| I wrote this after Rick and I got a camping citation when we were parked in front of St. Francis Church in Portland in March 1992. Not knowing what else to do with this article, I dropped it on the doorstep of the St. Francis rectory. ON DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE HOMELESS On the night of March 2, at about 11:00pm, my partner Wolfe and I got busted for sleeping in our own car. We had moved to Portland from Boston exactly four months prior to this, hoping to find work and a place to live, but having no other domicile than our little Honda in the meantime. We had both been jobless and homeless for several months as a result of the wiped-out Massachusetts economy, and Wolfe had been in Portland in 1988 and said the economy was much better there, that there was more work, the rents were much lower, the people were friendlier, and there was every reason why we should move to Oregon together to start a new life. So we did. We hadn't figured on Oregon's economy also going downhill, at least not as much as it has in a mere four years, but when we arrived here we found a very different Portland from the one he remembered. The employment situation is much worse now, landlords have much tighter restrictions on whom they will rent to, and there is an atmosphere of hostility and intolerance toward the homeless that hadn't been here before. But once we were here there was no turning back. We had burned too many bridges to get here, the car wouldn't have stood another cross-country trip back east, and even if it could there was nothing left for us there. As soon as we moved here we jumped right in with the homeless crowd that eats at the St. Francis dining hall every day, which also quite naturally meant parking adjacent to the buiilding earlier in the day while we were waiting for dinner, as we noticed numerous other people who live in their vehicles also doing. The part of 11th Ave. next to St. Francis Park seemed an especially pleasant and safe place to be; there are no parking meters and no one seemed to care how long we parked there, day or night. It seemed logical that we should also sleep there while we had only the back of the car for a bed. Since this was one place where we were never bothered by the cops, we had the impression that the priests at St. Francis were practicing the old-fashioned spirit of Christian mercy toward the poor and needy, the ancient tradition of a church being a sanctuary for people who have nowhere else to go. The priests may not have liked us all that much, but they tolerated our presence because they seemed to know how desperately we needed this refuge. In any case, we were just settling down to sleep on the night of March 2 when there was suddenly a blinding light shining on the back window of the car, then the Gestapo tapping on the window and demanding to see our ID's, saying "camping" was prohibited in the city of Portland. When we saw that this pair of cops was relatively human, the type you could sort of reason with, we did our best to explain to them that we were here looking for work but had encountered nothing but discrimination since we'd been here: the Catch-22 that landlords won't rent to people who are living on unemployment and don't have local references, employers won't hire homeless people, thinking they're "unreliable", and banks won't even let people open accounts who don't have a local residence and an Oregon ID--all of which make it virtually impossible for homeless people from out-of-state trying to settle down here. They seemed sympathetic, saying, "We can't pretend to have all the answers", but also asked the perpetual ignorant question, "Can't you go to a shelter?" We tried to explain that it's insanity for anyone to expect us, a couple in our early 40's, to give up the relative privacy of our car, where at least we can sleep together as a couple and opt for a quiet place to do it in, and instead to go to a noisy crowded shelter where we would have to sleep in separate dormitories with a lot of strangers and have no privacy nor any control over the conditions; that shelters are degrading enough in themselves and that it's incredibly insensitive to expect us to split up to go to such a place, that the car is legally our property and we consider whatever we do in it to be our own private business, especially as we take care not to disturb anyone else. The cops were as understanding as cops could be in that situation, saying they didn't want to do this, but the orders had come down from above, that there was a "crackdown" going on against people camping illegally. They wished us luck as they handed us our citations to appear in court on St. Paddy's Day. The minute they left, we threw everything from the front seat into the back, Wolfe slid in behind the wheel and we took off, feeling once again like Bonnie and Clyde on the run. The people who now see only our shabby car know nothing of the life we used to have; it probably doesn't occur to them that we used to have a life. They don't see all the pretty things that once filled my house and are now hidden away in a friend's basement in Boston. They don't know anything about the job Wolfe used to have at Harvard that he was laid off from a year ago in February. These and a million other things that used to make up our lives, when we lived in the world, are now only memories that float randomly through our minds as we sit like vegetables in the car. And every day that goes by that we continue to feel society's indifference to our plight, the more out-of-touch we get, the more irrelevant and worthless we feel, and the less hope we have of ever having a life again. I wonder if anyone can imagine how infuriating it has been for us to encounter Portland's current attitudes toward the homeless after the huge investment we made in our plan to move here, giving up all the good things we'd had in Boston in the belief that there were jobs and low-cost housing aplenty in Oregon. To run up against this stone wall of prejudice and indifference which is forcing us to remain "bums" living in our car with no hope of ever having a home and the civilized life we desperately need--and on top of that to get punished for living in our car! What can be the purpose in treating us this way, when we're willing to work and trying every possible legitimate route to have a decent life? Why are we being treated like worthless "bums" who don't want to improve their lives? Why are we considered undeserving of anything but punishment?! WHY doesn't anyone care enough to give us a break and a chance? And why should we have to depend on some oddball giving us a break in order to get what we need? Why are prejudice and suspicion the rule and liberality the exception?!!! As long as society does maintain its attitudes of suspicion and indifference toward the homeless, seeing no possible benefits in adding us to the population of the "haves", people like us will continue to be left out in the cold and vulnerable to their attacks, to be punished for being homeless instead of supported in our efforts to change this condition, and the picture will continue to look bleak as we struggle in the dark to find our own individual solutions in the absence of any collective ones. It doesn't have to be this way. March 8, 1992 (Click here to view the next article) |