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Western Regional Advocacy Project

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Oregon Right To Rest

Nili-Yosha-segregation

  • THE BILL
  • ENDORSMENT FORM
  • FACTSHEET
  • CONTACT THE COMMITTEE
  • HEARING

Poor and unhoused people are most often prosecuted for “crimes of survival,” like sitting, lying down, or sleeping in public space. As people accrue charges, it becomes virtually impossible for them to access essential resources.

Criminalization directly blocks pathways to stability and further endangers the physical and mental health of our most vulnerable community members.

In order to protect people from discriminatory enforcement of laws that prevent rest, the Right to Rest Act would:

Prevent the unlawful seizure and destruction of unhoused people’s possessions.

Prohibit law enforcement, security personnel, or public employees from harassing, citing, or arresting homeless people for exercising the following rights:

To occupy and move freely in public spaces
To rest (sit, stand, and sleep)
To eat and share food
To occupy a legally parked vehicle

Provide a defense to civil and criminal charges when the basis for those charges is that the person was merely engaging in the protected activities listed above.

Create an exception for public spaces that are closed, as long as adequate alternate spaces are provided for people to rest without time limitations.

For more information contact us wrap@wraphome.org

READ THE BILL

Oregon Right to Rest Act Endorsement

Rest is essential to everyone’s health, well-being, and ability to function. Laws criminalizing rest not only exacerbate and causes physical and mental health issues, they are a human and civil rights violation. Decriminalizing rest must be our first step toward truly supporting our neighbors without housing.

Endorse the Right to Rest Act

RIGHT to REST ACT FACTSHEET

The criminalization of homelessness harms our entire community: public funds are drained by “clean-up” initiatives that ultimately work to further entrench people into poverty. This bill would ensure that all Oregonians have the right to exist in public space.

READ FACTSHEET

Organization Sample Letter to House Committee on Housing-Homelessness

Here is a sample letter/email format to send to the Chair and other members of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness. This is set out for email, but you can use the link here to access info about how to contact each via their Salem mail address. You can also call them.

Organization Sample Letter to Oregon

Email Template, Seeking Legislator Support for HB 3501 & HB 3503

I’m a [constituent of yours, Oregonian].  I probably don’t have to tell you how unaffordable housing is and how bad the homelessness crisis is in our state. It’s all over the news and even the Governor has talked about the severity of the problem.

Email Template – Legislator Support Ask

OR House Committee; Housing & Homelessness Contacts

Housing & Homelessness Contacts

Right 2 Rest Lobbying Guide

We get people involved with our effort to personally contact state legislators and the governor to get the Oregon Right to Rest Act passed. For our purposes, this includes endorsing organizations. We need everyone to be doing some of this.  

People’s Lobbying 4 Right2Rest
HB 3501 Hearing Thursday May 4th at 8amDownload

Attend online here (video will not show until hearing date): tinyurl.com/r2rlivestream

Register for live testimony here: tinyurl.com/r2rtestify

Submit written testimony here: tinyurl.com/r2rwrittentestimony

Learn more and/or join the campaign at: R2RAct.com #right2rest  

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The Right to Rest Act is a bill calling to allow unhoused people to rest, eat and congregate in public without being criminalized. Made by youth directly affected by these issues.
For more Outside the Frame films visit otfpdx.org

HISTORY

The Oregon Statewide Homeless Bill of Rights Campaign is one part of 3 statewide campaigns in California, Colorado and Oregon. The Homeless Bill of Rights is a grassroots organizing campaign fighting to end the criminalization of poor and homeless people’s existence. The campaign strives to ensure that all people have the basic right to live where they choose without fear of harassment and criminalization at the hands of the police. This campaign is a way of working collectively with groups possessing different talents to address the many injustices that we face in our communities. We are building the power to create a social justice movement that will create a society where we can all thrive.

Research 

April 5, 2017 – Oregon cities and counties are making it a crime for people to be homeless. Our new report, Decriminalizing Homelessness: Why Right to Rest Legislation is the High Road for Oregon, shows that basic acts of survival are being criminalized all across the state. 

Our research found that Oregon’s most populous cities and counties have 224 laws that criminalize necessary life-sustaining activities like sitting, lying, resting, or eating in public. When someone has nowhere else to do these things, fines, fees, and a criminal record only further entrenches them in homelessness. Oregonians living on the street are forced make impossible choices to go about their daily lives.

DECRIMINALIZING HOMELESSNESS:
WHY RIGHT TO REST LEGISLATION IS
THE HIGH ROAD FOR OREGON

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Welcome to the WRAP-UP! Boise, ID. Video Shows Fam Welcome to the WRAP-UP!	Boise, ID. Video Shows Family Violently Arrested and Severely Injured for Living in Park, and more news from our members.  https://conta.cc/3R8Efzl
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Washington D.C. PRESS RELEASE: Congresswoman Bush Washington D.C. PRESS RELEASE: Congresswoman Bush Re-Introduces Unhoused Bill of Rights https://wraphome.org/
After nearly 30 years of continuous publication, w After nearly 30 years of continuous publication, we have lost our funding. Street Spirit ceased publication on July 1, but we will not give up! Our newspaper is an invaluable source of East Bay news, and a vital resource for the people who sell it. Come party with us to support our effort to relaunch. https://conta.cc/3rifOod
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WRAP was founded in 2005 by local social justice organizations across the West to bring about real systemic change. We are building a multi-issue, multi-racial and social justice-based coalition which brings organizations together across the local–national divide, thus giving us the strength and experience to make ending poverty and homelessness a national priority. https://conta.cc/3XD5QK9
Celebrating Resistance Relationships June 30, 202 Celebrating Resistance Relationships 
June 30, 2023 * 6:00 - 8:00 pm 
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The politics of encampments and displacement in the “post” pandemic order
Public panel discussion, June 14, 4-5:30pm Communications 120
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San Francisco, CA. Mayor’s Plan to Expand Shelte San Francisco, CA. Mayor’s Plan to Expand Shelter GUTS HOUSING FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES AND YOUTH 
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Nationally, evictions from public housing have sur Nationally, evictions from public housing have surged since late 2021, when the federal government lifted an eviction moratorium put in place to protect renters during the pandemic, according to Peter Hepburn, associate director of Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.  https://conta.cc/3WJco9B
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Does the litany of laws forbidding camping, loitering, trespassing, blocking the sidewalk and panhandling make society safer?

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The Legal Defense Clinics (LDC) Project aims to strengthen and support the growing movement to decriminalize homelessness by reimagining the...
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