Individual Position Statement

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Oregon State University, Corvallis *

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May 21, 2024

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BA|DSGN313 The Orange and Black Ethics Competition Individual Position Statement As a team, your task this term is to take a stance on the issue of homelessness in your community, specifically the implementation of a temporary alternative shelter site nearby your business location. In developing your stance on the proposal, your team must put your stake in the ground for what you believe, back up your beliefs with evidence, and have well-founded knowledge on the impacts of your decision, both the good and the bad. Essentially, your job is to develop a persuasive argument, grounded in both evidence and empathy. Being able to argue well means you need to think critically. Argumentation is not just two (or more) people talking about their opinions and feelings, consistently restating their beliefs with an unwillingness to listen to the other side. Instead, argumentation is when two or more people make arguments – claims backed by reasons that are supported by evidence – and responding to one another and modifying or defending their positions accordingly. To aid your team in the development of your argument (and presentation), each person will conduct independent research on the topic, diving into the initial research on like initiatives around the country, thinking through the considerations for your business, and developing an initial stance on the proposal and the argument behind that stance. This worksheet contains the following:  Part 1: Initial Research  Part 2: Business Considerations  Part 3: Your Stance & Top Claims  Part 4: Reasoning & Evidence Assignment Expectations:  This worksheet should be completed individually .  Only after you complete this assignment should your team come together to share research and ideas and conclude your team’s collective stance on the proposed location. o Your argument (and therefore presentation) will be stronger if you challenge one another’s thinking along the way and limit groupthink in your initial work. Tip: Review the information provided in the Self-Paced Lecture: Elements of Persuasion on Canvas. While reviewed again throughout this assignment, the Nearpod presentation talks you through the various components of making your case.

Part 1: Initial Research Even if you have a gut reaction to the proposed location for the temporary alternative shelter site, it’s important that you engage in research on both sides of the argument – ones that would favor the implementation of such a village and ones that would oppose it. In your research, look for similar initiatives around the country. While new to Portland, the idea of temporary, managed, outdoor shelters is not new. What have other cities or municipalities encountered in their work to end homelessness? What challenges have they faced? What successes have they had? Consider news articles as well as academic papers researching the topic of homelessness. Fill in the chart below with your initial research. Research Favoring Temp Alternative Shelter Sites Research Opposing Temp Alternative Shelter Sites Key Findings Link to Source Key Findings Link to Source  Clinton Triangle in Portland has less barriers to encourage more people to seek help. It allows people to stay with their pets and partners, they can come and go as they please, and they are not required to stay sober. They also knock on the guest’s door to perform wellness checks though out the day. This has prevented overdoses.  Clinton Triangle has been unable to provide next steps for residents. There is limited space in permanent housing and not a lot of room in local drug treatment facilities. While they did just figure out a way to get money to house 52 people, they have been out of money for months now and have no plan for after the new money runs out. They are trying to find new ways to earn money to stop this problem.  Urban Alchemy took over the contract for Clinton Triangle. They hire people who have lived experiences with addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. Because of this, homeless people relate more to the workers. https:// www.opb.org/ article/ 2024/04/11/ portland-low- barrier-shelter- clinton-triangle/  Businesses in downtown Portland are not happy being located close to homeless service buildings because brings the threat of violence and drug use.  Many businesses have lost long-term clients because of the homeless people that are around their business waiting for the services offered down the way. https:// www.wweek.com/ news/2023/03/01/a- familiar-fight- between- businesses-and- county-officials- over-homeless- services-plays-out- in-portlands-hotel- district/  They provide a safe, secure, and clean place for residents to live while they access https:// www.southeastex  Neighborhoods that are frequented by people experiencing homelessness are https:// azmag.gov/

housing, mental health support, substance use disorder treatment, and other critical resources.  The pods at Clinton Triangle give guests safety, privacy, and warmth, along with other services. Urban Alchemy helps guests create a service plan by entering them into the homeless management information system. This helps them identify the barriers preventing them from getting a house and find ways to get around them. aminer.com/ 2024/03/new- temporary- homeless-site- proves- successful/ perceived as dangerous, dirty areas to avoid, which hurts businesses.  Businesses leaders could try to help by offering jobs or money to help but this could cause them to lose clients who are against homeless people being around. Portals/0/ Documents/ Homelessness/ Business-Forum- on-Regional- Homelessnes- Report.pdf  Motel and village shelters provide private living spaces that support the autonomy, dignity, and safety of clients and lead to better experiences and more positive outcomes than congregate shelters.  Village models are more desirable, can be less expensive, and have a higher success rate for moving an individual into housing. https://phys.org/ news/2024-04- alternative- outcomes-people- experiencing- homelessness.htm l  The reality that the shelter is now not meeting the needs of the homeless and is also hurting local businesses in the immediate area and having financial impacts that reach beyond western Leon County.  A ride down the street reveals homeless people milling about store fronts and intersections, camps on vacant land, sidewalks impassable because of disabled homeless unable to move. The human condition in the area is easily viewed from the confines of a vehicle and tells you the shelter is not working as planned. Many businesses had to close their doors due to lack of customers and the increased risk of dangers for staff. https:// tallahasseereports.c om/2023/10/18/ homeless-shelter- takes-toll-on- small-businesses- local-tax-revenue/  The St. Patrick Center this week opened a new small business incubator and trades training center with a goal of helping the homeless, or those at risk, find stable, good- paying work. It's the only business incubator in the country she knows of that's focused primarily on the homeless.  Rather, the approach is to help people find stable housing and address health issues, and https:// www.cbsnews.co m/news/helping- the-homeless-get- into-business/  We are wasting resources and energy when we create more shelters. Shelters are not the answer.  Shelters are seen as the easy way out for the government to address the homeless problem and this does not get homeless people off the street. Most people don’t want to sleep in a shelter and don’t want to conform to the shelter’s rules because https:// www.neoch.org/ issue-48-articles/ 2012/7/30/shelter- is-not-the- answer.html

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then, once approved by a caseworker, train them in new job skills.  The businesses or their vendors work to employ some St. Patrick Center clients. The homeless center is also opening a furniture construction and restoration program onsite. they are so independent.  The money used on shelters can be allocated and put to better use by helping people obtain housing.  Shelter from the elements can be a matter of life or death. The right to shelter is a vital legal protection for homeless individuals, families, and children. Without shelters, homeless people would be at severe risk of death or injuries on the street.  The right to shelter protects thousands of homeless New Yorkers every day. The fundamental legal protections won by Callahan v. Carey and subsequent cases ensure that individuals and families in need have access to shelter from the elements as they regain stability in their lives and seek permanent housing. https:// www.coalitionfor thehomeless.org/ proven-solutions/  People with disabilities or illnesses are more likely to experience homelessness.  Most shelters lack appropriate space or accommodation for people with disabilities.  Many cities like New York, most buildings are old and have a lot of stairs and really big. This makes it really hard to accommodate handicapped people to stay at shelters.  There are not many shelters to accommodate disabilities and a lot of homeless people are disabled and that causes them to continue living on the street. https:// shelterforce.org/ 2023/07/19/why- arent-homeless- shelters- accommodating- people-who-have- disabilities/ Part 2: Business Considerations In your team’s Group Canvas site, you should see a Business Profile. Fill in the information below. What is your team’s business? Flour petals bakery What are the key considerations for your business as you develop a stance on the proposed location? Be specific, indicating why these considerations matter.  We want to keep staff safe from threats or dangers. Our bakers get to the bakery between 4am and 6am every morning and we have two high school students working for us.  Our customers only have street parking, so we want to make sure to keep the sidewalks clean of garbage and people and to prevent their cars from getting broken into.  We have a lot of local regular customers that we don’t want to deter from coming in. Some of our customers find us just by walking around downtown.

Part 3: Your Individual Stance & Top Claims Based on your research thus far, what is your stance on the proposed site location? Stance on Proposed Location (FOR or AGAINST): FOR Brief Explanation for Your Stance: I think that building a temporary assistance shelter near the bakery could bring about more customers since once the shelter is built there will be less homeless people on the street and the street will be cleaner. I also think that with homeless people in shelters there will be fewer break-ins because they will not need supplies or shelter since they will now have their own shelter. Next, consider your top claims as to why you’re taking that stance. As a reminder, a claim is a statement about what is true or good or about what should be done or believed. A claim is potentially arguable – it cannot be an opinion. For example, a claim might be “ A temporary alternative shelter site will attract additional homeless individuals, causing unmanaged camps to develop surrounding the site,” but it cannot be “ I think temporary alternative shelter sites will attract additional homeless individuals .” It’s not an arguable statement; you can’t dispute whether I think it’s a bad idea. However, the first statement is arguable, and you can agree or disagree and offer support for your opinion. What are the top 2 claims you’d like to make in support of your stance? Claim #1 A temporary alternative shelter site will clean up the homeless camps and improve their health. Claim #2 A temporary alternative shelter site will help improve crime rates in the neighborhood. Part 4: Reasoning & Evidence Now is your opportunity to dive into the research surrounding the claims you’ve made. Feel free to pull from the research you conducted in Part 1, though you will likely need to conduct additional research now that you are more narrowly focused on your stance and claims. Again, let’s review some definitions before you get started.  Reasons are statements of support for claims, making them more than an assertion. Reasons are statements in an argument that pass two tests: 1. Reasons are answers to the hypothetical challenge to your claim – Why do you say that? What reason can you give me to believe that? 2. Reasons can be linked to claims with the word because . Your reasons should make sense in both tests above; if it doesn’t, there’s probably something wrong with the logic of your argument. Beware, however – just because it passes both tests above does not mean your argument is sound or compelling.  Evidence is the support for the reasons offered and helps compel the audience to accept your claims. Evidence varies by field or topic and answers challenges to the reasons given. There are 3 main types of evidence:

1. Specific instances in the form of examples, case studies, and narratives. Each can be effective in building support for a reason or claim. They offer your audience a way to see an idea illustrated. To be effective, specific instances need to be representative of the broader trend or idea they’re supporting, they can’t be too unique. 2. Statistics include raw numbers, averages, and statistical probabilities and trends. Statistics seem objective, authoritative, and factual – but make sure your sources are reputable and their methods of collecting their data were sound. 3. Testimonies can be from eyewitnesses or experts. Eyewitnesses or first-hand accounts are reports from people who directly experienced a phenomenon. This can give the audience a sense of being there. Experts might have first-hand experience, but their testimony is backed by more knowledge, methods, and training. Supplementing the two works well when building your case.  Sources are where you go to get your evidence. It’s important to evaluate your sources to ensure they are reputable. When evaluating your sources, you should consider 5 things: 1. Authority: Who is responsible for the content? What are their credentials in speaking on the subject? Have they been cited by others? What else have they written? Who is the publisher? 2. Currency: How current is the source? When was it written? Is the publication date right for your need? 3. Content: Is the information relevant to your topic? How valuable is the information to your topic? Is the target audience appropriate? 4. Accuracy: Does the source adequately explain their methodology? Can you verify the accuracy in other sources? Is it peer-reviewed? 5. Bias: Is the research sponsored by an organization? Is the author trying to sell or push their agenda? Do other authors agree with the author’s point of view? Which way does the publication typically lean on the political spectrum?  Your full argument is putting all the pieces together. Can you succinctly state your claim, your reasons for making the claim, and the evidence you have that supports it?

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Below, develop a minimum of 3 reasons for each of your claims and the evidence that supports these reasons. Then, summarize your arguments. CLAIM #1 A temporary alternative shelter site will clean up the homeless camps and improve their health. Reason Evidence Source Why reputable? A temporary alternative shelter site will clean up the homeless camps and improve their health because they reduce the risk of people returning to living on the streets by providing support services that address the root cause of homelessness and facilitate transitions to more permanent housing solutions.  A study by Elior Cohen at UCLA in 2022, shows that housing assistance for single adults experiencing homelessness reduces the likelihood of future return to the homeless system by 20 percentage points over an 18-month period, compared to a baseline mean of 40 percent.  Three data sources are used to measure health-related outcomes. First, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) database contains payment records for medical services funded by Los Angeles County. The variables include the type of service (inpatient, outpatient, emergency department), start and end dates of services, and diagnosis and procedure codes. Second, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) records contain publicly funded mental health services, including assessments, case management, crisis intervention, medication support, peer support, psychotherapy, and rehabilitative services. Third, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) database records information on substance abuse services, including detox, residential programs, and outpatient visits.  He constructed two samples of homeless cases to implement the case-worker random assignment design. The instrument sample contains all intakes handled by case workers. He constructs it for the purpose of measuring a case worker’s share of cases handled that ended up receiving housing assistance, which serves as the instrument for housing assistance receipt. He then imposes restrictions on the instrument sample to create the estimation sample which contains all intakes that were as-good-as-randomly assigned to case workers. https:// www.ka nsascityf ed.org/ Research %20Wor king %20Pap ers/ documen ts/8716/ rwp22- 03cohen. pdf This study was originally published by UCLA from a credited economist named Elior Cohen. The specific study I used is published by the federal reserve bank of Kansas City. All his sources are cited and his graphs show each specific study results. A temporary alternative shelter site will clean up the homeless camps and improve their health because providing temporary alternative shelter sites for the homeless improves their health by offering access to basic amenities,  The literature suggests overwhelmingly that housing is one of the most direct paths to improved health among people experiencing homelessness. Providing housing is a key component to improving quality of life, which takes into consideration a variety of overall health measures. Several authors also noted a decrease in the number of hospitalizations after acquiring housing (Culhane, Metraux, & Hadley, 2002; Gulcur, Stefancic, Shinn, Tsemberis, Fischer, 2003; Wright, Vartanian, Li, Royal, Matson, 2016).  In a 2013 study, Patterson et al. (2013) looked at homeless adults living with mental illness and how Housing First impacted their quality of life. The study revealed that, when compared with treatment as usual (no housing or https:// www.wil der.org/ sites/ default/ files/ imports/ DHS_He alth_Ho melessne ss_Final The study was conducted for the Minnesota department of Human services and was published by Wilder research. They use existing literature and stakeholders’

medical assistance, and support services, while also reducing the spread of diseases associated with unregulated camps. support provided), Housing First led to improved quality of life; the differences were most significant in participants’ safety and living situation. Report_ 6- 17copy.p df interviews for their research. A temporary alternative shelter site will clean up the homeless camps and improve their health because they provide homeless individuals with privacy and safety through designated living spaces and security measures, fostering a sense of security and dignity.  While there are many factors that influence health, stable housing is a key “social determinant of health” that directly impacts health outcomes. While some need only short-term assistance to regain health and reconnect to employment and housing on their own, others may be so seriously ill and/or disabled they will need longer-term support services to maintain housing. Either way, housing is necessary to realize a healthier society.  Stable housing not only provides privacy and safety, it is also a place to rest and recuperate from surgery, illness, and other ailments without worry about where to sleep and find a meal, or how to balance these needs with obtaining health care and social services. https:// nhchc.or g/wp- content/ uploads/ 2019/08/ homeless ness- and- health.p df This article is written by the National health care for the Homeless Council. The website is supported by the health resource and service administration of the US department of health and human services. It shows all the sources they used and where the graphs came from. Your Full Argument for Claim #1 Having a homeless shelter built next to our bakery will help clean up the neighborhood around our bakery to help attract more customers. The shelters also reduce the number of people who will return to being homeless after they leave the temporary shelter. The shelter will also result in having better health and stop the spread of illness between homeless people and the community. These are all the reasons to build a temporary homeless shelter near our bakery. CLAIM #2 A temporary alternative shelter site will help improve crime rates in the neighborhood. Reason Evidence Source Why reputable? A temporary alternative shelter site will help improve crime rates in the neighborhood because they provide stable housing, support services, and security measures, which deter criminal behavior and address the  A study by Elior Cohen at UCLA in 2022, shows that housing assistance reduces the number of jail days within 18 months by 95% and the probability of committing a crime by 85%.  He uses three pieces of data to get these results: VI-SPDAT (administrative records for individual intakes conducted by homeless service providers throughout Los Angeles County from 2016 to 2018.), Homeless management information system (includes information on all homeless services provided (both housing and non-housing services) by homeless service providers in the Los Angeles CoC from January 2010 to June 2019), and Enterprise linkages project (includes information across a spectrum of publicly funded health, https:// www.kansa scityfed.org /Research %20Worki ng %20Papers / documents/ 8716/ This study was originally published by UCLA from a credited economist named Elior Cohen. The specific study I used is published by the federal reserve bank of Kansas City.

root cause of homelessness. mental health, social and corrections services in Los Angeles County, as well as the costs associated with those services and utilization)  He constructed two samples of homeless cases to implement the case-worker random assignment design. The instrument sample contains all intakes handled by case workers. He constructs it for the purpose of measuring a case worker’s share of cases handled that ended up receiving housing assistance, which serves as the instrument for housing assistance receipt. He then imposes restrictions on the instrument sample to create the estimation sample which contains all intakes that were as-good-as-randomly assigned to case workers. rwp22- 03cohen.pd f All his sources are cited, and his graphs show each specific study results. A temporary alternative shelter site will help improve crime rates in the neighborhood because they promote safer communities by offering stable housing, access to support services, and security measures, which reduce the likelihood of homelessness related crime.  Researchers from Wayne State University and the Urban Institute investigated the extent to which proximity to 14 supportive housing facilities in Denver from 1992-1995 affected crime rates. The findings came to the same conclusion as other studies, there was no evidence that the development of these facilities led to increased rates of crime.  Supportive housing is designed to blend in or improve the overall look of neighborhoods and is often built on abandoned, unsightly property providing an opportunity for neighborhood revitalization. Supportive housing provides regular services to tenants, security, and is run by non-profits that must be responsive, often leading to improved community safety. https:// www.smche alth.org/ sites/main/ files/file- attachment s/ impact_of_ supportive_ housing_on _neighborh ood_crime_ and_proper y_v2.pdf? 1468431099 This article is by the county of San Mateo’s health system of behavioral health and recovery services. It is also a .Org. It also shows all the sources they used to get their facts. A temporary alternative shelter site will help improve crime rates in the neighborhood because they address underlying issues through support services and providing alternatives to arrest for low level offenses to reduce the number in jail.  A recent survey of 441 unhoused people in Colorado found 36% had been arrested for a crime of homelessness, 70% had been ticketed, and 90% had been harassed by police, while recent research shows that 1 in 8 city jail bookings in Atlanta involved a person experiencing homelessness.  Compared to a closely matched comparison group, the researchers found that participants spent an average of 95 fewer days in jail, and 256 fewer days in shelters, over the 10-year period. https:// www.prison policy.org/ blog/ 2023/09/11/ housing- first/ It is a non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative. It is a .Gov website. The article includes data and graphs from specific studies to prove any information they give us. Your Full Argument for Claim #2 Having a temporary homeless shelter built near our bakery will help lower rate rates in our community, making it safer for business owners and customers. With homeless people living in a shelter, they are less likely to turn to crime to obtain shelter, food, or other necessities. Having a shelter built near our bakery will result in attracting customers since crime rate will be lower than other neighborhoods.

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Next Steps: Once members of your team have completed their individual research, your group should come together and share your work, discussing the stance you each chose and sharing the arguments you developed. This individual research should help your team develop your collective stance on the proposal and serve as a starting place for the research your team needs to conduct for your presentation. As a group, once you form your full argument, don’t forget that you need to consider the impact of your decision – both the good and the bad – for the various stakeholders involved. It’s important we recognize that every decision we make has consequences – whether intended or unintended. In this, remember to think through both the counterarguments of the opposing side as well as your team’s rebuttal to those arguments.

Individual Position Statement

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