy bonus.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO PEE IN THE CITY?

THE SHITTY SIDE OF HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE

NICK GATLIN

It’s easier to pee in Portland than most cities in the United States. But public restrooms still aren’t accessible to everyone— and the ones that are can hardly be considered dignified. The debate around public bathrooms in Portland, like in most cities, is driven by anti-homeless politics. Everyone needs to use the restroom, and everyone deserves a safe, private, dependable place to go. Unfortunately, Portland has not yet met this goal.

According to QS Supplies, a United Kingdom bathroom wholesaler, Portland has a total of 109 public toilets, or 17 per 100,000 people. That statistic includes all restrooms explicitly available to the general public, including restrooms in public buildings like City Hall and some on the Portland State campus. Compared to cities like New York or Los Angeles—with 4 and 5 public restrooms per capita, respectively—Portland is certainly ahead.

What accounts for Portland’s relative headstart? You’ve probably seen one before: a sleek, oblong stainless steel structure that looks suspiciously like the fuselage of a B-17, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. I’m talking about the Portland Loo, a metal-enclosed public restroom that can be found in 15 locations around Portland, including one on the South Park Blocks near PSU.

According to Portland Parks & Recreation, there are five Portland Loos open 24/7: one on the North Park Blocks, one on the South Park Blocks, two at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park and one at the original location on NW Glisan and 5th Avenue.

The Portland Loo, a registered trademark of the City of Portland, was first introduced to the city in 2008 by City Commissioner Randy Leonard and Madden Fabrication. It was “designed,” according to the Portland Loo website, “to deter criminal activity and meld into its surrounding environment,” avoiding problems like “vandalism, illegal drug use or prostitution.” Per Portland Loo, “The sleek and modern kiosk discourages crime with graffiti-proof wall panels and open grating that allows you to see if and how many people are inside.”

Reading this language used by the company, the Loo suddenly appears far less appealing. They have described a panopticon.

The implied surveillance permitted by the Loo was made explicit by spokeswoman Anne Hill, who told the Los Angeles Times in 2012 , “As you approach a Loo, you can see what’s happening inside. If it’s 2 in the morning and there’s two sets of feet in the Loo, law enforcement has cause to knock on the door and say, ‘Why are there two sets of feet in the Loo? Two of those feet need to come out.’”

Public restrooms are often villainized as hubs for drug use, prostitution, vagrancy, littering, foul odors and any number of other stereotypes associated with the homeless. The Portland Loo, alas, is no exception.

Take Daryl Turner, former president of the Portland Police Association, who told the Portland Tribune in 2011, “that’s Randy Leonard’s crack house right there,” pointing to the Portland Loo on Northwest Glisan in Old Town. Turner, who has been vocal in his disgust toward Portland’s undesirable populations for years, said in a Facebook statement in 2018 that Portland had become a “cesspool,” with “human feces in businesses doorways, in our parks, and on our streets.”

Turner’s comments represent the contradiction at the heart of anti-homeless policymaking—on one hand, critics decry “human feces” in the street; while on

the other, they denounce efforts to expand public facilities as hopeless, effective only in providing shelter for drug dealers and delinquents.

Besides the small number of restrooms maintained by the city, Portlanders’ options are limited. The most common restroom facilities nominally available to the public are found in customerfacing businesses, especially restaurants and grocery stores. In a place such as downtown Portland, that means businesses like Whole Foods, Safeway and Starbucks. Most of these establishments have their restrooms locked with a code, and even if non-customers are technically allowed to use the restroom, in practice one usually has to buy something in order to go.

Some businesses are even looking at making the de facto purchase requirement a rule, as with Starbucks C.E.O. Howard Schultz. Speaking to the New York Times ’ Dealbook D.C. policy forum in June , Schultz voiced a desire to roll back the company’s 2018 open restroom policy. “We have to harden our stores and provide safety for our people,” he said. “I don’t know if we can keep our bathrooms open.”

Schultz is right about one thing—we can’t rely on private businesses to provide restrooms for the public. That requires a substantial public investment, something that municipalities across the country appear unable or unwilling to do.

A lack of public restrooms can and should be understood as a form of hostile architecture, a form of urban planning designed to exclude certain groups of people from public spaces. Michael Mehaffy, an architect and researcher with a focus on public space, explained to OPB in June that “public space is our commons… and when we start to exclude people, whoever those people are, we’re eroding the public space.” He went on to say that it’s really “not public space if some members of the public can’t use it.”

Anti-homeless activists do not see the homeless population as people, but as criminals. Any effort to provide them with the basic dignity of human existence—such as the right to use the restroom—must be accompanied by an increase in surveillance under the guise of “public safety.”

Nobody should have to pee in a Benthamian psychological prison, and the fact that I have to write these words makes me a bit disgusted. Everyone, no matter their housing status, deserves a discreet and dignified place to go. The first step to taking back the commons is to take back our toilets.

PUBLIC RESTROOM ON SW COLOMBIA AND PARK. ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI/PSU VANGUARD

A VIEW THROUGH THE GRATING AT THE PUBLIC BATHROOM ON SW COLOMBIA AND PARK. ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI/PSU VANGUARD

CAMDEN BENESSH