Interview with Non-Profit Director #2

Interview with Non-Profit Executive Director #2:
 

1.       What is the time in your life that you felt the most at home, centered, yourself and why?

My interviewee had to sit for this question for a moment, you could tell he was really thinking about many times in his life. I allowed for the pause and space for him to think, but this was difficult to sit with the silence.

Response: “Boy… that’s a hard one…ummm…I would say when ….well...it’s hard to say, but I’ll say this a time in recent years that I felt most centered, probably was when my wife and I were in Colorado last summer and I got to hike, and be out in the wilderness and be by myself but also do some things with her and spend time balancing those two things. To be away from the stress that I usually have to face. It was a moment when I was really centered. I’m not a real wilderness person but I like exercising and hiking because it helps me feel and get grounded. I like hiking where I have a destination on the top of a mountain to see the beauty, waterfalls somewhere. I feel centered when I am around waterfalls. The ions of the water, I tend to look for the waterfalls to feel centered. The combination of the waterfalls and being with my wife and also by myself, especially when I wear myself out, it allows for me to do lots of contemplation about what I am doing with myself and with my life a little bit of outside of it I become hopeful again.

2.       What is the time in your life that you either experienced a version of homelessness or felt the least secure regarding your living situation?

Response: “Well... ahh... boy…hum… (Long pause)…I can think of a couple of times... I mean I have never been that insecure so I do have to say that. When I was kind of... When I was... in college and I had dropped out and went back, but I lived in a house and at one point over the course of a couple of weeks, first I got arrested for fighting an off duty police officer, this is going back a long way…um there was a big bust in the house that I lived in and shared with lots of people, around marijuana some growing and distributing- I was actually  innocent of all of this, not the fight, it was really silly and nothing really happened with that, but because of that I was seen as somehow as the leader and the target of some alternative hippy people. People just had all kinds of idea as to who we were, looking for guns and all kinds of things. There were lot people living in this house, most of whom were still in school. So after that I kind of had to figure out what I would do because I could not really stay there it just did not make sense. So I was sort of, was for about a month, and I just stayed with different people. That was the most that I was insecure, even though people rallied, I spent very minimal time in jail, before people gathered the money to get us out, but that was my most rootless, because I really didn’t know where I was going to live or what I was going to do, I had not really thought about it. At that point I was working in a furniture factory, that was out of the town I lived in and I kind of liked it and thought that I would just do that until I figured out what was next in my life, but I had to kind of make a decision because they let me go because I kept missing work by being arrested twice in two weeks and once I spent several days in jail. So, the only other time I would say was once in New York about 1978, a friend of mine has an apartment in New York, and apartments there are crazy, so I lived in an apartment on 15^th street, and there was a women that I was friends with and I knew the super who was in charge if the apartments, there was an apartment above her that was available or was becoming available, and somehow I can’t remember why, but I had already given my notice to where I was staying with a group of friends and then that didn’t happen, so I didn’t have anywhere to go. I ended up finding a friend to stay with, a women whose husband worked in the film industry and was going to be gone for months. She was happy to have me move in for a while and stay on her couch until I could figure something out. But I was never really too nervous, and it did feel like home. I did find a place in between, I remember not worrying or thinking ‘oh god what am I going to do?” I may have felt that briefly, but I always knew that I could rely on my brother that he would put me up, he lived in the same building as this women that I lived with.  I could have found a place, I was couch surfing but I had the resources that I had saved for the money to pay the security to move into this apartment, so if I could find a place I would have had my own place. So I have never really been too insecure, I am probably forgetting something, but that is life.

3.       What is one way that you/your family/community has been personally affected by homelessness? By gentrification?

Response: Well, in… Boy…it is so hard... well, there have been times when….I have three step children that I become involved with I met my wife 23…25…let see how old is the youngest… yeah it’s been 23 years so… the most immediate impact for me in terms of poverty and homelessness stuff deals with of those kids whom all have struggled. The youngest who is 39 and so… from that… ranging from when one child who has been through issues, but spent much of her youth being basically rootless and homeless and moving from place to place, she was never forced to use shelters in the way that many people do only because in different points we would help her. I know that she has camped out for months at a time with friends and would follow late hippy stuff and be very rootless and live on the beach. It was a lot of anxiety for us especially because she was unable to decide or stay anywhere and would blow up any situation, and could not hold on to a job, although she is very smart and capable so in her case there are lots of instances of worrying about how she would survive. We had to get help figuring out how we were going to manage her instability.  Thing are better, much better, now and she is doing better, it has been a long road, and in her case we didn’t know what was going on a lot and we were anxious. We had to really get help figuring out how to manage her instability. I have had a few really bad situation that I have dealt with in my life, one of which was about 15 or so years ago, there was one day when she [our daughter] kind of disappeared in California and my wife freaked out and had decided that something bad had happened. After a day or so I had agreed to talk to the people at the Portland Police department, and just started calling all the sheriffs and police departments in California, and then started calling the morgues and yeah… that was one of the least fun things that I have ever did, I was really freaked out while doing it but… so... we have had a few scares. It turns out that she had followed someone into the red woods or something for a week, it just we didn’t know. It’s pretty interesting because she tended to call which was part of the problem because she didn’t call and we couldn’t reach her. So there is her, and our son [name removed for privacy] had to live with us when he had no money and lost his place years ago and he has struggled, thankfully not anymore, but he has always been local but he has had issues with his health and has needed to live with us due to his health issues and he used to always struggle with finding income, he has done better or worse but he’s struggling with that. He’s also not receiving disability, but he is disabled and is getting mental health treatment now. Our other son[name removed], has struggled with addictions, so he has for years was off and on disappearing with injuries, total denial about what was going on with everybody. He would insist that he did not have a drug problem until after many years he called us one day and begged us to help him. It was New Year’s Eve in the middle of the night. So the next day we picked him up and brought him back to our apartment, though we had insisted that no one would live with us but he lived with us for a good while. After going through detox and stuff, although initially he continued to use, and getting involved with dealing while living with us and had gotten busted and then, God help, he’s doing good right now, knock on wood, but he’s very involved with NA, but for a while I had to help him find a place to live because he couldn’t come back and live with us.  He went from Milestone to York County shelter where he actually, looking back, he then went to Serenity House and eventually and now he’s on his own and has three plus years of sobriety and is very involved in NA which is good, he’s doing outreach and is doing good stuff, except for the prison stuff, but it’s hard we have had to deal with many of the people that I know in this community to help us personally. I have had to call former employees, I remember calling one of the people who used to work at the teen center and now was doing case management and asking if our daughter came back if she would pick up here case as a client, because she just needed more help and we just needed not to be the people doing it. I have had to talk with Portland Health to get our ill son some treatment, for his pain and physical and mental health stuff so I really had to call in some favors form those I have work with for years trying to get people some help and knowing how frustrating it could be. That part I know how frustrating it can be to get people who need help the help they need.  I know that from trying to get help, trying to figure out where people can go to get the help that they need. SO I guess that’s my personal experience.

Secondarily my wife as some may know has struggled and I live vicariously through her in the sense that here whole life has been full of trauma, and abuse, and she has three kids between the age of 18 and 22 and left an abusive situation at the age of 22 raising three children on her own on public assistance and was able to eventually move off of that but was always struggling. She was a case manager, and trying to support three kids, so, she always can remind me and empathize, understand the effects of poverty and she is kind of survivor, and amazing, she is kind of my hero. We have been through a lot of traumas together, many more bad and good things that we have been through in terms of poverty, homelessness.

4.       What are some things that you have witnessed as far as gentrification here in Portland surrounding and effecting the homeless population?

I know that the people and kids in my life cannot afford to live here, we have had to help our children in many different ways. With our daughter we helped to buy her a house in a town further away so that she could afford the mortgage/rent. We had to buy the house because of her own struggles to make the interest and mortgage affordable. We would have not been able to do that in Portland. She stays with us many nights with us in Portland because she works here in Portland and travels from Norway every day, which is challenging. All the kids are working and struggling to pay and maintain their apartments here in Portland as the rent is increasing.

In my community they are putting in these luxury apartment around the corner and is really making it unaffordable in my area as well, changing the traffic, bringing in more rich people. I see gentrification mostly in directly. I have not been super effected by gentrification, in fact…it’s probably true that I have benefited by it because the place that I live, is a part of a bunch of condos and have three units at the end of a street. It is not by any means luxury but newer tenants in my building are trying to make it more luxury by investing in the building and putting in new stuff, spend money here and there, put in expensive rugs in the halls. It affects me in the sense that we are just happy with what we want, and we really are not that wealthy, and we don’t want to spend the money to make it more luxury.

The neighborhood I live in I looked at when I was looking for a place to buy for Maine Stay, or a different sight for Preble Street to buy, and it looked much different, it was small and one big house and is now divided into larger housing. I don’t know how many units were in the building originally, maybe 20 and now it is three units. I ended up later realizing that I this was the building I looked to buy for a program and now I am benefiting from the gentrification and was able to buy the condo and live there. It is difficult because the housing is not affordable for low income families, the units that are going in now most people cannot afford. Living pay check to paycheck people cannot afford. The housing that is going in now, they call “affordable” but really is not affordable for the right population and there is a big push for affordable housing for working families, but still is unaffordable for most. Increasing and pushing out homelessness and loosing housing for those who cannot affords.

5.       What’s a story about gentrification or homelessness that you’ll never forget? 

Response: I think the things that are most disturbing and upsetting to me has been about nimbyism- the lengths to which people will go to ensure that things do not happen in their neighborhood. That has happened with almost everything, but the first time that I really saw it was when I was in New York in the 70’s and someone wanted to invest and buy an old brownstone and most of the buildings were big and someone was going to put a mental health housing, housing for disabled folks in the building and the neighborhood was in uproar, people on the block were commenting that “this is going to ruin the block”, and they come up with all the arguments possible, like saying that they will be not be safe, I remember that because I remember going to the hearing to say how great I thought this was. Of course I was not that popular with the neighborhood for this, and of course I was just renting, I didn’t own anything. In Portland when we tried to first create Randall Place which is now Morrison Place, the first place that we were going to go on Congress Street, we got so much negativity, we ended up in court, we actually had to go to the federal government to talk about discrimination and they actually found discrimination in the court case against this population. The parks, the neighbor association, were just so against it, I think back and just think how some of those hearings, there were always people who would say that they are “empathetic, but we have too many people like that in our neighborhood, then people were talking that we can’t place that type of housing here because it is on a major road and they will all be walking in the street and they will get hit by cars and we don’t want them to be hurt.” They would say anything that would make sure this didn’t happen in their back yard. We went through the same thing with Florence House, you know there public hearings and neighbors not wanting it in their neighborhood, ended up delaying things for years. Very little of it realty had any reasonable disapproval, we went through all the public hearing and it was really frustrating and difficult. With Logan Place we didn’t really get that far because there were not enough people that cared enough on that street to disapprove, but there were some and there were some supporters. Logan Place was the easiest to get built. Bishop street is ready to go and there are more oppositional statements such as saying that this will lead to attracting all these bad people to their neighborhood, and there is only 6 housing on that street, people are worried that the dogs will be barking all night because there will be more people living on the road and walking the road. There are just less space and less affordable housing that support opportunities and space to really do anything for those in need. People need to be convinced that something better can happen here. I want people to be understanding of the challenges that the poor, the homeless face, and I want people in this neighborhood to remember that the homeless were here before they were, and that is gentrification. Those who are moving to this are (around Preble Street) moved here because they could buy cheap property and could fix it up because of the homeless population living here and the resources that are here for them. We see then that some people are absolutely outraged with the number of homeless that they see on the streets, they need to remember that they didn’t choose to live this way, that those who are coming in to buy cheap property chose to move here to buy the affordable buildings when the homeless were here first, they chose to move here because they got a bargain and they got that bargain because of the way that the neighborhood.

When you house the homeless, the goal is not to keep all the homeless here but to house them so when you house the homeless the crime, the sight of the homelessness, and the problems that the neighborhood complain about is all decreased dramatically. If you do it right, you can worry and get upset about the sight of homeless on the streets or hanging out at the resource center, but let’s see what happens when we start closing the shelters, and limiting the services, it won’t be as invasive because they will see more people camping out on the streets like they do in other cities. They will see tents outside on streets, and people in the parks and that will be the way it is, we don’t have that much visible and very little of that in which people actually see, not the same way we could. If we are not going to solve homelessness then how can we keep complaining about it? The answer would be to house, create more smaller shelters, and spread the small shelters out and to meet different population needs and have lots of new truly affordable housing, none of that is happening, or happening very quickly. We love the plan of the smaller shelter, but then we have to deal with nimbyism five or more times, we have to fight the neighborhoods, the public, the cities, and deal with nimbyism in many different areas. You would have to go to bat, it would be nice to say yes, but it doesn’t mean it can happen because of many different wills for something that doesn’t exist, the fighting and oppositions that we face.

6.       What is a question you have relating to the issue of homelessness that you don’t ask out loud because it may be seen as either politically incorrect or ignorant?

Response: The thing that are hardest for me to figure out how to resolve. There are certainly tensions that I feel between acceptance and low barrier and harm reduction, all the things that we have here and speak of all the time and weather in any way we are really are contributing to some people staying homeless or not doing as much as they really could be doing to get off the streets. In whether there are ways that we are not finding the right balance, and I don’t say those things very often out loud because people will misinterpret my concerns, into something like or be like, “well we need rules or restrictions or people that would think that people are not trying because of their own issues.” Anytime you start to question the approach, for example, try to figure out,  is there a reason to start to  thinking of those who have income, but how could we deal with that better. I don’t want to open it up personally because others will just run with it in a punitive way and that is not the way I want to think about it. It always seems to me that anyone who lives at the shelter and gets SSI they should be able to have a payee, and say that we are renting you an apartment for you, you can choose to stay at the shelter, but we are paying for this apartment for you, to try to get them out of the apartment. In my experience people will go if you engage them, and figure out a way for them to be safe and not isolated and all those things that there is a way to move lots of people by engaging them but something it means just shifting housing. I think about things like that and it puts me in a different place than some of those people I work with how have different beliefs. I mostly don’t trust our system, not to become punitive so I am fine that people not talk about changing it much. So that is my unsaid concern.

** We talked about a youth who is staying at the shelter by choice and has a job and makes more money than I do as a per diem, and has a luscious bank account, and a comment that they made about why they would not stay at the shelter, they have free food, free housing, and they can hang out with their friends, do drugs, drink etc.. and it is a safe place for them to do all that with no real rules or consequences.**

Response: SO at what point to you figure out a way to make something happen so that says “we afford to provide services for those who are in that situation or how do we say “let’s help you figure out how to live independently. I also think that the money thing has to do with people with SSI and payees and I am disappointed to think that there are people in the shelters with payees that we cannot think of a better option for them. If you go back 15-20 years where people were just about pushed out of shelters because they were given apartments, there was outreach workers who were able to get apartments and though some did not like it, but they were able to get apartments and they kind of have to get pushed out in a way that is sensitive, to make sure that they have the supports to be stable on their own and in the community. I think that everyone can be housed, we just have to be creative and provide supports, provide case management etc…

7.       If you had a magic wand, what is one way you would you use it to address gentrification?

Response: My magic wand would basically make it so that there was a policy, and understanding and effort to slow down luxury buildings and unaffordable housing. I think I would look at these huge building going into what was once vacant lots it is sad. I think if I had a magic wand I would have better balance and to take some of those places on Munjoy Hill and those condos that are luxury and take some of those and have really affordable apartments, smaller building or more apartments within them. Even if half of them were for people who are very low and low income, provide subsidies, look at what we could do in terms of housing. Have housing where these voucher can be used. My wand would take half the projects to create affordable low income living. We have to find a way to balance the luxury and high end housing and very low income living. My wand would be to have everyone love that idea and not oppose the idea and fight the building for those in need.  We can start right in my corner so I can be part of all the neighborhood meetings to talk about living with that population. I would choose to live in the neighborhood with the homeless, the less privileged those are the people I like to spend my time with.

8.       What is one thing in your life that would be different if you knew for certain that from this moment on everyone everywhere would always have safe affordable housing – first thought?
 

I wouldn’t have a job, I could happily retire. I don’t know what I would do but I could focus on something else that matters to be, I don’t know what that would be but it would be different. I like to think that if everyone had affordable housing, I would envision is that I could spend so much of my time with different people. This sounds crazy when I say this, but, as I have gotten older and working at this a long time, I have always been challenged and considered to be introverted, but the older I get the more I have become interested in other people. Some of my friend’s, though I love them, they don’t what I see or believe the same things I believe. My friends tend to be very progressive from the side lines, I find that tiresome somethings, when you have a lot of judgements and issues whether it be racism, poverty or whatever, you really don’t need to confront it, so what I have found over the years is that I love hanging out with clients, or former clients and it isn’t really a need but a want. I love going to Logan Place, they are so kind and happy to see me and know my efforts, and it is so rewarding to see how they are doing. I think if we had everyone housed, rather than focusing on the crap and spending all my time writing grants and fighting oppositions, I could volunteer my time with them. I know I’m bad at boundaries, though I don’t work directly with these clients, I’m not their workers, so it’s not true boundary crossing. When we first opened Logan Place I would work there and cover different crisis, and that time I lived closer to Logan Place, I would take my granddaughter for walks and stop in and visit Logan Place with my granddaughter who was a baby in the stroller or backpack and the clients who have been there since it opened remember my granddaughter and ask to this day about her, and ask to see picture of her. There is something that I just love hanging out or cooking dinners for the clients at Logan Place where the clients can come down and eat and help us cook. We will cook cultural foods and have clients to cook with us, share recipes they really get excited about stuff like that. I would love to spend my time doing stuff like that, just hanging out and giving people something fun to do, whose lives have been just so freaking hard. If everyone housed, I could retire and spend my life thinking about ways to volunteer in the things that give me pleasure  and felt a value somewhere and enjoy those people that inspire me to do that things I do, like many other people in the world I know don’t.

I stop in to Logan Place earlier today and had a conversation with a client who is housed at Logan Place now, and was a client of the teen center once, and this client is doing so great, she has improved and is talking about taking her GED test and loves staying at Logan Place. I’m used to her being angry, fighting, depressed, or fighting for what she really believed in, advocating, and here she is getting her GED and since she has been living at Logan Place she has been baking and cooking and she is thinking about going to culinary school. Being able to have a conversation with someone like that, that you know, seeing the highs and lows for so many years is just being able to be apart and see the success that can happen makes me feel good. I think that those who don’t want to talk about race, poverty, homelessness, don’t want to because they find it so uncomfortable, and it is frustrating because they then don’t see the issues, can’t understand or aren’t open to them, or they have white guilt and it gets tiring when you’re on the other side and understand it. People just don’t get what it is like to be a person of color in this country, or think that it just is not an issue, it is complicated and messy and all kinds of things but it is defiantly an issue in all kinds of directions and it is the same thing with poverty. If you can live without every confronting it, it seems like something that is not real, or real people, I think that is sort of the problem that we have, people just don’t get it or they are just privileged people who have never had to see it. If they do it some structured form, or not really experiencing it. What I love about Preble Street is that we have a very clear social work standards in many ways, but there are ways in which traditional social work boundaries, models have stood in the way of humanizing people and I think Preble Street has allowed to break down those with low barriers and allowed to get to know people in more personal ways, and a little less caught up in the professional boundaries and recognizing that we need to hang out and meet clients where they are at.

9.          What the one story you could share with me that ‘says it all’ to you?

A client a Logan Place was for many years was one of the chronically alcoholic street people, was the two most challenging people, who had endless police contacts, for public urination, trespassing, bothering people, he was in and out of Preble Street all the time. When he moved into Logan Place, so many people questions why we took people like this and convince them to move into Logan Place. But when this man moved in he was able to get cable television, does he still drink yes, but he has been there for 10 years, he still wanders occasionally into the street drunk, does he look like he is drunk? Yes, but even when he is sober he looks as though he is drinking because of the nerve damage and brain damage from a life time of alcoholism. His walking is so impaired now, but he is still there. He has had one or more encounters with police in the first few years but now he doesn’t. He would run a sign close to here and ask why he ran a sign, and now he doesn’t run signs. He has friend’s that come over and hang out, he’s happy, he is more sober than he used to be. He’s even had kind of girlfriends at times, he reunited with his family, he is originally from the Northern tips of Maine, like Fort Kent area and he had not been there in 40 years since he left there drinking, he’s a veteran and a couple of years ago he had a lot of fear but took a bus to visit his relatives and friends that he grew up with, it had been decades and it was really cool that he could do that. He came back and is still in touch with family and friends.  Stuff like that happen all the time, reunions with family once people are housed, opportunities, miraculous changes from what people think would happen, they continue to remain at Logan Place and they are happy to have a life there. There are other people’s stories that are different but have the same kind of thing, that they now have family that is in contact with them or visit them, they can now be safe, have a sense of community. Logan Place and its community to support people here, the tenants who will buy food and create their own pot lucks make it feel like a home, those are the most inspiring stories that Logan Place allows to have those qualities. In the face of a lot of skepticism to convince people to do this, allow for places like Logan place or Florence house to be in the neighborhoods, to make people so happy to have a place to live, a place to call home, a place to maintain their mental health, substance use and housing.