| NIMBY'ism IN EUGENE PART THREE |
| Not all of the NIMBY business owners at the June 3 meeting were out for blood. There was one who had a somewhat more enlightened attitude, who paid close attention to John's statements. Besides noting his alarm reaction to the man who suggested we should all be shot, he was also impressed by John's track record as a formerly "productive citizen." John had worked in the timber industry both as a logger and tree planter for a total of 21 years, until several devastating accidents had finally rendered him disabled. This man was interested in having some sort of meeting of the minds between the homeless and the business people. He didn't like our makeshift camp in that industrial area where he owned property, but at least he had the sense to seek a more workable solution instead of merely threatening to shoot us. So, not long afterward, he came down to the place where we were camping and told me he wanted John to speak on a panel at a meeting of a business association downtown, as a representative of the "homeless campers". Once I'd passed the word on to John, he set to work writing down some ideas he had for setting up a land trust, to make a piece of rural land available for a homeless camp. This was something those business people were in a position to help with if they really wanted to. We were both invited to join these big shot millionaires for breakfast on the morning of the meeting. So here we were, eating in the elegant dining room where this exclusive club had their meetings, a place where one could be admitted by invitation only. I was wearing my ordinary street clothes, wanting to look the part of a homeless person. The panel assembled while I was still eating my lukewarm hash-browns. We had been surprised that the quality of the food was somewhat inferior to what a millionaire would expect to eat for breakfast, though none of these people seemed to mind. We were somewhat less surprised to see how sadly misinformed they were on the homeless situation. One of the men on the panel had compiled some data which he proceeded to feed to this half-awake audience, and his speech was full of incorrect information. For one thing, he claimed that Eugene was the only city in Oregon that had a camping ban (implying that the rest of the state was still utterly defenseless against the vicious attacks of all those homeless marauders.) I heckled him from my seat: "That's not true--Portland has one too." (I ought to know--I had gotten a camping citation there myself years before!) He took note of the correction, then proceeded to rattle off a whole string of bogus statistics as to what percentages of the homeless were mentally ill, drug-addicted, or otherwise helpless or dangerous. I don't know where he had gotten these figures--maybe from Reader's Digest. I sat there shaking my head in disgust, but at the same time I noticed that the majority of this sleepy-faced breakfast crowd weren't even listening. They obviously had no burning interest in the homeless issue; this was merely a show that they were taking in as casual entertainment while warming up for another day of big real-estate deals. When it was John's turn to speak he stood up and asked the audience, "How many of you know what a land trust is?" Very few raised their hands. It still appeared that only a minority of them were actually listening with anything other than boredom as he spun out his proposal. All in all, the effects of this entire presentation were quite comical. Here were all these people who supposedly controlled Eugene with their wealth and power, and John was treating them like elementary school students as he asked them questions to test their knowledge of basic math and such. It was utterly amazing how little they seemed to know even about certain real estate transactions that were supposedly their own bread and butter. Furthermore, they didn't even appear to take offense at being made to look like fools in this way! What had been accomplished by this "meeting of the minds", if anything, we weren't quite sure. It was probable that someone had taken note of the idea for a land trust, to be worked on at some future time. But we still had a more immediate concern on our minds: the end of June was rapidly approaching and the City Council still hadn't decided what would be done with the homeless out there in the boonies. (click here for next page) |