THE CLACKAMAS PRINT
February 5,1992
Pages
Homeless attend Clackamas, solution is needed
by Nolan Kidwell
Features Editor
There are presently six million
homeless in our country, give or
takea few, and eightof these attend
Clackamas Community College.
The issue of homelessness is
something which is a growing prob
lem in today’s society, where people
often find themselves without a
place to stay at night because they
either cannot find work or cannot
afford housing because of low wages.
However, most of the general popu
lation is removed from this prob
lem, being that most of our society
deal with the homeless only on a
casual basis.
“It can happen to any of us,”
said Donna Eagle, a musician and
biosynthisizer who has performed
at CCC, has been homeless for
quite some time.
Eagle does not feel that
“homeless” is the best way to de
scribe people in this situation.
“There is no such thing as
homeless,” said Eagle. “It is actu
ally being houseless. We all live on
this planet.” Eagle feels that the
world is mankind’s home. The only
difference is that the people in this
situation do not have a place to go
home at night.
’Brian,’ 22 years old, who
wished to keep his real name un
told, has learned what being home
less is like in the last few months..
Brian is a student here at Clacka
mas, but has found attending col
lege is much more of a struggle
without a regular place to stay.
“It all started with my mom
kicking me out,” Brian explained.
“I actually wanted to leave.” He
hadn’t expected to be fending for
himself before the holidays, though.
He has “missed a lot of classes”
since his life among the homeless
began. Every night is a challenge
for him, finding his next place to
spend an evening. Brian also finds
a certain amount of trouble always
getting back to the college at the
time he would like, because often
times the bus schedules do not mesh
with where he needs to be for his
classes and his evening lodging.
“You have to deal with a cer
tain amount of fear,” he said. “I
think that you really become a whole
person, because you have to look
inside yourself. You have to make
important decisions that wouldn’t
be important normally.”
“Your decisions are more sur
vival-based,” said Brian. .
For instance, Brian relates that
often times he would like to go to
one of the various clubs in Portland
and meet new people, possibly
someone he could date, but instead
he is forced to check with his friends
to see if there is somewhere that he
can stay for the evening.
Most of the time Brian man
ages stay with different friends. He
has stayed with friends at Lewis
and Clark College in the dormito
ries there. Brian has stayed with
some of his friends, in their apart
ments, who attend Portland State
University.
“I spent one night underneath
a cedar tree. It was beautiful,” Brian
recalled. “It suits me well; I’ve
always looked upon vagabonds as
kind of being free.”
Still he is looking for a place to
live. “I dream of it,” he said.
“I’ve met several people who
are looking for houses.” Brian hopes
that he will be able to share housing
with one of these people. “Until
then it is a matter of finding bene
factors.”
Eagle expresses similar prob
lems which she faced when she
was living as homeless.
“I was always asking myself,
where am I going to sleep tonight?”
she said.
There is a large group of
homeless, according to Eagle, who
camp in our nation’s forests. Eagle
lived in one of these communities
for a while, known as a Rainbow
Gathering, in Vermont. The home
less are growing at an astronomical
rate, she feels. Eagle feds that
conditions cannot remain as they
are.
“The homeless are about to
revolt,” in Eagle’s opinion. “We
all have the right to be hoe and
walk freely.”
Eagle feels that to solve the
problem of the homeless everyone
has to work together.
“It’s not how many problems
Photo by Nolan Kklwall
we have,” she said. “It’s how many Donna Eagle has been homeless in New York, Pensylvania,
solutions we have.”
Colorado and Eugene. Eagle now has a home, but is always
helping others in the same situation.
The party is over,poverty waits at the door
and with the end of a good party Stones, “The time is right for a
violent revolution.”
comes a hellacious hangover.
America faces tough times
We are well into the ‘90’s,
recession is really depression, sav when we create a society in which
ings and loan scandals are on the violence is commonplace and con
rise, every day another company quest is something that we instill in
files for bankruptcy, unemployment one another.
With the USSR no longer in
is a household word, schools are
crack houses and a large percent existence, our victory-minded so
age of Americans are poor and ciety no longer has a clear-cut enemy
that can scare it into unity. We are
homeless.
Domestic issues are all the rage searching for an “us versus them”
among political parties as they scenario.
Guess what? The “us versus
scramble to increase their electa
bility and seize offices in order to them” is now the rich versus the
proliferate their campaign contribu- poor.
As is thecase during most situ
tor’s corporate financial endeav
ations in which the government is
ors.
The American public is being 1
bombarded with schemes and plans
that are somehow going to fix the
problem of poverty and depriva- j by Robert A.
Staff Writer
tion in America.
Recently,
Budget
Politicians are saying that they |
hold the key to open the door to the | Committee t
American dream but how realistic J to supply students
CCC students
com-
is the American dream if the public
keeps electing members of power- plaining to the
ful political parties into office, when Office about their
it seems that the political parties, ber of student loci
“The primary
and government in general, is to i
blame for our financial difficulties. the council thou;
Three-fourths of this country’s bought through fe
money is now in the hands of one- of Student Services, Dian Con
fourth of the population and that nett. “The assumption was that it
portion of the population is in con would happen a different way.”
Associated Student Govern
trol of the government via cam
paign donations and under-the-table ment President Lauri Mayfield has
been working to provide lockers
exchanges of cash.
The rich keep getting richer to students.
“Iknow for afacttha
of that want-to-be Hitler, Saddam and the poor keep getting poorer.
Upper-class society is wetting its have been requested for
Hussein.
Yes, Americans certainly have greedy lips on excess, while the five years, by Student
enjoyed themselves over the past poor and homeless are forced to and have been denied
ously,” said Mayfield.
bear the burden.
decade, it was quite a party.
The president of
To quote a couple of popular
The sad thing about good par
ties, though, is that good parties bands, The Who, “We won’t be emment cited the large
must eventually come to an end fooled again,” and The Rolling fe.......... —.I»...... .
by Robert A. Hibberd
Staff Writer
The 1980’s consisted of Ronald
Reagan masking his cold war im
perialistic attempt to drive die Soviet
Union into poverty by providing
the American public an idealistic
delusion of a happiness which could
be found through a gluttonous
consumption of material wealth and
military buildup.
The Yuppie revolution reached
its pinnacle in the ‘80’s with every
American dreaming of a BMW and
a Volvo in the garage, a lifetime
Club Med membership, a closet
full of Armani suits, a yacht on the
bay and the possibility of retire
ment at the age of 40.
As parents rushed off to work
in a valorous attempt to beat the rat
race and climb the corporate lad
der, children were given MTV, G.I.
Joes and Nintendo to pacify their
creative, infantile energy.
The 80’s were an age of ex
cess. It became fashionable to
acquire, consume and act greedy.
It was a party that Ronnie called
for, and it was a party that he got.
The party came to a capitalist/
imperialistic orgasm when George
sent our courageous American free
dom fighters into Kuwait to rescue
the source of American joy, gaso
line.
America watched in proud,
mother-like joy as our highly trained
18-y car-old mercenaries slaughtered
the poorly prepared, illiterate army
oppressing its people, certain types
of messiahs emerge to unify the
people who are being oppressed in
order to fight its oppressor, the
establishment.
As poverty and deprivation
increases, the homeless and the
people who are killing each other
in the drug war might decide, “Hey,
we are tired of living like this.
Maybe, instead of killing each other,
we should take out the dudes that
are doing this to us.”
Then America will see an in
creased escalation in the war be
tween social classes, in which the
rich figures will make more and
more laws and make it harder for
the poor to rise up, while the poor
will be exercising Malcolm X’s
theory of “any means necessary” in
order to get their point across.
As we enter a new election
year, I must instill a sense of ur
gency into the mostly corrupt poli
ticians of the country to get their
domestic act together because if
they don’t, someone or some group
might do it for them.
This is America and America
will not stand for a bunch of aristo
cratic, power-minded individuals
abusing their governmental power
so as to keep the populace weak, in
debt and thus, more manageable.
ASG working for student lockers
students who want lockers as her
primary reason for pursuing the
issue.
“There has always been a
waiting list (of students wanting
lockers) that is twice as long as the
amount of available lockers,”
Mayfield states.
The ASG i
President, Shaun:
of student locker di
“The waiting list, at times,
has reached well over the 100 person
mark” mentions Barnett, “and that
number is inaccurate due to the
fact that when students inquire about
getting a locker, they become dis
couraged at the size of the waiting
list and do not bother to add then-
name to th<*
”
The
which c
Educati
appropria
the fundi
f the st
mittee
give several thousands of dollars
to other purposes, such as faculty
robes.
come into the Stu-
ce complaining
to the fact that
e to carry a large amount
of books around campus all day.”
h there is an apparent
between the students
and the administration over the
matter of funding for student lock
ers, the two parties have begun
waking toge ther in attempt to solve
the problem.
“Currently, I am working with
**'
of student serv-
Dian Connett,
t we will be able
ices, in hopes
to rectify t
commented
TheC
will meet