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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2013)
Street roots 13 July 5, 2013 1 I Monument: Dedicated to Kirk Reeves by Dustin Dandliker I refuse to be refuse, thrown out of life or thrown down with. Throne down. Monument up! Life, song, laughter, love... play on, brother, play on. The Game’s The Same By Larry Keith Montgomery I woke in the morning And I didn’t have a dime. I guess all that ol’ gambling Was just a waste of time. Street Biography When I think of what I lost, And all the time I spent, Suzanne Smith I wished I never went there, I wished I never went. BY KENDALL The games will always be there, They’ll always be the same. But, you know it’s in my heart, And it’s always on my mind. I guess to put it simply, To win is a dream of mine. Yet one day, the games will be over, Oh yes, the game will end. But I hope to get a big jackpot Between now and then. ir . a d o r COMMUNITY STORE M * A*-»-* Naturai Kitchen 61 Home *■ *>? 2 1 0 6 SE Division 5 0 3 -2 3 1 -5 1 7 5 m ira dorc o n im u n i ty s to te « coni M on-S at 10-6 • Sun 11-5 uzanne Smith has a master’s change, but much of my energy now is degree in social work and is a absorbed by survival.” certified teacher of English as a Suzanne would like to return to Second Language. She had just turned Hungary. She found it “beautiful and 60 when she returned to Portland after enchanting,” and she felt strangely at teaching English to high school home there. Her ancestors were students in Hungary for four months. Russian Jews, and she says many older Hungarians hate Russians, but there is She was unable to find another job, and unable to pay rent, and joined the ranks something about the villages and the of the unhoused — a population she young people she met there that calls served as a social worker just a few to her. She says if she can just find a years before. job, and some relatively inexpensive housing, she’ll save up till she can go “I know I can survive without back. housing. I learned the system as a social worker. I know how to get free Her best experience so far has been clothing, enough food to stay alive, a with Transition Project. She found the place to shower and clean up. I can warming center they ran at the YWCA hang out in Powell’s in the daytime. I was a truly embracing, stress-free place, cycle through the various shelters, and she really admired the way Annie Rosen ran it with an emphasis on most of them only offer housing for a short time, and you have to move to allowing people to have uninterrupted another one. I can manage. But the sleep. hardest thing for me is never being “So many of these shelters are run alone. I miss privacy. The only time I like the military,” she explains. “You can ever be alone is when I go to a have chores assigned to you, and if you restroom in a coffee house. I sleep with miss a chore you get written up. Many others, I eat with others, and I’m places are so stressful they are like always surrounded by others. It’s hard jails. I’d like to see more emphasis on for me to sleep, and I long for quiet.” helping us find employment, more Suzanne is still hoping to find a job emphasis on helping us to work together for systemic change. What I and doesn’t want to be publicly think we need most is a little privacy identified as “homeless,” which is why and dignity.” she prefers not to be photographed. She has recently started working with others at Sisters of the Road and Street Kendall is a Roots, hoping to contribute to systemic photographer, writer, change. “It’s economic,” she explains; listener, and retired “capitalism only works for those who college professor. Her work includes stories o f are already rich. It has been in a state people on the margins of collapse since 2008. Those of us at o f society who prevail. the bottom are the first ones to see that. I want to be part of telling that story, I want to be part of making that S So if I lose my next paycheck, I’ll have myself to blame. M PH O TO BY K EN D A LL Canning jars & equipment, cookware, kitchen tools & appliances Organic cotton sheets, towels, & blankets Food dryers Juicers Books on meat-free cooking, gardening & sustainability up on the news that’s impc news.streetroots.or
