'Many of my street brothers and sisters are still homeless. What will become of them?'
The housing situation is a serious problem in Portland, so many low-income and no-income people are homeless. Something must be done to address this tragedy.
Sure, there are shelters. But there aren’t enough to house everyone. And they are only a temporary solution to the problem of homelessness. One can only stay at a shelter for a short period of time. As good as shelters are, they are like a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
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One of the problems I’ve run into is the fact that you must have good credit to rent a house or apartment. It doesn’t matter how good your rental history is; that’s not good enough. My brother, who is still homeless, has run into that problem. In better days, we shared an apartment for seven years. We were never late with the rent and took good care of the apartment. But when we had to move out, we were denied apartment after apartment because we didn’t have credit cards.
Many homeless people are disabled and mentally ill, like myself. So they have some income coming in. Yet they are still denied proper housing. Low-income housing is almost impossible to get into. There are long waiting lists. Sometimes it takes up to a year or two to be housed. What will we do in the meantime?
When I was homeless, I was in my wheelchair on the street. No one would help me, and my chair would run out of power – once in the middle of the street. Yet I had an income coming in. But I didn’t qualify to rent a place.
I got very sick living on the street. Many of us hallucinate, hear voices and talk to ourselves, yet are harmless. This is because many run out of medication on the streets and can’t be hospitalized in mental health facilities unless they are suicidal.
The sad thing is that there are many empty buildings around the city. Why can’t these buildings be turned into low-income apartments to house the homeless? There are people out there who do care. Every year there’s a blues festival. Often the earnings are used to help the homeless.
In my case, I finally found housing in assisted living. I am one of the fortunate ones. But many of my street brothers and sisters are still homeless. What will become of them?
Winter isn’t that far away. Some die of exposure. Now is the time to help so they don’t lose hope and life. I call for those who can to help before it’s too late for anyone else out there on the streets.
