Street Roots • July 22-28, 2016
ORDER, from page 10
Over time she has created the job by doing
what she does. In the course of a week she
has to be diplomat, bouncer, social worker,
quartermaster, counselor, stevedore and
more. She has never actually been hired,
and she doesn’t get paid — not in the usual
way, at least
“You get endorphins from this work, like
that high you get from exercising. Every day
there’s a list, I check things off, and at the
end of the day I feel like I’ve accomplished
something.”
Her enthusiasm for the complex work
shines through in everything she said. “I
love my Fridays! That’s my big day. I go
shop the dock at the Food Bank. I make
sure Saturday Breakfast has everything the
kids need to cook with, including for the
Asian breakfast (dumplings for Chinese and
Korean elders living nearby). I love making
sure that everyone has what they need for
their meals.”
tephanie knows what it’s like out on the
streets. Seven years ago she was there
herself.
“I had a little trouble in 2009,” she said,
sounding almost off-hand. The fact is, it was
more than a little trouble. Up until then
she’d been living what seemed a normal life:
a husband, two kids, a steady job, a home of
her own. Then things started to go downhill.
“A marriage ended badly,” is how we agree
to say it. “It left me with half a house, half a
heart, and a deep depression.” She paused,
as if reviewing her own words. “That pretty
much says it.”
Her husband moved out in August of that
year, and within two months she couldn’t
afford the rent. She lost the house and got
herself and the kids into an apartment; that
lasted another six months, until she also lost
her job. She describes her slide down as a
series of gradual shifts: “You go, OK, yeah,
he left me. I can’t afford the house I’ve been
living in. That’s a stress. Crap, lost the job.
The kids have to move in with their dad. Oh,
OK, I’ll go sleep on this couch. Everything
crashed around me.”
Suffering depression and anxiety, she
began drinking.
“People don’t understand. It doesn’t
matter what kind of decisions were made.
It’s what was the trigger that made that
domino fall? It’s not just the one thing. It
goes all the way to the end where you’re
just down and out, homeless, period, and
you’ve got nothing left. I had the weight of
the world on my shoulders, and I was
drowning.”
It took Stephanie four years to find her
own place again. Today, in her mid-forties,
she said, “I’m happy, healthy and OK with
my own life. And OK with being me, as a
human being. I don’t date, I have my
friends, my family, my volunteer work, that’s
what keeps me content.”
I tell her it sounds like a fairy tale. She
laughs but looks serious. “Maybe it does,”
she said. “But no, I lived it.”
“What was the very worst moment?” I
ask.
Stephanie pauses and runs different
possibilities through her mind. “When I
slept in a parking garage,” she decides. She
likes short, straightforward answers that
don’t need elaboration. I wait for more, and
she drops the other shoe. “In November; It-
S
News
anyone who needed it, a big, open room
was in November, and it was freezing
outside. That was when we still had Fareless with long tables, enthusiastic, committed
volunteers, and no idea how to organize it
Square, so I’d ride and ride. Over at the
all.
library stop, I got off and slept in the
Stephanie grew up Catholic, and today
stairwell of that parking garage.
she’s a member of the congregation at St
“The next day I didn’t know what to do.
Andre Bessette Catholic Church. But her
But I didn’t want to sleep in any more
faith is not the source of her calling; rather,
parking garages. Then I remembered
it was something about the atmosphere at
seeing, you know, the Harbor Light. So it’s
Clay Street Table. She took those groceries
late at night, it’s dark, and I was knocking
home, stashed them in the kitchen, thought
on the door, yelling. Two guys looked out at
about what she’d seen, and went right back
me, and it kinda freaked me out a little.
over there.
They said, ‘Are you looking for the women’s
She walked up to “that guy” and said, “Do
shelter?”’
you need help?”
She ran up to the Salvation Army Female
“Sure,” he said, “we always need help.”
Emergency Shelter (SAFES), but found they
“No,” she said. “I mean help organizing
didn’t have space that night. Stephanie
broke down crying: “Is there anywhere I can this.”
Here she gets dramatic, throws her hands
sleep?” The woman at the desk called the
in the air, imitating Paul: “So he goes, ‘Do I
YWCA, and Stephanie got a mat for the
need help?! Can you help me with this?’”
night there. “They’re called winter mats,
He showed Stephanie the basement
only available until April,” she explains.
where the supplies were stored. It’s down a
She kept checking at SAFES, and when a
steep staircase: dark, cramped, a bit damp,
temporary space finally opened up, she
with a packed dirt floor. “It was a crazy
went there. But that makes it sound simple.
mess,” she said. “Enough dried beans for six
Stephanie elaborates, “Now you have to
months, cans of refried, all in a heap. Plastic
understand, these are only three-month
drawers with mix-and-match Christmas
stays, and ypu have to work their program:
items, old doors, tarps ... things were just
You have to call in every Monday, you have
thrown hither and thither, nothing labeled.”
to get sober, you have to be looking for
She shakes her head. It took three months
work. I called every Monday, and I got into
Jean’s Place (a women’s shelter). There, you to clean and organize the basement.
Volunteers carted three truckloads of
get to sleep in a bunkhouse-style room, with
spoiled food to the dump.
other women. You get a month, with good
Today that basement is her favorite
behavior, do your chores, and then you get
project. “In the beginning I was afraid of
to move into a room. Three months. Then
that place. Now I know every nook and
back to SAFES. It’s a repeating process
cranny. I know what wall has its leaks.” She
until you can find a job.”
has transformed theYchaotic mess” into an
I consider Stephanie a very-high- -
functioning person. “Not everyone can do all orderly world. “I’m Chief cave woman. And
then I’ve got this crew I call my cavemen;
that,” I said.
they take it all upstairs for me. I’ve even
“In the beginning I wasn’t,” she said. “I
saved the Pantry money,” she boasts. “I’ve
don’t do good in crowds. I have anxiety and
learned what to
depression. SAFES
order.”
got me hooked up
The work has given
with Multnomah
her
a better sense of
County Health
doesn't matter what hind of her own strength.
Department. They got
decisions were made. It's what “I’m that jack of all
me a doctor, a bus
was
the trigger that mail that trades, master of
pass, the right meds
none,” she said. “Let’s
domino fall? It's not just the
for my anxiety. I do
better now. SAFES
one thing. It goes all the way to see ... I’ve been a
dance
saved me.”
the end where you're just down bartender,
instructor, roof and
As Stephanie tells
and out, homeless, period, and window company site
her story she often
you've
got nothing left."
manger, I’ve worked
stops to reconsider,
at Sears, Dotty’s. If
or to emphasize.
someone had a job,
“When I moved into
I’d do it I figure if I
Hamilton West, it was
don’t know how to do it, teach me, and I’m
November 2013. Nov. 8. You know, food
willing to learn.
stamps don’t go as far as the public would
“Before I start something, I plan and
think.” At her new apartment she learned of
picture everything, how I want it to be, and
St. Stephen’s Food Pantry, right across the
then how am I going to get it there?
street. After a while she walked over to see
Whereas Paul is hilarious. He’ll go, ‘Oh, this
what help she could get. It was around
will be great!’ He sees the end product, the
Christmas, cold and wet. The pantry had
dream.” She paused, working to get the
plentiful food available, all for free, and the
right words, then decides on: “I implement
people giving it out had come in off the
street to get help themselves. She liked-that. the process to complete the dream.”
Other volunteers say she’s helped to
But it was an organizational nightmare.
ground Paul, to tame his expansiveness. He
“When I first stepped in here,” Stephanie
would serve the whole world a full meal
said, “I saw a chaotic mess.” She laughs.
every day, open the church to Portland’s
“Then I asked somebody, ‘Who’s in charge?’
entire street population, house them all. But
Someone pointed and said, ‘That guy.’” She
even Paul knows one small parish cannot do
rolls her eyes pointedly and we share a
all that. Stephanie’s work helps to keep it
laugh. I also know who was in charge: Paul
practical. Paul and Stephanie both believe in
Davis, the Outreach Minister.
the Table’s mission: “We are building up a:'
Paul is a visionary, an expansive,
community around the table, with and for
welcome-everyone, if-you-ask-them-to-help-
our vulnerable neighbors who often feel
you-build-it-they-will-come kind of guy. He
isolated and alone.” They just deal with it in
had a great scene going: food-available for
Page 11
different ways; they complement each other.
The Table now serves over 2,000 meals
per month, in addition to providing Last
Thursday Food Pantry. As part of Pantry
day, some of the Underground youth run a
“Street Table”: food people can use if they
have no way to cook.
“People on the street were coming to
Pantry and shopping, but how were they
going to cook?” Stephanie said. “They can’t
cook pasta. They need peanut butter, shelf
stable milk, protein bars, power bars, things
they can toss in their backpacks that they
carry around all day. We load up a shopping
bag and each person gets one — every bag
has the same things.”
Though she has her moods and can be a
tough taskmaster, she takes good care of
her volunteers. “I always try to do
something special, give them that great
‘attaboy,’ because everyone needs to hear
that.”
Clay Street isn’t the only place Stephanie
volunteers. She also remains loyal to the
program she credits with saving her life.
“I take care of the women at SAFES
down there on Second and Burnside, feed
them lunch every Wednesday, and get them
clothing, diapers for the babies, et cetera.”
She’s gotten her family involved at Clay
Street: Her brother is one of the “cave
men,” her daughter is a pantry volunteer,
and even her grandson, at 2 years old,
“knows how to sort a box.”
SAFES helped her get a grant through
the Women’s Collaborative that will help
with her rent as long as she keeps giving
back, and her daughter, now 22, pays her to
babysit her 2-year-old.
There are plenty of hard times in this
work, and she is sometimes downed by
migraines. It’s not an easy population; many
have some form of mental illness or PTSD.
“There’s the arguing, fighting over the food.
Last month I had to pull two guys together
and tell them, ‘Please leave that outside.
We’re just trying to take care of those folks
like I’m trying to take care of you. Let’s
calm down, respect each other.’
“It’s part of the Clay Street philosophy.
“This place is non-violent, non
condescending, whether it be speech,
actions, anything. This is a safe place,” she
said. “I want people to feel welcome.”
oving through her underground realm
on this Wednesday afternoon,
Stephanie is focused on tomorrow’s pantry
and on the long-term view, talking almost to
herself as she touches the neatly-piled and
labeled boxes in the orderly basement. “So,
yeah, I wanna replace all these shelves.
They just raised the money to fix this place
up. This will all be gutted, they’ll put in new
shelving. Now that over there is the juice for
Saturday breakfasts, this is Tuesday Chili,
and that’s Summer Sack Lunch stuff. The
rest all belongs to the pantry. Used to be
icky before we got the flooring last year.
We’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six
fridges of frozen meat (she gives each fridge
a friendly slap, like on the rump of a favorite
horse), plus there’s another up in the
Sacristy, and I have an annex too.”
She stops, laughs, as though she’s caught
herself in the mirror. “I have the whole
pantry in. my head. If they need something I
can say, “Go in there, turn left here, it’s on
the second shelf.”
M