I am uncomfortable when I take a long
walk at 5:30 AM on the Fourth of July because my neighbors ended their all
night party on the roof of their house and I could not sleep. I pass at least a dozen mattresses labeled “free”
that were left behind when OSU students moved out and then see three different
men sleeping on the cement benches downtown.
I am uncomfortable when a series of
individuals, mostly with shopping carts and bike trailers, cruise by the
dumpster across the way every day to see what has been left neatly beside the
container to be taken away. I am more uncomfortable when I see someone digging
through an over stuffed dumpster for a perfectly fine toaster.
I am uncomfortable when, while
searching for a lost cat at six AM, I find a group of people just waking up in
the breezeway of Saint Mary’s church. They have not seen her, they tell me, but
will keep an eye out. Or I pass by the
Lutheran church on the corner on my way home from a late night meeting in
January and hear a boombox softly playing next to a mound on their bench.
I am uncomfortable when we march through
the streets of Portland to protest the election and pass by tents set up under
the bridge. I have a raincoat and plan to go out for an expensive dinner later
that evening.
I am uncomfortable that I have
students who cannot do their reading at night because they are sleeping on the
lobby floor at the family shelter.
I am uncomfortable that success in
advanced high school classes is often
tied to income levels.
I am uncomfortable when I am walking
downtown on Sunday morning and we pass an older man talking loudly. He is
swearing and repeating all of the phrases I have heard recently about the
behavior of the homeless men in Central Park. Is he on the phone or talking to
himself?
I am uncomfortable because I know, as
does Ma in The Grapes of Wrath, that “If you're in trouble or hurt or need—go to
poor people. They're the only ones that'll help—the only ones.” I ask for help
with my car at working class bars and from tow truck drivers. Ex police
officers always stop.
I am uncomfortable when people say things that, if
we replaced “homeless” with “African-American,” they would be clearly racist.
I am uncomfortable when my county—Benton County, Oregon—is
called out as having some of the worst income inequality in the country. And it
is not because the students skew the data.
I am very uncomfortable when we, as a community, continue
to argue about where to put the Men’s Shelter, year after year. We can do
better.
***
I have never been homeless. I have never been
unsafe, or hungry, or cold for an extended period of time. However, I have:
·
Lived in a camper in a campground
for a winter while my parents really struggled to make ends meet.
·
Doubled up with my cousins for
about ten months when we moved abruptly out of our house. I loved it. I had
brothers and a sister. I am not sure my
parents did.
·
Couch surfed one
month in college while waiting for an apartment to open up.
·
Placed all of my
things in storage and lived in my van while looking for housing in Portland.
·
Lived in the van
while traveling for months at a time. One spring, I did not go inside a house
for a month and a half.
·
Been so broke I
did not quite have money for rent.
