To Live and Die on Portland's Streets

On Thursday night, Street Roots will host a memorial service downtown to honor the estimated dozen or more homeless people who die on Portland's streets each year.

Street Roots, Portland's housing-activist publication (if you've never read it, at least you've seen its vendors selling the paper throughout town), aims to draw attention to those lost lives, and build support for more accurate tracking of those numbers in the future.

“Portland is one of the few cities where the medical examiner doesn't keep track of who dies on the streets, “ says Israel Bayer, director of Street Roots. “There are people dying on the streets and nobody knows that they're gone.”

The ceremony will be co-hosted by Janus Youth Programs, Outside In, Potluck in the Park, and Fuego, and will include a fire ceremony, personal remembrances and a keynote address from Elizabeth Kennedy-Wong of the mayor's office. National Homeless Persons Memory Day 2006 will also take place Thursday in over 60 cities across the country.

Stop by Thursday night, from 6-7 pm, in the courtyard at Outside In, 1132 SW 13th Ave.