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
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* A*-»-*
Naturai Kitchen
61 Home
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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
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