Last week, on my way home to grab a bite to eat before an event, I noticed 15 or so older women bedding down together in Old Town. Their presence stopped me in my tracks.
One elderly woman, homeless for less than a year, only received $700 from Social Security and couldn’t afford to pay for rent, health care costs and a quality of life. A shelter was her only option.
Another woman was running from domestic violence. Another told me she was dealing with a physical disability, and could barely get around. Her dog was the only thing keeping her from harming herself. The list went on.
One woman, clearly dealing with a severe mental health issue, was standing at the doorway of the closed winter shelter, rocking back and forth mumbling. “I know the shelter is going to open tonight. I just know it. They wouldn’t leave us out here like this.”
The emergency women’s shelter will not reopen until next winter.
After visiting the ladies, I walked across the bridge to the Multnomah County candidates forum on housing sponsored by Street Roots and others. It had already been a long day. I sat and cried. These women’s stories had hit me like a freight train. Their chiseled hands, their swollen feet and their hardened faces. I pulled myself together, just in time to shake hands and play the role of an executive director in the community.
Witnessing someone overwhelmed with the hardship of homelessness is both an amazing and horrifying thing to experience. There’s nothing logical about watching poverty consume a human being. It’s neither kind nor romantic.
At the forum, candidates answered questions about what they would do about poverty in our community. I couldn’t stop thinking about the women I had just talked with. What would be the best way to highlight their story? In a perfect world, it would be writing a much bigger story, highlighting their voices and possibly working with a photographer. There wasn’t time for that. This column will have to do.
After emergency winter shelter closes this year, an additional 70 women will be homeless. They will join hundreds of more women on the streets along with more than 600 children sleeping outdoors.
On the bright side, an official told me that with an additional $300,000 invested by the city, 107 households, including 26 families and nearly 50 adult women were housed this year. The project is called Women into Housing Now
The official also told me that the county would be investing more dollars into rent assistance for women and families, but it was unclear whether this was actually an increase in money or simply getting us back to a place we were prior to the great recession. There was also the $1.7 million bump by the city and county this year which is helping house scores of hard-to-reach and vulnerable folks on the streets. We’re hoping that this money will be carried over to next year.
What do these numbers mean to the general public? Not much. What the general public and insiders both know is that there are not enough resources available to tackle the issues of homelessness and poverty in our community. What are the answers?
The metro region should also be dreaming bigger. It’s easy to think that homelessness and housing programs are always getting money when you read the headlines, but the reality is we’re begging for crumbs and our system is slapped together with a hodge-podge of different funding mechanisms that don’t equal actually tacking the program.
It’s time for our region to act. Sure, we could get bogged down in conversations and petty politics about what is the best path forward, but it’s going to take real leadership to actually make it happen. Who among our elected officials has got what is takes to actual move on creating some kind of ongoing recourse to support housing in our community at the level we need?
The reality is that woman and children on the streets endure great pain, both mentally and physically. They remain strong in the face of overwhelming odds. It’s time for our elected leaders to show the same kind of fortitude as the group of women working together to remain safe on the streets.
“My experience has been hell,” one of the women told me. “I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that no one in their right mind would let hundreds of women sleep on the streets. Where’s the leadership in this city?”
I would have to agree. Where is the leadership?
