PASTOR DAN BRYANT FOMENTS AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING REVOLUTION
WITH ALL 10 OF HIS FINGERS STUCK IN THE DAM OF HUMAN SUFFERING by Ben Ricker
couple degrees colder and the rain would
freeze.
“Hi there. Hello. Excuse me,” Pastor Dan
Bryant says to a crumpled heap of blankets
and backpacks. “It’s time to start collecting
your things.”
Silence and darkness. Only select corner
marts, coffee joints and gas stations are open at this hour.
“I just need a sign of recognition,” Bryant asserts.
A corner of fabric folds back, and out from the
confusing wad signals a tiny hand.
“Thank you,” Bryant says, and continues on.
He perimeters the First Christian Church of Eugene
before sunup every day, rousing half a dozen prone figures
strewn hither and yon in the damp concrete courtyard.
Numbers have been down lately. Possibly the cops have
been patrolling this end of downtown more vigilantly,
Bryant guesses.
He disturbs two more campers spread out on the landing
atop the chapel steps. It pains him to have to do this, but
he has no choice; there’s no way to operate a functioning
church with bodies splayed everywhere in the way.
Everyone’s heard fables about towns up and down I-5
that supply undesirables with one-way Greyhound bus
tickets to Eugene. That’s partly why it’s so much worse
here, people say, because everyone knows Eugene’s a
soft place to crash. The city’s exquisite services make it a
magnet for the nation’s destitute, others complain.
Most of the unhoused who seek services within Lane
County report that their last address was either in Eugene
or Springfield. Bryant can only surmise why so many
extraordinary tales spring up around the homeless.
As is the case with any legend, there are probably
kernels of truth at the root level, but it all sounds to Bryant
like a lot of excuses propagated to deprive our poverty-
stricken brothers and sisters the empathy they plainly
deserve.
Nonetheless, he wastes little time agonizing over
where the multitude originates. They’re here, Bryant says,
and that’s good enough reason to ask how we can help.
It’s simple, he adds, but not easy.
Other than some empty waterlogged boots, a discarded
pair of camouflage pants, a few loogies and the words
“Thank You” written in the corner in black marker, the
courtyard empties out before sunrise.
When the clock strikes nine in the church administrative
office foyer, a lanky, disheveled man with long, drooping
features races in and yammers at the receptionist. Several
leitmotifs emerge from the streams of garbled language:
Guy needs the bathroom. And a phone, if that’s alright.
The moment he storms off down the hall to the
lavatory, a woman enters, also needing the facilities. Next
a young couple walks in with loads and loads of baggage
needing bus passes in order make separate Springfield
court appearances on time.
A
Typical morning, says the receptionist, who has seen it
all many times before.
Hours from now a volunteer will arrive and hear
requests from hard-up supplicants who come in search of
basic supplies: a bite to eat, toiletries, bus fare — Bryant
worked out a bulk rate with the Lane Transit District years
ago so that he could afford to hand out a few bus passes
every day — and whatever other little necessities most
Americans take for granted on a constant basis.
Until then, the office foyer is filled with the city’s
bedraggled needy, coming and going. One couple,
probably in their early 20s, hopes someone can help them
add minutes to their shared pay-as-you-go cell phone.
They’re flat broke, they say, and it kills them to think they
might be missing callbacks from any of the number of
places they applied to work last week.
Everyone who wanders in fills out a little card that lists
some vital information and the reason for today’s visit.
The volunteer Good Samaritan does everything in her
limited power to help them. It’s an imperfect system the
pastor set up years ago, after walk-in traffic had swelled
beyond the point where he was having to constantly shunt
important church business to the back burner.
It’s not always a handout they’re looking for, Bryant
says. A lot of people come in just needing to be heard. A
woman who spent last night curled up in a cardboard box
“somewhere dry” tells today’s volunteer that she’s feeling
depressed enough to hit up an AA meeting just to have
somebody to talk with.
It’s not yet noon when word reaches Bryant that the
dryer at Opportunity Village Eugene is on the fritz again.
Wedged deep down in the out-of-the-way industrial
zone belonging to Eugene’s Trainsong neighborhood, OVE
is the modest gated micro-community initially conceived
to provide the city with some transitional housing. For the
dozens who live there, sharing a single washing machine
and dryer set, it’s a neighborhood catastrophe any time
either machine craps out.
Unfortunately for the villagers, Bryant is about as
qualified as any other trained theologian to mend busted
household appliances. He’s plumb out of ideas after
checking the electrical and fiddling with a few wires.
Pastor Bryant never howls an obscenity, but the look on
his face says he might be thinking some.
Bryant must at times feel like he’s standing in the
middle of a slow-moving train wreck, bodies continuing
to pile up around him. Inspecting Eugene’s homeless
crisis simultaneously from a bird’s eye and street-level
view must confound and devastate from time to time.
But not today. Too much needs doing.
Bryant stews over whether to summon the same repair
guy who charged OVE an arm and a leg weeks ago to
repair the same busted dryer or send someone to purchase
a gently used replacement from St. Vinnie’s.
Decisions, decisions.
Originally the OVE idea was this: For a dollar a day,
“villagers” could stay as long as it takes to get back on
their feet.
A small cot in a dry shack with a fixed address is
everything in the world when compared to sleeping in the
freezing mud all winter long.
Unfortunately, scraping together enough cash to cover
first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, has gotten
so difficult in Eugene that a lot of villagers are having
a hard time making the leap to independent housing
arrangements, Bryant says.
That, and some are dogged by rap sheets that make
it hard for landlords to select them over other qualified
tenant applicants.
Seeing the goalposts vanish further into the distance,
Bryant beefed-up the OVE model and began working
on building something permanent nearby. Much to the
neighbors’ chagrin, Bryant’s nonprofit, SquareOne
Villages, recently snapped up a vacant lot beside the train
tracks not far from here, where they plan to break ground
this summer on a new kind of a housing development.
Architectural mockups show a neat formation of tiny
houses — renting at $250 — garlanded by walkways and
ringing a landscaped central clearing. On the same lot, a
spacious community center sits apart from the clustered
homes.
SquareOne will set aside a small percentage of one’s
monthly rent payment and hold the money in a separate
account as a kind of equity. People moving out will be
reimbursed that amount, plus interest.
Furthermore, it will encourage a sense of pride in
ownership, Bryant adds.
To get to this point, the pastor has had to rope together
a wide coalition of architects, planners, nonprofit
executives, advocates, clergy from nearby churches and
even certified accountants. His afternoon simmers away
in a monotonous boardroom meeting with SquareOne’s
finance committee.
The only time Bryant yawns all day is in the second
hour of an arid back-and-forth about nonprofit tax filing.
Bryant swears later it’s all really fascinating stuff.
His day ends long after dark. He sneaks in late to the
Tuesday evening OVE community powwow. Any 35
people hoping to live harmoniously together are going to
have to learn to face community challenges openly and
directly, and Bryant likes to attend whenever his schedule
permits.
This isn’t exactly the life Bryant saw for himself
when he first set out to become a preacher. The world has
changed a lot since then, though. And barring an actual
miracle, the situation is not going to improve on its own.
Nobody told Bryant that his path would someday lead
to breakneck crash courses in accounting, zoning and land
use.
“I guess I missed that day in seminary,” he says. ■
eugeneweekly.com • March 23, 2017
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