Street roots., May 10, 2013, Page 5, Image 5

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Street roots
/ v
May 10, 2013
DEATHS, from page 3
To see the complete report on
homeless deaths in Multnomah
County, visit us at
www.news.streetroots.org
homeless according to the federal
Department of Housing and Urban
Development, or HUD.
The figures in the report do not
necessarily reflect all those who died
homeless last year. It only includes those
who are investigated and certified by the
medical examiner, and not necessarily those
who may have passed away in a hotel, for
example, or those not in the care of a
physician, such as at the hospital, at the
time of death.
“It’s a basement,” Lewis says of the
numbers. “We know there’s stuff on top of
this. Even in the subset, incomplete though
it is, it’s a substantial number.”
“People knew I was suicidal and all I could
promise was f would wait before killing myself.
Not easy when you have no hope, no joy, no
passion, nothing”... I did promise I would
wait but what do I have worth waiting for?
— Kirk Reeves, Oct. 23.
eeves died from a self-inflicted gunshot
wound by Bybee Lake. He was believed
to have been staying with friends for a
period before his death, a status consistent
with the federal definition of homelessness.
But Reeve’s e-mails to friends and family
reveal a long-term struggle with depression
and feelings of hopelessness. He spoke
openly of committing suicide after lamenting
not only his lack of housing stability, but the
deterioration of his eyesight from cataracts,
which he blamed on his homelessness.
On and off the streets, Reeves at one
point writes about finding an apartment,
only to be told he couldn’t move in, he
wrote, because someone identified him as a
“street performer.” It hurt, he wrote on Oct.
23, “because no matter how I tried, this was
R
telling me I would NEVER get off the
streets. I would never be nothing more than
PH O TO BY JO A N N E ZU H L
K irk Reeves a t his perch on the H awthorne Bridge in A pril 2010.
need to think of people’s health as
something that we look at holistically, and
not lost on Oxman, who has been lauded for
his work in the 1990s to stem the tide of
reach out to people.”
heroin overdoses and save lives.
Lyon praises the work of agencies to
“These people are people,” Oxman says.
prevent families from becoming homeless,
“They’re somebody’s son or daughter,
and getting families and individuals off the
somebody’s father, a brother, a friend. They
streets. But the real challenge, and for Lyon
are members of our community. I think
an important measure of success, is
people all too often see the combination of
connecting with those who are the hardest
homelessness and drug abuse, and assume
to reach — those who are often found at the
that represents a permanent state for these
end of their ropes.
individual. The reality is, people cycle in and
“This is the timé
out of the bad times
when hope is harder
in their lives. No one
to come by,” he says.
is a throw away
“But it’s never been a "Those of ns who have
person, and that
more important part
worked in the field ost issues applies to the folks
of what we do.”
who are affected by
related to housing and
homelessness and
homelessness, understand
drug abuse.”
the correlation between
Oxman is quick to
his is only the
health and housing. It's
note that the
eth Lyon is the senior program
second report on realizing that housing is a
problems with heroin
development specialist with the
homeless deaths
abuse are not just an
health care determinant."
Community Services Division of Multnomah compiled by
issue for people
County Human Services. Suicide is just one
.. — DEBORAH KAFOURY
Multnomah County,
experiencing
M U L T N O M A H C O U N T Y C O M M IS S IO N E R
measure of the physical and emotional toll
making any trend
homelessness.
of the prolonged economic crisis, both on
analysis premature.
“There is a much
and off the streets. And it has been on the
But Kafoury said that
larger opiate abuse
rise across Oregon for the past 10 years.
since the initial report was published, there
problem in the community,” Oxman said.
“For me, suicide is really about
has been a greater emphasis on prevention
“It’s certainly not isolated to the homeless
hopelessness,” says Lyons. “Opportunities
in the area of substance abuse and health
community.”
have shrunk for people. And the capacity for care reform.
Indeed, heroin overdoses statewide rose
becoming hopeless is much higher.”
“We’re working with the legislature right
42 percent from 2002 to 2011, according to
In his experience, working both in issues
now on a bill to allow people to have access
the state medical examiner’s report on drug
of mental health and homelessness, Lyon
to naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses.
related deaths. Overdoses kill more
says he finds that the streets bring with
“Right now it’s available if you have a
Oregonians annually — 143 in 2011 - than
them their own health syndrome — often a
prescription. We would like to make it legal
motor vehicle accidents, according to the
combination of traumas, including addiction,
as an over-the-counter drug to drug users,
report Of all accidental deaths due to
mental illness and physical injury — that
their friends, families and counselors.”
overdose in Multnomah County last year,
manifests its own condition, unique to the
Senate Bill 384, now before the House
one in six were among people who were
experiences of each individual.
Committee on Health Care, would allow a
homeless.
“That stuff just doesn’t always get better
person to possess and administer naloxone
For more than two decades, the homeless
with a pill; it’s a whole life,” Lyon says,
provided they successfully completed
youth center Outside In has operated a
dismissing the notion that the homeless are
training on the drug’s use. “Naloxone is
needle exchange program. It deals in more
some sort of homogenous group, for whom
proven to save people’s lives,” Kafoury says.
than half a million needles each year,
programmed solutions serve the universal
Gary Oxman is the former public health
removing more needles off the streets than
needs of the deserving.
physician for Multnomah County. He retired
it distributes. Congress has prohibited any
“Anybody could become homeless. It’s
at the start of this year after 28 years in the
federal funding for needle exchange
extremely detrimental to your health and we county’s service. The number of homeless
programs, with much of the cost picked up
should be thinking about that as a health
deaths by heroin and opiate overdoses was
by the county and the city. Oxman supports
care issue. It’s a public health issue. We
a street performer.... Hard work and
rainbows and people pulling for you were
meaningless. But the things and people
telling me ‘We don’t want you here!’ were
right and will win. And guess what? I don’t
want to be here either! It hurt that much.”
But there was hope, too. In the same long
e-mail, he wrote that his eyesight was better
thanks to a surgery and new glasses. “I do
like seeing people smile, especially children.
I mentioned many bad things, the
depression, being sick, people hurting me
but the worse was I couldn’t see people
smile, especially children. Now I cam”
S
T
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the needle exchange program, which has
been axed from the proposed city budget,
“Any reduction in needle exchange
services will be really unfortunate,” Oxman
says. “Not only does it play a role in
preventing the spread of illness, but it’s also
a critical gateway to keep substance abusers
engaged with the larger system, and
continue to work with them around issues of
recovery.”
Oxman also says safe injection sites —
which operate in Canada and Europe but not
the United States — could be another way
to curb the recurrent heroin crisis.
“Where they’ve been implemented
internationally, they appear to have reduced
death and other complications of drug use. I
think their value has been shown,” Oxman
says. “They improve health and they save
lives. I think it’s a question whether they
can be implemented and gain political and
community support in this country.”
Another opportunity for change is in the
state’s new Medicaid delivery system that
last year received a $2 billion boost in
federal dollars. The funding is helping
launch coordinated care organizations,
intended to leverage greater flexibility in
how they treat, charge and manage patients,
including social service. That Medicaid
funding, County Commissioner Deborah
Kafoury says, also incorporates housing as
part of the health care solution.
“Those of us who have worked in the field
on issues related to housing and
homelessness, understand the correlation
between health and housing,” Kafoury says.
“It’s realizing that housing is a health care
determinant.”
In 2014, Medicaid eligibility will be
expanded and 200,000 more Oregonians are
expected to be added to the rolls. The
report calls for increased outreach efforts to
ensure that people experiencing
homelessness are enrolled.
“Homelessness often times is framed as a
public safety issue, but the reality is it’s a
health care issue,” says Street Roots’ Israel
Bayer. “We know that by providing people a
safe and stable home that we could give
people the opportunity to live long and
successful lives. It’s been well documented
that homelessness literally takes years off of
people’s lives and costs the system an
enormous amount of money. Housing is not
only the safest way to provide people
adequate healthcare, it’s always the most
cost effective.”
ach year, several organizations,
including Outside In, Operation
Nightwatch, and S t Andre Bessette Catholic
Church, come together to remember those
who died, most of them either alone,
homeless or in trauma. This year, there
were more than 120 names on the list,
including “the man who jumped from the
balcony, O ct 2.” They are all remembered,
even if their names are not
Kirk Reeves’ memorial drew hundreds of
people to the Hawthorne Bridge to
remember the man in the white tuxedo and
Mickey Mouse ears. They may not have
known how much he struggled with his
health and housing, or how much he
contemplated a future of war or god’s role in
it all, as he did at length in his writings. But
they should know that he also wrote of the
joy of rainbows and “jungle butterflies,” a
peaceful anomaly in a dog-eat-dog world. He
wrote of the reminders that despite all the
challenges and problems, there were still
things worth living for.
“So what can I do? I can go out and
perform,” he wrote. “I can make at least one
person smile.”
E