Anya Update

Eighteen months ago, Anya, a charter member of the Old Crow Book Club, attended the launch party for the book, brought a homemade salad, was sober, housed in a subsidized apartment, and looked healthy with a big smile. She'd helped me distribute the book in the neighborhood street libraries when it first came out in the spring of 2023 and refused payment. I once gave her a ride downtown to check in with her social worker. If she hadn't made that appointment, she would have been evicted. I also bought her lunch at a tavern when I unexpectedly ran into her while seated outside. There, I learned she was barely covering her part of the rent by providing customized pornography to paying customers via her phone. (No, I didn't check it out. That's definitely not my thing.) She was also not drinking, not using any hard drugs. She was a reader. She walked everywhere.

Yesterday, I saw her piled on the sidewalk in front of the convenience store at 9:30 in the morning on the way to visit my dad in assisted living. She was hunched over, half covered by a tarp in 35 degree weather, and writing distress calls on pieces of cardboard with a sharpie. The stop light had turned red so I had time to read:

My name is Anya.

I am 38 years old.

PTSD sufferer.

Autistic.

Sex abuse survivor.

Homeless.

Please help.

Around her were a shopping cart and garden wagon, both crammed with possessions. Her back was to me so I couldn't see her face. We'd met in front of the grocery store several weeks ago and she didn't initially recognize me. The homeless grapevine had told me she was using meth and fentanyl.

How do I help this homeless woman that I know and knew when she was housed and sober and saw her light? I can't use the same strategy I used for my friend Mark. We got him into housing because he had established a routine where a City of Portland homeless outreach worker could find him and take it from there.

This is an impossibility with Anya at this point.

I decided to truncate my visit with my father so I could go to the convenience store and talk to Anya. What I would say? I had no idea. What I would do? I had no idea.

I spent less than 15 minutes with Dad, and no, I didn't tell him why I had to leave early.

As I approached the convenience store, no Anya. It seemed almost unfathomable that she could have moved all her shit from the area in that amount of time.

But the sidewalk was bare.

I circled around the block. Nothing.

Where had she gone?

There is no way she she lasts the winter.