Suzanne Smith has a master’s degree in social work and is a certified teacher of English as a Second Language. She had just turned 60 when she returned to Portland after teaching English to high school students in Hungary for four months. She was unable to find another job, and unable to pay rent, and joined the ranks of the unhoused — a population she served as a social worker just a few years before.
“I know I can survive without housing. I learned the system as a social worker. I know how to get free clothing, enough food to stay alive, a place to shower and clean up. I can hang out in Powell’s in the daytime. I cycle through the various shelters, most of them only offer housing for a short time, and you have to move to another one. I can manage. But the hardest thing for me is never being alone. I miss privacy. The only time I can ever be alone is when I go to a restroom in a coffee house. I sleep with others, I eat with others, and I’m always surrounded by others. It’s hard for me to sleep, and I long for quiet.”
Suzanne is still hoping to find a job and doesn’t want to be publicly identified as “homeless,” which is why she prefers not to be photographed. She has recently started working with others at Sisters of the Road and Street Roots, hoping to contribute to systemic change. “It’s economic,” she explains; “capitalism only works for those who are already rich. It has been in a state of collapse since 2008. Those of us at the bottom are the first ones to see that. I want to be part of telling that story, I want to be part of making that change, but much of my energy now is absorbed by survival.”
Suzanne would like to return to Hungary. She found it “beautiful and enchanting,” and she felt strangely at home there. Her ancestors were Russian Jews, and she says many older Hungarians hate Russians, but there is something about the villages and the young people she met there that calls to her. She says if she can just find a job, and some relatively inexpensive housing, she’ll save up till she can go back.
Her best experience so far has been with Transition Project. She found the warming center they ran at the YWCA was a truly embracing, stress-free place, and she really admired the way Annie Rosen ran it with an emphasis on allowing people to have uninterrupted sleep.
“So many of these shelters are run like the military,” she explains. “You have chores assigned to you, and if you miss a chore you get written up. Many places are so stressful they are like jails. I’d like to see more emphasis on helping us find employment, more emphasis on helping us to work together for systemic change. What I think we need most is a little privacy and dignity.”
Kendall is a photographer, writer, listener, and retired college professor. Her work includes “Singing Away the Hunger,” by Mpho Nthunya, and many stories of people on the margins of society who prevail.
This article appears in 2013-07-05.