Trying and Helping
I’ve written before about “trying to help,” specifically about the homeless population. To sum up the previous essay: Trying is a cockroach- and bedbug infested flophouse for five dollars or a voucher. Trying is making it illegal to be homeless, so they get arrested, lose all their belongings, get thrown in jail for a few days, then tossed back onto the streets with nowhere to go. What’s the point of that? Now I’ve seen “helping.” There is an outfit called Urban Alchemy here in Portland that helps you get into a tiny home and then into real housing. They approached our little group and asked if we’d like to be in their system. I spoke with one of them briefly just to get an idea of what they do. They’re helping, well and truly. I also got to witness something called the “free store” giving out clothes, hot food, water, even cigarettes and joints, on a first-come first-served basis, but the crowd I saw was relatively small. (I asked my friend Rose about this, and she says there...