Stump'd

Several times a week, I cycle over the Burnside Bridge, one of (I think) 10 bridges that link East and West Portland (there’s a great frikkin’ river down the middle of the city, dontchaknow. Like the Yarra, but bigger and less fetid).

photo by avrenim_acceber

Burnside Avenue cuts through a district called the Old Town. I’ve talked a bit about that area before — it’s home to the world’s shittest Chinatown, some faux-divey hipster bars, some authentically-divey dive bars, frat-boy nightclubs, the crappy craft fest that is the Saturday Market (which curiously also runs on Sunday, just in case you need a second day to buy wacky hats, dream catchers and tie-dyed dog outfits), ’90s pinball and the 24 Hour Church of Elvis. It’s also home to the largest concentration of social services in Portland (or certainly of the parts I’ve visited).

So when I cross over Burnside to the East in the late afternoon, there’s always a long line of homeless people snaking down along the bridge waiting to get into the Portland Rescue Mission for a meal or a bed for the night. At the moment, it’s usually pretty balmy around that time, and they sit out on the footpath shooting the shit in the sun. By the time I’m coming back over the bridge hours later, it’s darker and colder, but the line of people outside isn’t any shorter. By that time, most have conceded defeat and bunkered down for the night in under piles of old sleeping bags and blankets.

photo by orb9220

One of the questions I get asked a lot by people back home (after they ask “Is everyone fat?”) is: “Do you see homeless people everywhere?”

Statistically, yes there are a lot more homeless people here than back home. Melbourne has a population of about 5 million, about 4000 of whom are homeless. The entire state of Oregon has a population of 3 million people, but about 17,000 of them are homeless.

But I’ve spent my entire adult life living in Collingwood and Fitzroy. I’ve lived down the street from plenty of shelters and soup kitchens, hurdled sleeping bodies on the footpath and have listened to more “have to go visit my brother in hospital in Ballarat” stories than I’ve had hot meals. I’ve travelled through plenty of slums in south-east Asia. I’m used to seeing homeless people everywhere.

My answer to the question is this: “No, I see BATSHIT CRAZY homeless people everywhere.”

It’s a rare day that I go without seeing people wandering around the streets ranting and raving to themselves, shrieking with manic laughter or screaming incomprehensibly at me. Yes, I met the odd nutty transient in Melbourne — I caught the 86 tram every day for years — but the widespread level of mental illness here is pretty staggering.

It’s no great revelation that the US health care system is shit (spare me your lectures, American readers. I respect your right to argue for a shit health care system on libertarian grounds, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is still shit). But you usually think more in terms of poor kiddies who can’t get surgery and injured workers who can’t afford pain medication. You don’t think so much (or I don’t) about entire lives wasted because mental illness is just left to grow and fester, and psychiatric help just isn’t there for people who cant afford it.

photo by Black Dog Photography

You know those sci fi movies where someone has created or engineered a “perfect” society, but then there’s always some dungeon or secret government facility where all the “freaks” are stored away? All the people who somehow “went wrong”? Walking through the Old Town reminds me of that. Perfect people sit sipping cocktails in fancy pants bars, while the broken ones stumble past pushing old trolleys full of empty cans and rambling nonsensical conspiracy theories to themselves. But the pretty people are possibly just one lost job and one wacky neuron away from being on the other side of the glass.

I don’t know if they worry about it, and I don’t know what it’s like to be in that situation — my passport provides a sense of security I’m only just starting to truly appreciate. But I worry about it for them every time I ride over that bridge.

photo by Thomas Hawk. Read the story behind the photo here.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 9th, 2010 at 5:15 am and is filed under Portland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.