Street roots
Aug. 2, 2013
Sharing
a smile
Customers rally to
restore a vendor’s
pearly whites
BY ALEX ZIELINSKI
S T A F F W R IT E R
t’s been months since Raymond
Thornton has felt comfortable smiling.
“With my teeth missing or infected all
the time, I was always guarded with my
smile,” says Thornton, who started vending
newspapers for Street Roots in 2010.
But now, after receiving a brand new set
of top dentures, he can’t help but beam at
every customer that frequents his familiar
Northeast Portland street corner.
And it’s not just because of his newfound
pearly whites.
Over the past few months, Thornton’s
dedicated customers to his NE 15th and
Broadway corner — right in front of Peet’s
Coffee — have been saving up an undisclosed
amount of money to buy their ailing vendor
a new set of teeth. By mid-July, Thornton
had a brand-new grin.
“I found out I have an ego,” Thornton
admits. “Now that I have new teeth that
resemble my old ones, I let myself smile a
little and it makes me so happy I end up
smiling huge.”
Last year, Thornton, who lost his dental
insurance in 2007, started leaving work
early and fasting for days due to severe
tooth pain caused by infections and
untreated cavities. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“Customers started asking me with
genuine concern if I was OK and if they
could do anything, which I ignored for a
while,” Thornton says. “As a grown man, I
forgot how to ask for help.”
Despite his silence, one customer in
particular, Mary, urged him to get help.
I
SOLUTIONS fro m page 2
the homeless and/or offers too many services
that attract people on the streets is a message
being delivered to every mayor across the
United States by business and tourism
associations. It’s an old hat.
The idea that homeless people are hurting
the local business climate and tourism in
Portland is utter nonsense. Is it uncomfortable
or unfortunate, tragic even? Yes. Is it actually
stopping people from visiting or moving to
Portland? No.
Downtown, the Pearl, South Waterfront and
neighborhoods surrounding the urban core are
thriving. These bustling neighborhoods are so
successful, in fact, that most working-class
individuals and families have been completely
priced out of the rental market. We have a
growing equity gap both economically and
racially in our city’s core. That’s a problem.
Blaming the homeless and panhandling for a
poor business climate on the heels of a
recession, even in the midst of a vibrant and
growing downtown, is reactionary and
dogmatic. It lacks any kind of real vision.
It’s very hard to understand the issue of
homelessness and all its complexities in a
vacuum. When bad things happen on the
streets, everyone ranging from the general
public to special interest groups, political
insiders and the media has an opinion on what
to do about the problem. Rarely do those
opinions address the big picture.
The big picture
The federal government’s disinvestment in
housing over the past three decades is well
documented. Local city, county and state
governments have been forced to carry the
P H O TO S BY COLE M ERK EL
Above, Raymond Thornton shows off his new dentures, courtesy o f his
customers, who pitched in for his dental care. Inset, Raymond after his
teeth were pulled.
“She said, ‘If I can get you a dentist
appointment, and you don’t have to pay, will
you go?’ And I said yes,” says Thornton.
Within days, Thornton found himself in
the Billi Odegaard Clinic, Multnomah
County’s newest dental center in downtown
Portland, humbled and shocked by the level
of treatment he was receiving.
“They did a complete examination and
included me in each and every part of it,
which was amazing,” says Thornton. “The
only thing I didn’t have a say in was how
much it would cost and when it would get
paid, which was a little bit difficult for me.
But they made it clear,
‘Your job is to receive this.’ And that’s
something I’m still learning to accept.”
During his month-long tooth extracting
process, eventually resulting in a complete
upper set of dentures, Mary and other loyal
customers passed out financial pledge forms
to other Peet’s frequenters to help cover the
end costs.
One of Thornton’s regulars, Portland City -
Commissioner Nick Fish, pitched in $40
towards the fund.
“Raymond and I talk regularly, whenever I
buy a copy. I was more than willing to help,”
Portland doesn’t want to criminalize the
burden on how to end individual and family
homeless, but they want to target certain
homelessness.
behaviors, like harassment and violence. I
Without real leadership and support from
couldn’t agree more. So let’s do that.
government and the private sector, we can’t
Clearly, we should have targeted
even begin to think about actually changing
enforcement against street violence, regardless
the climate of people experiencing
of an individual’s housing status. People on the
homelessness in downtown environments.
streets would welcome this as much as anyone
It should also be the responsibility of the
else. Violent crimes against the homeless are
media to point out the lack of resources and
very real and sometimes deadly.
barriers we face as a community, while
We need officers downtown that have the
spending more time highlighting solutions.
resources to tackle street crime, and we need
For years, Portland and Multnomah County
an array of services and housing for the
have been battered by the economy when it
majority of individuals and families
comes to resources to address poverty. In
* experiencing homelessness who aren’t
some ways, local governments have found a
way to hold a line on its investments, but that’s committing crimes.
The issue of downtown homelessness is
not nearly enough.
bigger than any isolated incident of violence or
Those investments have rarely increased
how panhandlers might annoy certain
and there still isn’t a clear strategy on long
term resource development for housing. That’s segments of the population. It’s bigger than a
camp being swept in front of City Hall or under
a big problem.
There’s always talk of lobbying our
a nearby bridge. It doesn’t matter how many
-representatives in Washington D.C. for relief,
homeless camps or sidewalks you sweep,
but it never amounts to much. Salem could
people are still going to be homeless.
prioritize housing around the state, but I’m
We need more innovative ways of addressing
not holding my breath. Local communities
street homelessness coupled with more
have more or less been left on their own to
resources to get the job done. Stricter
sidewalk laws or targeting panhandlers simply
solve the problem of homelessness.
Some believe we need stricter sidewalk laws doesn’t get us there.
and more targeted enforcement. If that’s the
What to do?
case, then we also need things like more
Will there be a stricter sidewalk law
mental health outreach workers, police officers
proposed? Will the city risk lawsuits from civil
who are walking the beat, and a strategic plan
liberties groups and push forward with
to offer our most vulnerable residents
targeting panhandlers? Will there be a more
downtown housing. It’s been proven time and
aggressive approach to sweeping camps?
again, you can’t simply criminalize the
Possibly the mayor won’t go in any of these
homeless and have any real effect on the
directions and will decide on a harm reduction
problem.
approach.
The argument then comes back that
says Fish. “It’s a great story. What if we
thought of everyone in our community as an
extended member of our family, like
Raymond? Some people feel powerless
when it comes to solving the bigger picture
of homelessness, but it’s really these small
gestures that make change.”
And small change may be the best
strategy at this point. Thornton joins
thousands of Oregonians with untreated and
infected teeth due to being under or
uninsured. According to a 2010 Department
of Human Services study, a hefty 20 percent
of Oregonians over the age of 65 have lost'
all their teeth to decay or infection.
Additionally, a 2008 Center for Disease
Control report showed that only 70 percent
of Oregonians visited the dentist in the last
year.
Thornton is still reeling from the big-
heartedness of his small community, and
trying his best to share his gratitude with
those who helped.
“Over 20 people have helped pay for my
teeth, and many of
them remained
anonymous.” says
Thornton, who’s
working on getting
“thank you” cards to
each donor. “They
didn’t care about
recognition. I think
that speaks to the
inherent good in
people’s hearts. It’s
completely selfless.”
Dr. Beverlee
Cutler, the Billi
Odegaard Clinic’s lead
dentist, says that half
of her job is replacing
teeth or fitting
patients for dentures.
“A lot of these
people neglect their teeth for so long that
it’s the best we can do for them,” says
Cutler
Looking forward, Thornton says he has a
new outlook on the generosity of Portland’s
inhabitants. Admitting he’s grown a bit
cynical with age, Thornton says he became
OK with not trusting people anymore. Until
now.
“I just figured I would lose all my teeth
and that would be it,” says Thornton.
“People don’t buy strangers teeth. But then,
I guess, I’m not a stranger now.”
It’s anyone’s guess on what happens next.
The following list offers a prescription to
ease the pain downtown:
• $1 million dollars for rent assistance to
target hard-to-reach populations, including
homeless families and youth downtown.
• Additional outreach workers to support
JOIN and Janus Youth to provide harm
reduction approaches to working with people
in camps and on sidewalks.
• Additional mental health outreach
workers and housing vouchers to target people
experiencing mental illness on the streets
downtown.
• A committee to look strategically at
increased, on-going revenue to support
housing and homeless services in Multnomah
County.
• Providing resources for two to four police
officers to walk the beat in the city’s central
core to develop relationships and to target/
deter violent or harassing behaviors.
• Create an organized and central line of
communication between police officers,
private security, park rangers, outreach
workers and local businesses experiencing
problems downtown.
The list above might not be the only
answers, but it’s a start. Without an aggressive
strategy to actually solve the problem, we’re
simply spinning our wheels and moving from
one incident to the next.
For seasoned advocates, people
experiencing homelessness, law enforcement
and local businesses — we understand this
problem isn’t going away anytime soon and
someone needs to take the bull by the horns.
There’s no better time than the present.