Dan, a veteran Street Roots vendor, has shared his personal struggles through his 'down to earth' writing, which has been published in the newspaper
Dan Newth has been a Street Roots vendor for 17 years, the past seven as a member of the community around the Concordia New Seasons. Dan’s poetry and frank, searing essays on attempting suicide and living on the streets with a cognitive brain impairment have been published periodically.
“I didn’t know how to write before Street Roots,” he said. “Several volunteers at Street Roots taught me. There was a couple called Bear and Coyote, and (Street Roots Executive Editor) Joanne Zuhl was a volunteer back then. She used to help people write articles. She got me to start writing.
“I had a column called ‘Streetwise’ that ran for a couple of years. I wrote about lack of bathrooms and basically first-person experiences of the critical things about being homeless,” he said.
Dan believes his writing, which he describes as “down to earth, folksy and dramatic,” was part of why Portland put in more bathrooms later that year.
Eventually, Dan began to lead writing groups at Street Roots.
Dan was born in Portland at the old St. Vincent hospital, originally at Northwest 12th Avenue and Marshall Street. He has an older brother, Tim, and two younger sisters, Najela and Jamela. His father was a truck driver and salesman; his mother worked for Tektronix and as a mail sorter for the postal service. Both were Jehovah’s Witnesses and worked full time when Dan was a child.
Dan’s father died from early-onset dementia. His mother, Pam, still lives in Clackamas. Dan visits on holidays.
“I am the cook for Thanksgiving,” he said. “I’m really good with the skill dishes: turkey, gravy.”
Dan attended Aloha Park and Sunset High School. He didn’t graduate because “I couldn’t write,” he said. “I am dyslexic. The letters get mixed up. I dot my t’s and cross my i’s. My b’s look like d’s.” His father was dyslexic as well.
Dan excelled in math and science, however.
“That came easy for me,” he said.
After he dropped out, he got a GED and went into the Army, where he learned the electronics trade. Following his stint in the Army, he worked as an electronics technician for Tektronix, Epson and other corporations.
“I worked at computer aid testing stations. I would troubleshoot and find the defective components, points that didn’t get soldered. I was good at intensive troubleshooting and processing details,” he said.
Dan later applied those same processing skills to help collate and organize Sisters of the Road’s extensive 2001 research study and qualitative database of 600 interviews with people experiencing homelessness.
Dan was married for about nine years, but his progressive brain disorder eventually put a wedge in the relationship.
“I was leaving stuff burning on the stove, forgetting things. I was a hazard in the house,” he said.
During his divorce, Dan wanted to end his life because he was terrified of ending up on the street with dementia, of “becoming the homeless guy yelling at a lamppost,” he said. In 2015, he wrote a three-part series for Street Roots about his suicide attempt, called “Dizzy Dan’s Hologram."
Dan experiences the challenge of his cognitive impairment daily.
“My brain is going south and not repairing,” he said. “I used to do a lot of research on the brain and do all the right things. But it’s not getting better. I had a dream last night where multiple people were trying to stab me and I was trying to fend them off. It was hard to shake off. My brain just isn’t nice to me.”
Dan said he gets a lot of support from the community around the Cully Neighborhood and New Seasons.
“They fundraised and bought me a trailer,” he said, “and I had it at the parking lot at Delphina’s Bakery.”
The parking lot was sold, however, and he was given 60 days to move.
“Several people offered to put the trailer up, but with the hitch, it was too long; it would stick out in the sidewalk,” he said.
Now, Dan is keeping the trailer at a storage lot in Tigard and “backyard surfing” in his tent until he can find a permanent place for his trailer.
“I use community to get by,” he said.
“The only income I have is Street Roots. I don’t get food stamps or any of that stuff. Around December, I might make too much money selling Street Roots, and I try to be real careful and not break any laws. I do jaywalk,” he said with a laugh. “But I don’t steal.
“When I sell Street Roots, at first I don’t feel good. But I smile; I greet people. Maybe I tell a joke. People laugh. That starts to make me feel better. By interacting with the community, it makes me part of the community.”
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