4
street roots
June 7, 2013
Reaching
out in S t
Johns
....... V
Far from major services and
programs, the faith-based
community and advocates
come together to help the
homeless in Portland’s
northern neighborhood
NATHAN GILLES
S T A F F W R IT E R
er day starts early.
Around 5 a.m. she gets up. She’s
H
spent the night behind a church.
Sometimes it’s a school. Other times, she
sleeps in a park.
Fifty-three-year-old Sandy Gaudio has
been homeless for the past year. Her day
starts early because it has to. She needs to
avoid the police, who, she says, have
slapped her with trespassing charges for
sleeping behind those schools and churches.
She would sleep in a shelter, but Gaudio
lives in North Portland’s St. Johns
neighborhood, and that, she says, doesn’t
leave her with much of a choice.
“The problem,” she says, “is the shelters
and things are downtown. I don’t have bus
fare to get there.”
Homeless advocates say Gaudio’s
predicament isn’t unique. For years,
homeless services have coalesced in
Portland’s downtown, with only scant
offerings in other neighborhoods. But, say
advocates this heavy concentration doesn’t
reflect where homeless Portlanders actually
live.
Later this month, the Portland Housing
Bureau will release its biennial count of the
city’s homeless. Since it began the street
counts in 2002, the city’s methodology has
grown increasingly sophisticated. The result:
the numbers are starting to reflect where
the city’s homeless actually live. However
progress has been slow, and some claim, not
all neighborhoods are scrutinized equally.
St. Johns’ neighborhood advocates claim
their community hasn’t been given the
attention it deserves. Over the years, they
say, this has made it hard for St. Johns’
homeless to get the help they need. As
Portlanders await the new numbers, St.
Johns’ neighborhood groups are slowly
adding services for what many suspect is a
growing homeless population.
Church of North Portland
“One of the biggest things I noticed was
the inefficiency and lack of unity,” says
David Brewer about his decision to help St.
Johns homeless.
Brewer is the founder of the nonprofit
AllOne Community Services, which has
been largely responsible for organizing St.
Johns churches to help the community’s
homeless.
Three years ago, Brewer says, when
AllOne first started, not only did St. Johns
lack many basic services — especially
shelters and temporary housing — but
nobody really knew which community
organization was providing what service.
“So I started to meet with pastors to see
if there would be any interest in
collaborating,” says Brewer. “And it just
started growing — more and more churches,
more and more neighborhood associations,
and more and more businesses.”
Brewer — a former computer programmer
and project manager with Kaiser
Permanente — has proven to be a competent
P H O T O B Y G A R Y D A V IS
Operation Nightwatch’s mobile van provides hospitality for people on the streets. The van and Operation Nightwatch is joining a concerted effort
to reach out to people experiencing homelessness in North Portland.
organizer. By his estimates, AllOne
currently claims about 40 churches as
members that now collectively call
themselves the Church of North Portland.
AllOne has also worked with about 20
secular nonprofits, as well as 15 businesses.
The results are noticeable.
To date, Church of North Portland
members have set up emergency warming
shelters—for those especially cold winter
nights — at three St. Johns churches. The
group has also been taking unsold produce
from the farmers’ market and giving it to
homeless and low-income community
members. And last August, the group held
the first Compassion North Portland event,
a day of free medical and dental care put on
at Roosevelt High School. The same event is
scheduled for later this summer.
And Brewer and the Church of North
Portland aren’t the only ones creating
change in St. Johns.
Operation Nightwatch Rolls in
It’s a sunny Friday evening in May and
Mikaila Smith and Matt Tuttle are unloading
Operation Nightwatch’s “Mobile Hospitality
Center,” a massive RV that’s been outfitted
as a food pantry/first-aid center on wheels.
The two set up chairs and tables as a
handful of volunteers start unpacking the
food.
Smith, a pierced and tattooed Portland
State University student with a notable
knack for social work, runs the show. Tuttle,
an Iraq War vet and medical student at
Heald College, is there to provide basic first-
aid to those who show up. Tonight they’re in
Southeast Portland in a cul-de-sac just off
the Springwater Corridor Trail, the M AX
line, and Interstate 205. This month they
started serving the St. Johns neighborhood
on Wednesdays.
Once the tables are set and the food is
out, they start coming. Many come by bike
via the trail, others walk, while others,
including families — many visibly
embarrassed by their circumstances — come
by car. By the time the sun has gone down,
Smith, Tuttle, and their volunteers will have
helped about 35 people.
“It’s an easy model,” says Smith about
the hospitality van, “‘Because you can take
it anywhere.”
That, says Operation Nighwatch
Executive Director Gary Davis, is the point.
“We are serving those folks who might
not be served otherwise,” says Davis.
Operation Nightwatch isn’t a shelter.
According to Davis, the idea behind
Nightwatch — which also runs a brick-and-
mortar center downtown — is to pick up
where shelters leave off. This means helping
folks who don’t go to shelters, such as many
homeless families who, Davis says, prefer
the “invisibility” of sleeping in their cars.
This also helps those who can’t afford to get
to shelters because their neighborhoods just
don’t have them. Which is why, Davis says,
his group is heading to St. Johns.
The Anawim Church
Sandy Gaudio eats a bowel of homemade
chicken soup in the basement of the Church
of North Portland. On the ground next to
her is the reason she can make it through
Spring
By Brianna DeFaunt
Spring
The flowers are in full bloom
The air is crisp and fresh,
Even the grass is greener for
A moment’s time.
You can
Hear the song birds singing
Their beautiful lullabies
in the trees.
those tough nights sleeping behind
buildings. His name is Taz. H e’s a black-and-
white Chihuahua.
“Thank God he barks,” says Gaudio,
“because without him I would hardly get any
sleep.”
Gaudio and. about 23 St. Johns residents
— some homeless, some not — have
gathered in the church basement for to eat
soup, drink soda, and hear Pastor Steve
Kimes sing and preach.
“All I can say is this: last year there were
almost no services for homeless in St.
Johns,” Kimes told Street Roots. “And now
there are churches that are actively stepping
up and helping the homeless.”
Kimes leads the Anawim Christian
Community, a church he and his wife,
Diane, organized for the homeless and
mentally ill about 20 years ago in Gresham.
A little over a year ago, two Anawim
parishioners, a couple named Tim Childress
and Samantha Ehrman, got off the street
and moved to St. Johns after Childress got
work. Shortly after moving to St. Johns,
Childress and Ehrman started feeding
homeless in the neighborhood’s parks.
Kimes says the two then suggested he bring
Anawim to St. Johns. Now the church meets
two days a week in the Northeast
neighborhood. Kimes says he, Childress,
and Ehrman have gotten nothing but
support for their efforts from the St. Johns
community.
“I worked in Gresham for 20 years and it
took 13 or 14 years of working with them to
do what the St. Johns churches are ready to
do right now.”
Kimes thinks part of the reason St. Johns
doesn t have enough services is because the
city hasn’t properly counted the
neighborhood’s homeless. He says he
expects this year’s numbers to show a jump.
Proof, he says, that there’s still a lot more
that needs doing. And Gaudio agrees.
“There’s nothing housing wise,” says
Gaudio. ‘There’s food, and clothing, and
hygiene (services), but there’s no real
(temporary) housing.”
But that too is changing. Kimes says he
and others, via the Church of North
Portland, are currently working on creating
a “full-fledged shelter network.” AllOne has
hired a coordinator to that end, and,
according to Brewer, six St. Johns churches
are working on the effort. And that might
just make it a little easier for Gaudio and
others in St. Johns to sleep through the
night.