A homeless camp takes up most of the sidewalk under the Hawthorne Bridge on the east side.

‘We take care of each other’

Along the eastern bank of the Willamette River, Liz, a newly arrived teenager, found herself homeless. She also found community.

Liz came to Portland to find a new life. Instead, she found a new kind of family.

At 6 on a recent fall night, the bubbly 19-year-old hangs at a homeless camp beneath the Marquam Bridge, a stone’s throw from the statue of former Mayor Vera Katz on the Eastbank Esplanade. The camp, a collection of tarp-covered shopping carts, tents, lawn chairs and a half-dozen bikes in various stages of disrepair, isn’t hidden. Its intersection is prime commuting territory for bikers and runners headed across the Hawthorne Bridge, and a popular parking area for rowers enjoying workouts on the Willamette.

Liz, 19, came from Casper, Wyoming. She often hangs out with veteran homeless campers she trusts. She has a camp set up near the bridges in the eastside industrial district.

Most pass without giving the campers a second glance — much less a first. Liz and her crowd don’t mind the traffic. They also don’t mind the police who roll by “10 to 15 times a day” to check on them.

“They don’t get out of the car usually,” another camper explained. “We’re not bothering anybody, and they don’t have room for us in the jail, so …”

This is what homelessness looks like now in the neighborhoods ringing downtown: People with nowhere else to go sleep on sidewalks and along storefronts, frequently forming makeshift communities such as this one.

“We take care of each other,” Liz said.

She came to Portland from Casper, Wyoming, a year or so ago to escape “family trouble.” Her luck didn’t change in Oregon: Her car broke down on the outskirts of the city as she arrived. Friends took her in until she found an apartment, then her landlord and his wife split up, pocketing her rent money and leaving her on the street, she said.

“Everyone thinks that people who choose to be out here are all doing it because they’d rather just be lazy,” she said. “Most people I hang out with are stuck here by what life has done to them. Something bad happened, something else bad happens, and all of a sudden you have nothing left.”

She said she wants to work, but hasn’t been able to find a job. Looking is hard because she has no place to leave her belongings, which she carries in a large backpack.

“If somebody could give me a tent, I’d have a place to stash my stuff during the day,” she said. “If I had a place to stash my stuff, it would be easier to go out and look for a job.”

She found this group of campers by accident. There’s an older woman who Liz says treats her like a mom would, a few middle-aged men who roll in and out, and several men and women in their late teens and early 20s.

Food is not a problem: “People come by all the time and just give us stuff,” Liz says.

Tonight, a church group brought hot dogs, cupcakes and pasta. Liz’s paper plate is overflowing. The corner smells of the meat, but also of marijuana, sweat and blankets that have gone a long time between washes. Liz looks clean and younger than 19 — she showered today, she says — though she has deep purple rings under her eyes. Her pupils are dilated more than seems normal and she’s slurring her words.

“I came here to start over, to escape,” she said. “It could be worse, I guess. I’ve found these people. They take care of me in a way that some of the people I knew before I was homeless never did.”

She said some members of her family know where she is. But she didn’t want to use her last name out of fear they’d try to find her.

Coming next

One big reason Portland has such an obvious homeless problem is our lack of emergency shelter space. There are simply not enough places for homeless men and women to go at night.