SNF Establishes More Than 60 Community Safety Zones in Portland, Oregon
Volunteers step up in Portland
Standards Not Force also created more than 60 Community Safety Zones in Portland during June and July 2026, expanding the organization’s community-based model and demonstrating how local organizing can be translated into a coordinated citywide network.
Establishing Community Safety Zones is not only a good community building exercise for the Standards Not Force chapter, but has a deeper purpose.
Safe zones do not legally stop ICE. We all know that a yard sign does not have arrest power. A window cling does not override federal law. But here is what they do.
They tell neighbors who is safe to run to. They tell parents which gas station clerk will warn them before agents arrive. They tell children that there are 700 houses on their walk to school where no one will call the police or their family. And they tell corporations that we are watching.
This is what it looks like when a civic operation moves with presence to visibility to normalization. People will begin to see these zones everywhere. Businesses will begin to recognize the standard. Communities will begin to understand that something structured is taking shape around them.
Businesses begin to respond. Communities begin to align. People begin to see what is acceptable and what is not.
That is how accountability actually happens. Not through force, through standards.
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!
Standards Not Force
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Dr. Meriland Dillard founded Standards Not Force. Standards Not Force is a civic standards initiative focused on lawful, nonviolent action. We promote transparency, accountability, and community safety through shared standards — not fear, force, or coercion. The initiative currently has about 55,000 members.
Dr. Dillard teaches that effective citizen efforts for change require:
- clear written grievances
- specific demands to be delivered to the relevant institution
- timelines for compliance
- organized lawful civic action when institutions refuse to respond
This platform identifies the major centers of power in the American system, documents the grievances of the American people, establishes specific demands for institutional reform, and outlines lawful civic actions when those demands are ignored.