How Do You Design a Map for People Who May Not Need, Want, or Use One?
Peter L. Samson, Portland State University, Portland OR
To address the problem of homelessness in Portland (OR), the city launched an initiative in 2021 to create six “Safe Rest Villages” (SRVs) around Portland. The first one opened in June, 2022, in the southwest Portland neighborhood of Multnomah. It’s a cluster of about 30 tiny houses featuring a group kitchenette, showers, and laundry; mail and trash service; 24/7 supervision; and wrap-around social services.
Despite fierce opposition by several neighbors, many more expressed support for the SRV. A group of such supporters, organized as the Friends of the Multnomah Safe Rest Village, asked me to create for the SRV residents a reference map to familiarize them with this neighborhood that had suddenly become their new home, though not by their choice. This would not be a typical rah-rah-business-booster or family-parks-&-playgrounds map, and it posed some interesting challenges for the map maker:
- With little to no disposable income, Villagers do not need to know the locations of tony boutique businesses, but they should know where the nearby core business district of Multnomah Village lies. What features are most important and useful?
- How do you avoid depicting features that might project assumptions about upbringing, history, or current circumstances onto traumatized Villagers who are largely victims of systemic injustice or bureaucratic failure?
- Schools are understandably wary of what they perceive as unsavory individuals near their students, but schools are useful reference points. Do I include/label/name individual schools?
- How does one even title such a map?
Now, after many months of operation, the SRV is working fairly well: several Villagers have gotten jobs and some have moved from the SRV into housing. There have been no major dramas impacting nearby housed neighbors. Yet, sadly, the Villagers are every bit as fearful of their housed neighbors as nearby housed neighbors are of them. So far, the Villagers venture into the neighborhood mainly to grab a bus headed to more familiar places downtown. Do they even want or need a map of the Multnomah neighborhood?
The Friends of the Multnomah SRV hope a welcoming local map could make Multnomah feel more like home to its newest residents. In such a fraught and complex political environment, the making of what might otherwise be a straightforward map becomes a challenging and thought-provoking exercise in social justice.