Yesterday I was sort of mopey. I am not a huge fan of unknowns and patience is a lesson I am constantly having to relearn. On Saturday, I met with the three housing contacts I had made via craigslist.
Place #1 and Place #3 were the best options, with Place #3 being the one I was most interested in. Place #3 is owned by a woman slightly older than myself. She is like-minded and civic-ly involved. There is a garden, worm compost, and a clothesline in the backyard. The room is in the back of the house and there is a room in the basement that could benefit from extra furniture (and has storage). Rent is a wonderful, flat rate, and the house is near a park. The location is also two blocks from public transportation, and two blocks from I-5 access. The commute to my practicum would be about 8 minutes.
Place #1 let me know the next day that they had selected the other person they interviewed. However I haven't heard from Place #3 yet. I sent her an email checking in on Monday, and am hopeful to get some sort of response in the next day or two. To be on the safe side, I have started looking for other options again.
Yet, even with all of my housing angst yesterday, I still felt slightly guilty. For my afternoon class yesterday we participated in a homeless immersion. The downtown area of Portland has a high homeless population which has spurred controversy in recent months. As part of the immersion, we were led by a formerly homeless gentleman on a tour of the agencies that provide services in downtown to the homeless population. While there are a lot of people doing good things, it was still amazing to learn about the gaps. For all of the homeless in the city, there are only TWO locations that offer showers for those not currently in shelters. There is only ONE restroom available 24/7. There are long lines for individuals to get into shelters (many of which operate on a random draw system), and only one shelter that will allow homeless individuals to bring in their pets. Why do homeless individuals need pets? Well, pets offer protection and companionship. Often they are the only living things that will interact and offer love to a homeless individual on a consistent basis.
Besides the walking tour, we were encouraged to just walk around the area and talk to people on the streets. Anyone that reads this blog, knows that it's not hard for me to stop and talk to a homeless individual, so my group met a couple of different people. We had questionnaires, but I felt it created an increased power dynamic, and so we just chatted with people instead. We met a couple with two gorgeous and friendly dogs. They had just received domestic partnership status after being together for five years. The one gentleman had been through the youth system and thus had documentation to receive food stamps. Both admitted to having mental health issues of some sort. They survive by camping in different locations (however we learned yesterday that camping, sitting, and laying in the city is illegal for homeless individuals).
The tour wrapped up with two individuals who came to speak to us briefly about how they had ended up on the streets, although both are currently living in apartments. One man is a recovering drug addict. He's been clean for a year and begins a new job today. Passing him on the street today, you never would have known that he spent the majority of the last 20 years being homeless. The other gentleman was a veteran who had spent about 10 years being homeless (8 of them in a camping community under a local bridge) after he lost his wife to breast cancer. The recurring theme yesterday was that homelessness can happen for a variety of reasons (anyone seen The Pursuit of Happyness?). There are a lot of individuals with A&D or mental health issues, but that does not stand for everyone. And there are a lot of street kids in the city as well.
So here I was moping about my housing woes, when really I have no woes in comparison to so many others. I might currently be financially hard pressed but I have so much. And really, all I want to do now...is donate my shower.
2 comments:
Your compassion really comes through in this post - thanks for being so compassionate! A lot of the people I work with are homeless when they aren't in the jail I work at. A lot have mental health problems as well, some of them very serious - schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, fetal alcohol issues, etc. The gaps in services for these citizens (they still are citizens, even though they lack a fixed address) is certainly apalling and part of the reason why so many end up in our jail. Especially in our bitterly cold winters. I work with these people on a daily basis, and their resilience is amazing! It surely does make me appreciate my own ordinary problems, and even be thankful for them. Thanks again for extending your compassion to these folks :)
SA, thank you for a wonderful post. I work with people who are homeless (at Sisters Of The Road), and was homeless myself a year ago.
Like Theresa says, your compassion really shines through, as does your insight.
Donating your shower is definitely an option. I've done it a number of times for people I've felt I could trust in my place.
It's something small but concrete that I can do. It's a giving not just of hot water, but of trust, and I think that's where understanding and healing begin... for both parties.
I hope you get good news on place #3, you sound like you'd be a great roomate.
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