homeless people

There are a lot of homeless people living in cars or camping out under overpasses in Lake City. So many that the Seattle neighborhood has its own task force on homelessness. But this is a task force that helps turn words into action.

John, a Vietnam veteran who lived on the streets of Lake City for 15 years, says it’s “scary” to move into his own apartment.  He hopes he will find camaraderie in his new apartment building where 38 of the 75 units are reserved for homeless vets.

"The thing is to have people become a family here and not 75 individuals," John told Keith Ervin of The Seattle Times. "It's important that people watch out for each other."

John’s sentiments remind me of Stan, who I met outside the Seattle Center last weekend after attending a session on homelessness at the Guiding Lights weekend conference. The session, presented by Bill Block, project director of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, volunteer and author Judy Lightfoot and homeless advocate Joe Ingram, highlighted the number of homeless people in Seattle and King County, and how we as individuals can relate to them person-to-person.

There was the Detroit hotel and restaurant owner who tried to kill himself.

Then there was the Maryland political analyst who lost her $760,000 home to foreclosure. Aaron Heideman found her living in a Toyota Camry.

And who could forget the guy running a food bank in Georgia who said he was going into debt at the rate of $1,000 a month to help his neighbors?

Those are just three of the hundreds of stories Aaron Heideman, aka The Man In A Van, collected on a cross-country odyssey to hear from Americans, in their own words, how their lives have been affected by the recession.

“How has the recession affected you?” A sign atop his van asks.

“Tell me your story,” beckons the van’s side.

Laid off from his job at a paint store in southern Oregon, Heideman decided he would do a conceptual art project, driving his pencil-yellow Dodge van through California, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard and through New England to Grand Rapids, Mich.

[caption id="attachment_6365" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Heideman outside a Wallingford laundromat"][/caption]

That’s where he entered himself in the annual ArtPrize competition in September, hoping to win the $250,000 prize.

He didn’t. So he recently moved to Seattle, where he went to art school and lived for some years. That’s where I caught up with him.

A South Florida news reporter who met Heideman in the summer described him as “not-surprisingly scruffy” because the bearded, sandal-clad artist was living in his van. This week the clean-shaven 29-year-old was dressed in a light-blue button-down shirt, neatly pressed grey slacks and shiny black shoes. He’s job hunting.

The Oregonian has an interesting story about Portland police shifting tactics to control homeless people and others who loiter downtown after a judge struck down law that banned sitting or lying on city sidewalks. Following the judge’s rejecting of the so-called "sit-lie" law last month,  police struggled to keep loiterers from blocking driveways, and have since resorted to arresting citizens for low-level offenses such as littering or spitting in public. Police say the “strict order maintenance enforcement” is necessary, but critics feel the tactics are excessive.
Also check out this worthwhile piece on the sit-lie ban by the Oregonian's James Mayer, narrating a week of observations on downtown Portland streets.

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