KAIA SAND

STREET ROOTS

Kaia Sand has served as executive director of Street Roots since late 2017, two decades after she worked as a staff reporter for the Burnside Cadillac, the predecessor to Street Roots. In those subsequent 20 years, Sand worked as a poet, artist, community organizer, and university professor, focusing particularly on economic injustice and homelessness. In 2019 she was awarded a Spirit of Portland award by Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty; and in 2020, the regional Society of Professional Journalists small newsroom first prize for Best Column for the weekly column she writes in Street Roots newspaper. Sand serves on the advisory boards for the Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative at Portland State University.