Modest Proposals to Address the Homeless Crisis (Part 2)

5)A state program funded by a tax on sports gambling winnings would fund the hiring of a battalion of photographers, writers, filmmakers and podcasters to fan out across Oregon and document the stories of the homeless under a series editorial guidelines modeled after the New Deal-era Farm Security's program of investigating the terrible working and living conditions of agricultural workers in the South. Think Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and James Agee. These artists would publish and publicize their efforts on multiple print and online platforms and archive them for future scholastic and artistic use. In this endeavor, America may discover something about the homeless and our collective responses to the crisis that we don't know yet or can't even conceive of knowing. The creative process might also assist the homeless in telling their stories, and for some, perhaps even many, this could be the first step to making the transition out of homelessness.

6) Every public or private secondary school within walking distance of a homeless encampment (which means about every secondary school in Oregon) should implement some kind of regular outreach to that encampment that involves students and teachers. Many students would balk. Well, they don't have to participate and can remain back in the classroom on tablets and complete boring rote tasks. Let willing students meet and interact with residents of the encampment, gather stories, provide basic living essentials, clean up sites, perform a street concert, whatever drives the curiosity of the students and/or assists residents of the encampment to begin a transition to housing or an improved existence where they are. This would require some truly extraordinary teachers to implement. They exist in Oregon.

7)Dumpsters should be dropped unannounced at every encampment of significant size and pay the residents right then and there under supervision to clean up the area. It's one-day only so the neighbors don't bring their crap to fill up the dumpsters.

8)Right now, across Oregon, there are hundreds of unfilled positions with various non profits and government agencies tasked with alleviating/solving the homeless crisis. Community colleges should offer an associates degree that trains students to work in all areas of the homeless crisis, from grant writing to street outreach to case working to shelter management to drug and alcohol counseling to assembling tiny homes or retrofitting RVs. You don't need a bachelor's degree. And this associates degree shouldn't cost a student a cent to earn. On the contrary, how about a cash incentive to pursue this profession?

9)Recently I read an article about a man who owned and operated an auto repair garage in Fairview and had hired a homeless man as a grease monkey and let him live on site in an RV the owner supplied. Great idea! I'd written about exactly the same arrangement months ago in this newsletter, although the garage owner in my neighborhood let his employee live in a battered sedan on the property, rather than the relative comfort of an RV. I have since noticed several other businesses in the neighborhood that host someone living in a RV. Why not encourage more of these tidy arrangements by offering used trailers, subsidies, tax credits, or all three. It might also fill chronic employment shortages because virtually every garage/service station I've patronized displays Help Wanted signs. I know of three homeless men living near me that would instantly become housed and employed as a security guard/gopher if they could score a sweet gig like the Fairview one.

I first recall seeing this type of arrangement years ago at a Gold Beach service station/repair garage, a real old school establishment that still sold paper maps and didn't serve nachos. One of the employees lived in an RV parked next to the shop. This lasted for six months and then the RV vanished and I think the employee found traditional housing.

That arrangement made quite an impression on me for its brilliant simplicity and practicality and I began noticing other such ones in Reedsport, Molalla, Gladstone, Oregon City, Portland, Lebanon, Astoria, Sweet Home, Jacksonville, pretty much everywhere in Oregon I traveled. With one exception (a metalwork factory) all these were automotive-related businesses, and of course, independently owned.

It is interesting to remember that generations ago, many Americans lived in the retail establishment where they worked. The arrangement was also a staple of novels and films. Remember the drifter in The Postman Always Rings Twice who lived in the house with the married couple and worked in their diner and filling station? And the Wilsons in The Great Gatsby, who owned and operated the auto garage? Okay, those ended in adultery and murder, but you see my point. Many two-storey buildings from that era were constructed for strictly this dual purpose and I routinely bicycle past several of them, including a saloon where I occasionally imbibe, that still function as originally designed, meaning someone/a family is living in the building where the business is located. Perhaps developers should be encouraged to build this type of mixed-use housing/retail space and/or dedicate apartments in the larger buddings for specific free/reduced rent use by those who run businesses on the ground floor. Sometimes good old ideas are good new ideas.