A letter well worth your time
Here in its entirety is an open letter from a friend of mine. It was published this week in the Portland Mercury and the Portland Tribune. I think it deserves an even wider audience, even if you cannot directly relate to the situation in Portland.
Here is the letter:
This is in regard to the recent police presence in the South Park Blocks. This is not a “down on martial law in the park” letter.
I think everyone has the right to walk the streets without fear. But I do not like being blamed for drug dealing, fighting, mugging and other sordid activities that occur there just because I am homeless.
That’s right, I am homeless. I am also a college student, attending classes at the Sylvania campus of Portland Community College. Today I missed class because I was awakened at 2:30 a.m. — in the rain — on a church doorstep where I have permission to sleep because I, and people like me, are now the cause of everything that is evil in Portland.
I am not a drug dealer, nor most likely is anyone else you see panhandling. The funny thing about drug dealing is that it causes you to have money. The funny thing about having money is that it causes you to lose all interest in panhandling and not living in a house. Therefore, drug dealing leads to not being homeless, and I find it unfair that so many newspaper articles discussing the problem of drug abuse and sales are headed by a big black headline that says “Something something homeless.”
A typical day for me starts at around 8 a.m. when I get up and catch the free shuttle bus to PCC. There I go to class, do homework, etc., until 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., when I catch another free shuttle downtown and sit outside a restaurant, hoping someone is kind enough to buy me breakfast/lunch/supper.
Then it’s off to a doorstep or under a bridge to sleep for the night.
Once in a while, when someone is kind enough to let me use a bathroom, I shower so as not to be any more offensive to my classmates than is unavoidable.
Funny, isn’t it? In some ways I am so much like anyone else, but so different in others. Take, for instance, that if someone asks me for money, and I have some, I give it to him. Or the fact that I want to pursue a career in social service and/or mission work after graduation because I see people who need help, not nuisances to be overlooked or run out of downtown.
I feel it is a sad society, a society destined for a fall, that does not strive to help its underprivileged and, instead, pushes them out of sight.
In the meantime, who am I? Just look around you. I hope that the next time you turn up your nose at that guy in the hooded sweatshirt you’ll wonder: “Did he write that letter?” Am I the old man with the sign on the corner? I could be. Do you really want to make me go to bed hungry? Could some of the other “nuisances” that you try to pretend aren’t there be just like me? Yes.
Here is the letter:
This is in regard to the recent police presence in the South Park Blocks. This is not a “down on martial law in the park” letter.
I think everyone has the right to walk the streets without fear. But I do not like being blamed for drug dealing, fighting, mugging and other sordid activities that occur there just because I am homeless.
That’s right, I am homeless. I am also a college student, attending classes at the Sylvania campus of Portland Community College. Today I missed class because I was awakened at 2:30 a.m. — in the rain — on a church doorstep where I have permission to sleep because I, and people like me, are now the cause of everything that is evil in Portland.
I am not a drug dealer, nor most likely is anyone else you see panhandling. The funny thing about drug dealing is that it causes you to have money. The funny thing about having money is that it causes you to lose all interest in panhandling and not living in a house. Therefore, drug dealing leads to not being homeless, and I find it unfair that so many newspaper articles discussing the problem of drug abuse and sales are headed by a big black headline that says “Something something homeless.”
A typical day for me starts at around 8 a.m. when I get up and catch the free shuttle bus to PCC. There I go to class, do homework, etc., until 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., when I catch another free shuttle downtown and sit outside a restaurant, hoping someone is kind enough to buy me breakfast/lunch/supper.
Then it’s off to a doorstep or under a bridge to sleep for the night.
Once in a while, when someone is kind enough to let me use a bathroom, I shower so as not to be any more offensive to my classmates than is unavoidable.
Funny, isn’t it? In some ways I am so much like anyone else, but so different in others. Take, for instance, that if someone asks me for money, and I have some, I give it to him. Or the fact that I want to pursue a career in social service and/or mission work after graduation because I see people who need help, not nuisances to be overlooked or run out of downtown.
I feel it is a sad society, a society destined for a fall, that does not strive to help its underprivileged and, instead, pushes them out of sight.
In the meantime, who am I? Just look around you. I hope that the next time you turn up your nose at that guy in the hooded sweatshirt you’ll wonder: “Did he write that letter?” Am I the old man with the sign on the corner? I could be. Do you really want to make me go to bed hungry? Could some of the other “nuisances” that you try to pretend aren’t there be just like me? Yes.
7:36 PM
This letter reminds me of "The Simple Way" a faith community in Philadelphia. A similar thing was taking place in their city and they protested by moving into the park. You may remember that article about new monasticism in Christianity Today.
Hmmmmm.....what if????
9:42 AM
Funny you should suggest that. A lot of activist types on Portland Indymedia were saying the same thing.
Only thing is, I don't necessarily oppose the curfew as much as I oppose the presuppositions that led to it.