I'm at the point now that I'm doing my second read of the Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action in preparation for my dissecting it. I have to figure out how to transfer that from my brain to a format Kindle will accept, my tablet is on back order until the end of next month so I'm out of luck there. Typing at the library is just too difficult, the feng shui is all off, for me at least. I'm contemplating gorilla writing and using the devices on display at retail and saving my document on a stick. But that would be wrong.
So as I'm cogitating I decided to look for homeless people to interview.
Now, due to a poor choice on my part at getting the high visibility rain jacket and the thirteen bucks I spent in total at Target for what was apparently Galactic Empire military surplus hat and pants I now look like a cop, no, even more so now. This makes the homeless ether avoid me or treat me condescendingly. I have made some acquaintances that I hope will smooth the way for me though.
Yesterday I walked around a bit on the Eastside of downtown Portland. There I saw on blocks where municipalities own the properties adjacent at least two and sometimes up to a dozen tents being used as residences on the sidewalk. Under the Morrison Bridge I saw a woman with a newborn, it still had the infant fuzz hair it was that young, no tent just a tarp and some folding chairs. On every block on the east and west side there is at least one person sleeping in a doorway, if they are not run off by property security. One man at one of the larger tent cities was trying to clear construction silt from the sewer grate with a broom as the construction company let it get clogged and it was starting to flood. I see homeless sharing food, blankets, directions and in some cases doorways.
The absolute utter need is daunting.
What I think is keeping us from moving forward at this point is apathy. Not the apathy of the homeless, they have oodles, but the apathy of the general public that we as a society are so broken that there is nothing that can be done.
I’ve seen this apathy before, in African American communities in cities like Riverside, California that hire the officers too dysfunctional for the LAPD. But even I know from afar that the people in Riverside have woken up, over a decade after Tyisha Miller, but better late than never. And communities all over the country that have endured the literal stomping of jackboots are waking up that the time for tolerance is over.
But we had to watch tragedy after tragedy before this level of awareness had been raised.
In hopes of preempting the strikes and marches and the police sadism fest that accompany them I will be writing stories about homeless that I meet and they allow me to interview them. I’m going to try and foist them off as stories for pay but will be linking and posting here at least portions.