Recent Neighborhood Scenes of Homelessness

The new Mayor of Portland won the election in a landslide because he said he had a new bold and expedited plan to move homeless people off the streets and into shelter, then housing.

He’s got a lot of work to do, all across the city. For example, in my neighborhood, the last month:

A woman as made her home between a bus bench and garbage can at a busy intersection. She has no tent or tarp. She covers herself with blankets and pizza boxes. She’s been an addled and erratic fixture in the area for six months and clearly has no capacity to seek help or perhaps even understand what is happening to her. Every time I pass her, which is several times a day on walks with Elmer or in my car, I wonder if I should call someone. I know people in the neighborhood already have, but why not another one?

At six in them morning, a man with no pants was nodding and leaning in front of a Thai restaurant, seemingly ready to fall into the flower bins. Two hours later he was acting the same way in front of the grocery store a quarter mile away.

A woman dressed in pink was passed out on the sidewalk with Cheetos arrayed around her. It was the bleakest and most colorful still life (but alive) painting I’ve ever seen.

A man sleeps in a tent next to a convenience store. He’s been there for at least four years. He has a key to the fenced area behind the store where the garbage bins are. Every day he breaks down his tent and moves it, a pallet, and his gear into the fenced area, locks it up, and then enters the store, where, I am told, he is the custodian and quasi security guard. His felony criminal record prevents him from obtaining housing, but the store owner has forged this”housing” arrangement with him. I believe this kind of thing is happening all over America.

A housed man lets homeless people use his large and covered front porch to play video games at certain times during the day.

I met a homeless man named Rick, in his 70s, who used to live in St. Louis and was a successful screen printer and owned his own business. Addictions ruined his life and he headed west to Oregon 20 years ago because Oregon sounded like a good place to start over. He licked the addictions and now just moves around Portland and always camps alone. He illustrates pieces of wood he finds on his wanderings.

A young homeless man sat at a picnic table in darkness in a park as it rained. A picnic table 20 feet away was under cover courtesy of a towering Douglas fir. I said good morning and he said the same to me.

A young homeless man carrying a plastic bag full of cans sprinted down the sidewalk in pajamas and slippers.

A homeless man wore one of those silver emergency blankets as clothing under his coat.

A homeless woman lived under a golf umbrella in a parking lot.

Several men in their 70s pushed baby strollers full of cans/bottles/possessions through the neighborhood. Something about those baby strollers and the homeless people really gets to me.

A homeless man knelt on a sidewalk near a busy intersection, holding (barely) a sign, as a rainbow arced overhead.

A young homeless woman with a tarp draped over her danced on the sidewalk, then on the street, occasionally creeping into a busy intersection at rush hour. I waited for her to move onto the sidewalk so I didn’t hit her when I turned right. Traffic was backed up. Nobody honked. We all waited until the dancer danced to a safe spot. At one point she did, and I drove away.

A homeless man leaned against a commercial building at 6:30 in the morning with a laptop in his lap. The computer was plugged into a hot outlet. The man was playing a game of some kind. Elmer and passed by him and he never looked up from the screen.

Four junior high students walking to school walked around a homeless woman standing on the middle of the sidewalk with a blanket over her head.

A homeless woman in a wheelchair wheeled it backwards up a hill.

A homeless man asked me for a smoke at six in the morning.

Two homeless men fired up a hit of fentanyl across the street from house at 6:15 in the morning.

A homeless man sat in a bus shelter and banged his head against the plastic walls.

A homeless woman spun like a whirling dervish in an intersection. I almost hit her with my car.