Dear community,
On Monday, April 18, just before 5 a.m. on Northeast 33rd Avenue in Portland, an explosive device was thrown at a parked motorhome where a woman was sleeping inside.
The explosion was so strong, it blew out the front windshield and engulfed the interior in flames. The occupant inside was extremely lucky to survive, and it was a miracle the combustion did not also cause the propane tank to explode, creating more damage and risking lives.
I was homeless for five years. During that time I also lived in a motorhome on Northeast 33rd Avenue. The violence on April 18 wasn’t an isolated incident. While I lived there, I witnessed many motorhomes, trailers and vehicles set on fire. If you’ve never experienced homelessness, it can be hard to imagine what it’s like to not have a place to call home. And it can be easy to take the safety a home creates for granted. I believe the people who make Northeast 33rd Avenue their home want to live without worry, be treated with kindness and have a safe place to return to at night.
As a community, we need to create safe places for people to park their RVs. People are just down on their luck. Many of these people have lost everything and are just trying to survive, and to have people destroy some of what personal possessions they have left creates an even bigger injury.
These people on Northeast 33rd Avenue, most of them with little to no income, have had so many issues to deal with such as: how to feed their family, how to get gas money for the generator for electricity, how to get propane to cook and heat, where to get water, how to get rid of the garbage, how to provide for their family, and the list goes on and on and on.
These are issues that most of us take for granted when we have a home. I am asking that instead of judging and hurting your fellow human beings, try to help instead. Today you may have a good job and a nice home, tomorrow it could all change. Now that I have found housing, I have the opportunity to be an advocate for the people in my community that have been treated inhumanely — not just by the people who threw an explosive in an act of cowardice, but by the policies and political divisiveness that makes people act out towards those in need of compassion.
I know that putting people in shelters is a quick fix; a Band-Aid, not a solution. Shelters are a revolving door that temporarily removes people from the streets. For some, it seems like that would be an excellent answer. But what they don't realize is unless we find permanent housing for these people, it's just going to happen again and again.
There are many reasons why people refuse to live in a shelter, mainly they don't feel safe, they don't feel like they belong anywhere and like they're unwanted. Another is they don't want to be belittled and put down, to feel like they're no good. Or they have pets that they don't want to part with. There's also the loss of their privacy. But mainly their loss of free will.
My hope is, someday soon people will realize we have houses not just to give comfort from the weather, but for a space to call their own.
Eileen Hager is an Advocate and member of Residents Organizing for Change (ROC)
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