Unsettle Portland Collective
DRAFT¶

In the context of building a support network for the re-inhabitation of numerous vacant and foreclosed upon homes in Portland, the Unsettle Portland Collective has created the following document of intentions and guidelines for spaces that want to be considered as Unsettle Portland Hub.

Purpose of Spaces to be Inhabited:¶

• To be welcoming and safer spaces used as community hubs,
• To be focused environments for community organizers to co-strategize around movement-building,
• To be educational spaces for orienting new activists to social context and movement herstory
• To be locations for much-needed community-based services: legal aid, alternative health work, childcare, and more
• To be held in partnership with other organizations to provide support for those with housing needs, within capacity and according to agreements.

We are also committing to holding these spaces so that they preserve the best parts of the downtown Occupation, while building on the lessons learned at that locale. Specifically, we want people who enter the spaces to feel a sense of stepping into a new world, a world of possibility and liberation. To that end, we want to ensure the following:

• Space users will be trained on appropriate space tending, including everything from the physical aspects of building maintenance and growing food, to supporting the human-to-human interactions and connecting with the neighbors.
• We will link ourselves to local services that have the training and resources to support community members that are in need of mental health support, and/or substance use treatment.

Points of Unity for being considered an Unsettle Portland Hub:¶

• Each hub house is maintained as clean and sober at all times.
• Hub house residents are committed to developing relationships with neighbors on the block.
• Hub house residents will commit to a set of interaction agreements which will also be followed by the collective’s organizers, including conflict engagement and exploration accountability processes.
• Hub house residents will hold the spaces as community hubs for a variety of intentions. The intentions and purpose of the various locations will be decided through consensus decision-making in the Unsettle Portland spokescouncil.