Loreena the Homeless Grant Writer (Part 1)

A woman with long blonde hair wearing glasses and a red jacket sat at an angle on a bench outside the Milwaukie, Oregon library. She appeared anywhere from 60 to 80. Her cracked phone was plugged into an outlet. A backpack and shopping bag rested on the bench. Several feet away, stood a wire rolling cart neatly crammed with possessions, including a rolled, blue sleeping bag.

I had just exited the library after checking out some magazines. It was 10:30 in the morning on a weekday in September.

The woman's physical presence did not suggest homelessness, but the physical evidence arrayed around her did. She exuded total sobriety.

She was writing in a spiral notebook and had filled an entire page with a neat cursive script of the type almost extinct in American life. She wrote with a huge turquoise ring on her right hand. It looked pretty cool sliding above the paper.

If I see someone writing in longhand on paper in public, I always ask what they are writing. Always.

So I asked her.

“A grant,” she said.

What the hell?

“A grant!” I said. “What's it for?'

“To attract tourists to the area.”

I asked her about nature of the grant.

The woman went on to describe what I quickly recognized as a grant program to receive funds from Oregon tourism officials to create and promote tourism opportunities in communities all across the state.

And how did I know that? Because years ago I had written several successful grants from this program to promote literary festivals on the Central Oregon Coast. I also was paid to speak on Oregon's unique conservation history at an event funded by the program, a regional gathering in Bend of rural water treatment operators. Yes, I gigged a gathering focused on helping keep shit out of people's lives! I think I sold a hundred books that day and exited with a couple grand of cash in my pockets.

I asked the woman how she'd heard about the grant.

“The internet,” she said.

“So what's the idea to promote tourism?” I said.

The woman perked up on hearing my question.

“I'm a rock hound!” she said and then launched into her proposal with gusto: