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| THE CENTENNIAL CAR CAMP |
| Catholic Community Services did find us rooms in a quad, in the University of Oregon district. The state paid our rent for three months, after which we were on our own again. During this time there was also a new city experiment for the homeless underway: the Centennial Car Camp. This was the result of many discussions at the time of the Armitage struggle, about creating a structured camp where homeless people could live if they had a vehicle or tent. It was only temporary, running from March 1st to May 31. Our three state-paid months in the quad ran from about mid-January to mid-April. We had enough money in the bank for at least one more month's rent--or so I thought. When the time came for us to pay that next month's rent, Rick broke the news to me that he had blown the money, using the excuse that he'd been angry after some argument we'd had in February. Now I was beginning to learn about Rick's financial irresponsibility and the foolishness of trusting him with any large amount of money. (Actually I'd seen evidence of this long before that time, but wasn't sure how to interpret it.) Needless to say, I was more than a little upset. But at any rate, the reality was that we had to find a new place to live, and the obvious choice was the car camp. There was also another problem--we no longer had a vehicle. The van we had been living in when we moved to Armitage was stolen while we were living in the quad. ("Repossessed" was the term used by the offending parties--but that's a whole other story.) Rick managed to acquire a small dome tent, which became our new home starting in May when we moved to the car camp. Now we were back in the thick of the homeless scene, which also meant being back in the spotlight. The media made quite a circus out ot this new experiment for the homeless--especially at the end of May when the camp was closing down and everybody had to pack up and hit the road again. "Where are we supposed to go?" was again the refrain. I had also made a new protest sign which read, "Legal in May--Criminals in June?" and had it propped up in our campsite. The news crews were filming the breakdown of the camp, and once again Rick and I were talking into the TV cameras as we were packing up our stuff and the reporter was asking, "Well, where are you going to go now?" Of course we weren't going to reveal the location of our next illegal campsite which Rick had scouted out, so we just said, "We don't know!" (click here to view next page) |