The Path Ministry

 This is the body of an email I sent to the mayor of Portland:  You don’t know what it’s like out here. I am disabled and homeless. I am fortunate in that I sleep in a shelter, giving me access to resources, such as a laptop and a place to plug it in, that my unsheltered friends do not have. I am also an ordained minister and street preacher. As part of my pastoral work, I counsel and listen to other people living in shelters or on the streets. Since November, I have interviewed 170 people in this dangerous and tenuous position. What I have learned may surprise you. I’d like to tell you some of the realities of being homeless. I will address the ruling in Grants Pass vs Johnson that made it illegal to sleep in public, how this means the authorities can do anything they want to you, share with you the truth about the drug problem, and put a human face on the crisis that you need to see. Because I believe that every complaint should come with an answer, I will also offer a s...

  A rhetorical analysis of “I Just Wanna Go Home” by Bryce Dole              Over a quarter of homeless people are senior citizens. This article addresses that problem, providing facts and statistics as well as personal stories and proposed solutions. As a homeless person nearing 55, I must admit my own biases when it comes to the housing gap in Portland. I see a lot of elderly people in the shelter where I live, some of them in wheelchairs or using walkers. One is 72, and she has been homeless for five years. Another is 74 and came from Iowa. She became homeless because her husband passed away and he was the sole breadwinner in the household. Now she shares a bunk with her son, who is also over 55. Another woman I spoke to, aged 56, was kicked out of her home by her ex-boyfriend. Because she wasn’t fleeing from domestic violence, her options for shelter were limited. These women illustrate the struggle that the article directly addresses. ...

 In this paper, I will offer the three sociological perspectives on the problem of homelessness: Functionalism, Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interactionalism. I will examine these three perspectives for whatever valid points they may hold. (Note that I do not use the euphemism “unhoused.” This is because those of us living in shelters are, technically, housed, but still homeless. None of us in the shelter where I sleep refer to ourselves as “unhoused.” We are homeless, and no euphemism will change the reality of it.) I have been homeless since November of 2025, living in a shelter and surviving on food stamps and what little I get from financial aid. This gives me the opportunity to see the problem of homelessness more clearly than those who have never experienced it.             First, Functionalism. Extreme poverty and the resulting homelessness disrupt the stability of society by taxing resources, money that could be used...