When you first meet Quentin Sandvig, you might not think “poet,” but among his many pursuits over the past six decades, poetry writing is one. Though he doesn’t have a ready collection of poetry in print to share, he can recall and recite several. There are poems about homeless children, a poem about a giant in a land of plenty, a poem about the “red baron,” a parody of Trump which, Quentin reminds us, is “not flattering.”
Quentin hails from a country whose history is steeped in poetry: Greece. He was adopted from a state-run orphanage in Athens, Greece as an infant; he has never met his birth mom. His U.S. parents moved with Quentin to Morocco, then Italy where his father taught naval communications. When they moved back to the U.S., his father worked on building liberty ships in St. Johns.
“I’ve had an interesting life,” Quentin said. “I quit school in the 8th grade. I’ve been on my own since I was 14 years old. I got a job right away when I left home; I lied about my age and worked construction. I’ve been a D.J., a painter, a safe cracker, a construction worker, a crook.”
Quentin has spent most of his life in Portland. He has seen many changes in Portland’s landscape: “I used to hang out downtown in the 70’s when I was young. It was a really different place then. Downtown is like a mess now. These days I hang out in Hollywood.”
“Not until 2018 did I end up on the street,” Quentin explained. In 2014, when Quentin was in his late 50s, he moved in with his uncle. “My uncle was a fall-down drunk,” Quentin explained. “It ended badly. It got to the point where I was yelling at him. After four years of trying, I found him a caretaker and moved out.”
That move began a period of houselessness which Quentin describes as his “woe is me” time. For five months he struggled trying to get housing, working through several agencies in town where his name was put on lists for future possibilities. “But I wanted off the streets as quickly as possible,” he said. “At the time, he said to himself, “I’m not gonna survive through this.”
But then, he said “I came out of my stupor.” He’d been hanging around Hollywood “with a loosely confederated group of guys. We met in the plaza; we built friendships. One of the guys was selling Street Roots.” So, Quentin explained “I went down to the Street Roots office for the orientation, got ten free papers, made four bucks, bought more papers and made a little more money. O.K., I thought, a little bit of cash.”
“I’ve always been good at managing my money as long as I don’t get into a ‘woe is me’ funk,” Quentin said. So, he developed a plan to save his checks and his Street Roots earnings and pay off a DUI debt. By the first of September, his debt was paid off and he had landed a caretaking job.
“Once I get on a mission, I usually accomplish it,” he said. “I’m determined, even with setbacks.” It took Quentin awhile to figure out a routine for selling Street Roots, especially through the pandemic. “I had to cut my hours way back.” And because his post in the Hollywood district is so far from where he lives in his caretaking job, he sometimes sleeps in a doorway near his post. “Saturday and Sunday there’s no bus, so I sleep down here to be closer to my post.”
Quentin appreciates not only the financial opportunities Street Roots has provided him, but also the skills he learns by being a part of the Street Roots team. “Street Roots is a good program,” he said. “You can make it work and save money. I’ve progressed from a drunk homeless person. Street Roots has largely partnered that.”
“Street Roots is an information highway too,” he said. “The articles spread the word about the difficulties of being homeless.”
Quentin is also grateful for his “generous, loyal customers” who have “watched me progress. They see how good working with Street Roots has been for me. They see it’s doing good.”
Wanting to “give a little back,” last Christmas, in partnership with the Salvation Army, Quentin started a blanket drive. He also continues to write poetry; his most recent poem, “Never Wuz,” was published in Street Roots. Stop by his post in the Hollywood district and ask him to recite a few lines.