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Other articles in Part 1

Oregon's unseen poor

Remarriage and training help single mom escape poverty

Homelessness in Oregon, Life on the Streets

Workshop simulates what it's like to be poor

Official government poverty line shows signs of old age

1999 federal poverty guidelines

Related links

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty

Homelessness in Oregon

Life on the streets

story by Tom Musselwhite

I am a 49-year-old father of three, Vietnam era U.S. Navy veteran. Raised in a large, old-fashioned extended family in the Deep South, I was brought up with a strong work ethic. I have worked for my living since the age of twelve. I graduated high school and have two years of college. I have lived in Oregon for over twenty years.

In late 1992, the onset of a disabling leg condition prevented me from continuing my career as a pre-press technician in the printing industry. Coupled with stresses I had carried since the Vietnam years, I hit a wall of sorts.

My workers' comp claim was denied because the state had recently enacted legislation disallowing preexisting conditions and I admitted to having pulled a muscle as a teenager.

I spent the next two years living in a $200, 1965 Ford van on the streets of Eugene. No income, unable to perform regular physical labor, unable to professionally employ the skills I had developed, then denied Veterans benefits, I was also too proud to stand in line for food, handouts, or jump through the system's hoops designed to weed out fraud. By late 1993 I had become active in the Homeless Action Coalition and was making myself a regular presence at city hall.

Technically, I am still homeless, but thanks to a new law enacted by the city of Eugene I can live in a 12-foot travel trailer parked in the backyard of a local nonprofit.

Although my situation was dire enough, I think what bothered me most was seeing so many others who had simply lost all hope with no way out short of a miracle.

The following is based on my own experience, not particularly scientific, but generally confirmed by the research of others and myself.

Of the most visible "on the street" homeless, about one-third or perhaps up to fifty percent, are suffering from mental illness.

Most authorities agree that of the mentally ill homeless-about half become homeless as a result of an existing mental illness-the other half become mentally ill as a result of becoming homeless. It is, after all, no small obstacle when your life circumstances change so dramatically that you suddenly find yourself without a bed, bathroom, cooking facilities, and forbidden by authorities to protect yourself from the elements or even sit down and rest. I have witnessed far too many instances of people walking around in the rain all night; some wrapped in a wet blanket for protection, some with a raincoat or umbrella, some with no protection at all. I have seen people banging their heads against telephone poles as if looking for a distraction from their misfortune, and some just walking around and around in tiny circles mumbling to themselves.

Another third of the most visible "on the street" sort have drug or alcohol dependencies. Like the mentally ill population, sometimes it is easy to believe that as many as fifty percent of the population we are talking about have a primary drug or alcohol problem.

These two populations tend to overlap each other. The dually diagnosed are those who are diagnosed with both a disabling mental illness and a substance abuse problem.

So far we have categorized, with a broad brush, sixty to seventy-five percent of the most visible of the homeless we see on our streets. Who are the other, more or less, thirty percent?

The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains that one-third of all homeless are veterans. Many homeless vets have also developed substance abuse problems and some are mentally ill.

That leaves about twenty percent of our "most visible homeless" to sort into groups we can comfortably cubbyhole. Who are they?

Until recently, I felt rather comfortable with the above figures. I would have concluded by saying the balance of the homeless were:

-the disabled and elderly-retired who are unable to increase their incomes and have been priced out of the housing market, sometimes due to the cost of medicines needed for their health;

-older single males estranged from families or with no families;

-an increasing number of females, those with few skills, poorly educated, or simply disadvantaged by nature.

Most are caught in an economic situation where they simply are not competitive in the job market and therefore are unable to consistently maintain housing in an increasingly expensive housing market.

Larger in number, another segment of the "homeless" are called the "hidden homeless." The "hidden homeless" are those doubled up with friends, family, or otherwise comfortably out of sight.

Today I am not so comfortable with that conclusion. Today I am confronted by more and more families, even just children on the street with no place to stay and a far cry from having any place to call home.

And what do they endure? Not just predation from drug dealers and an underground sex market, but also abuse by the very policing authorities which had-oughta-be protecting all of us.

They are doused with gasoline and set on fire. Awakened in the middle of the night by vicious gangs and beaten, raped, tortured, or murdered. They are run down and run over by people driving vehicles, and chased away from commercial districts by profit-minded entrepreneurs. Even the religious organizations whose duty it is to provide relief to the unfortunate are often forbidden to do so, even if they wanted to.

Now that we have sorted and characterized the "most visible homeless" let us ask what common feature they share? It is not chronic alcoholism, drug abuse, or mental illness.

The common thread between all is poverty.

Editor's note: Tom Musselwhite is the editor of 'oIkos, a newspaper published by Project Recover to serve the homeless and low income population of Eugene and central Lane County.

Article 3 of 6 in Part 1