# 2026-10-23 - Homeless Stories
       
       My grandfather hopped a freight train to come to Oregon during the
       Great Depression.  He became a logger, then worked in a mill, and for
       most of his adult life he worked two full time jobs at a time.  After
       retiring, he continued to do physical labor and side jobs.  In many
       ways he was my primary role model.
       
       Knowing that my grandfather hopped freight trains made me more
       sympathetic towards bums.  As a kid i spent some time talking with
       them along railroad tracks.  In general they treated me with dignity
       and respect, so i was inclined to do the same.
       
       There are many synonyms for homeless people.  Some prefer to call
       them the unhoused.  I personally like the old-fashioned term
       vagabond.  I don't use the term in daily speech because i am not
       sure it will mean the same thing to other people.
       
       Around 2016 i began hanging out with homeless people again and
       listening to their stories.  A jaded person would call these
       "sob stories" and suspect that they were not entirely factual or
       forthcoming.  Be that as it may, it did not hurt me to give them the
       benefit of the doubt and hear them out.  All i was doing was
       listening to their story.
       
       When you listen enough, you find that the stereotypes do not hold
       true.  The stereotypical image is of the unkempt man on the street
       corner who is unemployable and has addictions and/or mental illness.
       A friend told me that in the 1990s he heard on NPR that the majority
       of homeless people are women and children.  The piece also discussed
       homeless firefighters in San Francisco who lived in their cars and
       used friend's mailing addresses to apply for jobs.
       
       I will re-tell a few of the stories i have heard.
       
       I met a woman in Eugene who told me that she and her husband had a
       nice house, no kids, and they both worked professional jobs.  They
       were financially very well off.  Then her husband got cancer and lost
       his ability to work.  She worked to support her husband.  He racked
       up medical debt, then died.  Due to the stress, she lost her mental
       health.  To be more accurate, she lost her ability to remember
       things.  This meant she could not hold down any job, and with their
       medical debt, she became homeless.
       
       I met a woman in Grants Pass who works as a school bus driver.  She
       held odd jobs during summer vacations but depended on unemployment
       checks to pay rent.  One year the state made a clerical error and
       paid her too much.  Unaware of this, she was surprised when the next
       year she could not collect unemployment due to the clerical error.
       She lost her housing and began living in her car.  She continued to
       work as a school bus driver and made an effort to regain housing.
       
       I met a father and son in Eugene who became homeless when their
       landlord was busted for selling drugs.  They were poor and they
       abruptly lost their housing.  They could not find new housing in time
       and became homeless.
       
       I met an adult son who lived with his elderly parents.  He worked
       full time, paid the rent for their apartment, and helped take care of
       them in their senility.  In the hospital, a nurse punctured his
       father's bladder while inserting a catheter.  It progressed to a
       blood infection.  His father recovered, but apparently the fever had
       caused brain damage and a radical personality change.  He died
       shortly after that.  Within the same year, the mother died too.  The
       son became depressed, which impacted his judgment.  He moved into his
       car to save money.  Just like that, he became homeless.
       
       When i look at news articles & statements from city governments &
       relief organizations, they consistently tell narratives about
       recovery being the first step.  I can believe that recovery is an
       important step on the whole.  But i've seen individuals herded into
       recovery programs when that wasn't what they actually needed.
       
       It's a convenient narrative because it places the responsibility on
       the homeless person.  They made the wrong lifestyle choices and
       their situation is a natural consequence of their moral failing.
       
       During the Great Depression, the federal government recognized that
       it was a systematic problem.  One response was to create New Deal
       work programs.  In other words, the government created jobs to do
       public works.  While these programs can be criticized, the intent was
       to give more dignified alternatives to squalor.  Squalor is another
       way of saying crime, malnutrition, and so forth.
       
       The way i see it, the current narratives deny the realities of
       economic contraction and stratification between the "haves" and the
       "have nots".  I wonder how long the "haves" will be able to turn a
       blind eye and sustain the belief that they themselves are not at
       risk; that they will never face being unhoused because they are a
       better, more deserving kind of person.
       
       In a setting of economic contraction and stratification, i foresee
       endless need.  This means opportunities for people to derive meaning
       and purpose from helping each other out.  I want to keep an eye out
       for the lightning rod of mutual aid.  It could spark a massive
       discharge for the better.  That would be something worthwhile,
       something to be passionate about, and to put one's shoulder into it.
       
       tags: bencollver,oregon,political
       
       # Tags
       
 (DIR) bencollver
 (DIR) oregon
 (DIR) political