By Ann-Derrick Gaillot, Contributing Writer
It is not hard to find Johnny Williams and Paula Ramirez at
their spot across the street from City Hall. Johnny joyfully calls out
greetings and jokes to passersby beside his partner Paula.
We sit inside the Starbucks just off of Southwest Fifth
Avenue and Main Street, across from City Hall as Johnny and Paula share their
experiences of losing their homes, being without shelter in Portland, selling
Street Roots, and looking for employment.
Like many Americans experiencing poverty, Johnny and Paula
find that homelessness and joblessness often feed one another in a seemingly
inescapable cycle.
“AT&T: The three things you need to get a job,” Johnny
tells me, “Address, telephone, and transportation.” Johnny is full of such
phrases and aphorisms that keep me laughing throughout the interview. The two
have an infectious positivity and spirit that no doubt keep them afloat during
rougher times, such as when the stigma of poverty threatens to demoralize them.
“When we used to keep our stuff on his walker,” says Paula,
“covered by a tarp, sometimes the MAX wouldn’t even stop for us because it
would look like a shopping cart, even though we have a pass.” Paula, a short,
shy, bespectacled woman bundled up against the winter chill, often acts as
caretaker and a source of quiet strength for Johnny, a jolly Southerner with a
salt and pepper beard and hair, and ever-smiling eyes.
Johnny was born with a physical disability, which — he shows
me — causes both his knees to bend completely backward. While they both admit
that times have been hard lately they also say that finding one another has
been a blessing.
The two met in September while waiting in line for a spot at
the Right 2 Dream Too, the tent refuge at NW 4th and Burnside. Paula had just
moved to Portland from Aurora after her home had been foreclosed on when she
met Johnny, a Texas transplant who had already been experiencing homelessness
for almost two years.
“He started talking to me,” Paula says, “We’ve been
inseparable ever since.” They draw on one another’s incredible strength and
spirit. Johnny had resigned himself to living from shelter to shelter
indefinitely before he met Paula, a poet previously published in Street Roots,
who told him that she was determined to get back into a permanent home. Her
determination encouraged Johnny to adopt the same resilient attitude.
“She inspires me to keep going,” says Johnny. The two share
a romantic glance. Since being together they have managed to move from staying
at shelters and Right 2 Dream Too, to having their own place at Dignity
Village, a transitional encampment located near Portland International Airport.
There they have access to a propane heater, a commons room with a television, a
sundries store, and a secure place to keep their things while they are out
during the day so they no longer have to carry it with them on Johnny’s walker
under a tarp.
Selling Street Roots for the past helps them pay to stay at
Dignity Village, a welcome reprieve from sleeping under bridges and nightly
trying to find a spot at a shelter that has space for them, is handicap
accessible, and will accept them. Often, Johnny and Paula found themselves
turned away for being a couple or for attempting to use resources meant
specifically for individuals coping with substance abuse and addiction.
Unfortunately, there are few shelters specifically available for clean and
sober couples.
For now Johnny and Paula are focused on selling Street Roots
to make ends meet and finding Paula a writing opportunity. However, if all goes
well, in the future they will be living together in a home of their very own.
Johnny shares one last saying with me, a Jessie Jackson quote he lives by. It’s
about having the spirit to pick oneself up and continue on even when life’s
circumstances have gotten you down. Though the exact quote escapes me, Paula
and Johnny no doubt embody the sentiment in their own lives. They, rather than
Jesse Jackson, managed to move and inspire me that day.
This article appears in 2013-01-18.