5
8
A closer look into Japanese Club activities and focus
December 9, 2011
Jazz Band Director Susie Jones retires after 13 years
10
advocate the
Men’s basketball starts strong at tournament Volume 47, Issue 11
www.Advocate-Online.net
On Campus Feature
walking in the shoes of the
HOMELESS Every urban city in America experiences homelessness, and Portland is no exception. Students from the Mental Health and Human Services program did a 24-hour immersion to experience life on the streets. They explored social services, discussed homelessness, and connected with a homeless couple. Students explore social services around Portland during a 24-hour homeless immersion program through JOIN by Yuca Kosugi The Advocate
Five students in the Mental Health and Human Services (MHHS) program at MHCC and a reporter from The Advocate experienced 24-hour homeless immersion Dec. 2-3, hosted by JOIN, a social service day center in Northeast Portland. Students gathered around 7:30 p.m. Friday at the JOIN center on Northeast 81st and Glisan. That night the students discussed what homelessness is and what it means to them, and then went to sleep around 11 p.m. in the center. The day starts dark and early at 5:20 a.m. as the six students awake in their sleeping bag on the hardwood floor of the family room at the JOIN day center. JOIN worker Joe Clark hands each of the students three TriMet tickets for the day before they head out. The temperature was near freezing as the students left JOIN and crossed the bridge over I-84 to get to the Northeast 82nd Avenue MAX station. “Remember that many of the homeless people out there did not have the luxury of sleeping inside,” said Clark, as the students shiver in the frigid morning. Many homeless people cannot afford to buy a ticket to ride the MAX either, he added, and they take a risk of getting caught and facing a fine which they would not be able to pay. But if they don’t ride the train, they will not be able to eat breakfast. From there, the students rode on the red line train heading
Mt. Hood Community College
west and got off at the Old Town/Chinatown station. Then it was another brisk walk to Blanchet House on Northwest Glisan Street and 4th Avenue. By the time they arrived around 6:20 a.m., there was already a line of people wrapping around the first corner of the building. Breakfast is served from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. and there is a Blanchet volunteer who stands outside the door to regulate the number of people entering as spots open up inside. Inside, people sit four to a table, with five at one table, for a total of 41 available seats at any given time. Once one is seated, a volunteer gives each person a plate of food. When finished eating, they may go back outside, wait in line and then come in and eat again. Clark had planned to have the group volunteer in the morning, but a La Salle High School volunteer group had already signed up to work that morning. After the students finished eating, they waited outside for Larry Bishop, an ex-homeless person who JOIN found housing for six years ago. During the wait, a homeless man was untying his cart from a pole when MHCC student Bill Boyd noticed that the man had dropped an orange under his cart. “Sir, I think you dropped your orange under your cart,” Boyd said politely. But the man gave no indication that he heard, so MHHS club president Geri Criss stepped in and tried to help him out. “I think he thought I was trying to steal his cart,” she recalled later. But she only tried to get the orange from under the cart, when it seemed like the man became upset and tried to swing his cart at her in jerking motions. He hurriedly fumbled to untie the cart as he mumbled and shouted obscenities to her and the people around, as another homeless man got in between them and said apologetically to
see Services page 7
Photo by Yuca Kosugi/The Advocate
Larry Bishop has been helping JOIN by giving tours of social services in Portland to immersion groups.
Homeless statistics on the West Coast King County (Seattle)
2010: 8,937
Multnomah County (Portland)
2011: 4,655
San Francisco
2011: 6,455 Homeless rates as defined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) which includes the literally homeless as well as those sleeping in transitional housing for the homeless. Sources from: Portrland Housing Bureau, King County Coalition to End Homelessness, and Applied Survey Research
Gresham, Oregon
6 living arts December 9, 2011
Guest Column
Student asks, ‘What’s next?’
advocate the
December 9, 2011
Homeless couple take life ‘one goal at a time’ by Yuca Kosugi
by Geri Criss
The Advocate
President Mental Health/Human Service Club
I recently had the opportunity to experience a tiny glimpse into what it was like to be homeless in Portland. On Friday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m., I gathered together with five other MHCC students at the JOIN day center at Northeast 81st Avenue in Portland. We brought sleeping bags, absolute necessities, and many preconceptions of what the word “homelessness” meant. Our goal was to learn more about homelessness, available resources, and what we could do to help. What we learned during our homeless immersion was that homeless people are nice, funny, caring, and most of all just like us! After a discussion of our next day’s agenda and a quick lesson on street smarts, we climbed into our sleeping bags for six hours of sleep on the hard floor of the day center. By comparison, many homeless people never get that many solid hours of sleep, because the streets can be dangerous and they are constantly getting rousted by police for sleeping where they shouldn’t be sleeping. Although the day center didn’t have heat, the temperature outside dipped close to freezing, and we were thankful to be in an enclosed building. We awoke at 5 a.m. and jumped onto a MAX train to head toward downtown Portland where we lined up for a free breakfast at the Blanchet House in Old Town. I was thankful for a hot meal in my belly! Soon after breakfast I experienced a frightening incident where one homeless man thought I was trying to steal his shopping cart, and another homeless man who I didn’t even know stepped in to protect me from harm. Our day continued with a tour led by a previously homeless man. He showed us the major resource locations in downtown. There are a few locations where the homeless population can take showers, do laundry, and connect with service agencies. He showed us a few warming centers and we understood how important it was to get in out of the cold, if even just for 10 minutes. We had an opportunity to jump onto public transportation and travel out to Dignity Village on 33rd and Northeast Sunderland. We were given a tour of the property; we met village members and were shown the utmost respect and hospitality. I was truly impressed with the “village.” They self-govern their space, and are some of the most creative and inspiring people I have met. We travelled back to the JOIN day center where we had dinner with a homeless couple and their dog. We spent time talking with the couple, learning their story and asking them questions. Our evening concluded with all of us reflecting on the question “Now what?” Obviously, one 24hour period can’t entirely change my life, or my views on homelessness. It can, however, change how I view the people I walk past on the street, and it has changed my perspective on the human experience. For more information about JOIN, please visit www.joinpdx.com.
living arts 7
JOIN: walking in the shoes of the homeless advocate the
Steve, a homeless man, and second-year MHCC student Liz Fosteer escape the cold weather in the Bud Clark Commons.
Photo by Yuca Kosugi/The Advocate
Students discuss hope for the homeless by Yuca Kosugi The Advocate
On the first night of the homeless immersion hosted by JOIN, five students from the Mental Health and Human Services (MHHS) club discussed what homelessness is and what it means to them personally. Geri Criss, MHHS club president in her second year in the program, found out about the immersion when she was considering interning at JOIN, which is a social service day center in Northeast Portland. Although she decided to pick a different service center, she thought that this would be a good experience for the students in the MHHS program. Criss, 45, took up school again through the Transitions program offered at MHCC. Bill Boyd and Liz Fosteer are also second-year students in the program who attended. Ashley Bright and Angela Gilleran were first-year students in the program who participated in the immersion. Bright, a 20-year-old Reynolds High School graduate, will assume presidency of the club in the winter term. Boyd worked in construction for many years but was laid off and decided to go back to school. He said he went into the MHHS program because he had a natural knack for wanting to help people, which he noticed back when the “guys” in the construction work would talk about their problems to him. But to this day, Boyd remembers an incident that happened about 10 years ago. He was sitting in a van eating lunch while on a construction job when two homeless men walked up to him. He told them to “get the hell away from me” and one of the men said, “You don’t even know what I want.” Boyd replied “I don’t give a shit, go away,” and they walked away. “I still remember that and think, god, why did I do that? And now,
here I am in a different position in my life and I want to help the same guy,” Boyd said. “I wasn’t sure if old dogs could learn new tricks,” said Boyd, 59, but he got an A in the first class he took, which was psychology. Boyd’s step-daughter is addicted to heroin, so he is no stranger to addiction and homelessness. She is not allowed to stay in the house because of her stealing habits, he said. Every few months she would tell him that she’s going to come clean but he said that he wants to see her do it, not hear about it. Fosteer said that when she was growing up, both her parents were heroin and meth addicts and went through periods of sobriety and lapses. Her father became clean when she was in high school, but her mother still fights the addiction. “Probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do was tell my mom that she had to leave my house and sleep outside,” said Fosteer. “I had tried everything, all the tools that I knew. I was trying to be her little social worker — and it didn’t work.” The JOIN worker who led the immersion was Joe Clark, a 23-year-old Vancouver native who graduated Seattle University last Spring. He started at JOIN in mid-August through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC). “Jesuits are like the hippies of Catholicism,” said Clark, although he said he is not very religious. Clark’s sister is a meth addict and is homeless. “All that we could do as a family is say that we support her and love her and whenever she chooses to move past that, we’ll be here still. We can’t really make somebody give up drugs.” Gilleran said her half-sister, who had five kids, lived in extreme poverty, often taking care of the kids whenever she could before they were moved to foster homes. Bright had gone on two
overseas missions to Cambodia where people in extreme poverty lived in huts without walls and have to suffer through scorching hot summers and pouring rain which often results in flooding. Clark said, “It’s amazing to see how many different pathways there are. Just in this group you see a widely diverse experience with homelessness. One thing I’ve learned since I started working here is that there are just as many stories for how people become homeless as there are homeless people.” Although he says he’s not the biggest fan of Dave Chappelle, a TV comedian, Clark recalls a sketch he had seen that resonated deeply about homelessness. Chappelle describes watching Sesame Street with his nephew, when he noticed “Sesame Street is a way that we teach our kids to hate homelessness because they have Oscar the Grouch, this guy that lives in a trashcan,” said Clark. The MHCC students tried to specifically describe what homelessness is. What would you expect someone who is homeless to look like? Smell like? Clark questioned the group. Fosteer mentioned that often time homeless people have a lot of bags. “Imagine what your entire life would look like inside of a backpack,” said Clark. A few students said they were afraid the homeless might not be happy with having students observing them, “like we’re making a spectacle of them” said Fosteer. Bright said, “My hope is that I get to brighten someone’s day. I don’t like seeing people upset or sad. I just want to help so bad, but I don’t know how.” Clark said, “Sometimes it seems like the work you do will be useless, and sometimes it will be. That’s where the hope comes in, because you will be changing lives regardless of what you think.”
“We love each other. That’s what keeps us going,” said Genevier Sullivan when asked how she and her traveling companion Justin DeSantis stay sane living on the streets. “All of those vows that people exchange: for rich or for poor, through sickness and in health, for better or for worse. I see so many people get divorced over money. We pretty well got it figured out that we don’t care if we run out of money again,” Sullivan said. “We’ll still love each other. He makes my life all that much better. It doesn’t matter if we’re sleeping under a bridge” It’s a quirky love story with a twist, to say the least. Sullivan, 29, and DeSantis, 21, had both been travelling the country when they first met in front of a 7-11 store on the strip in Las Vegas. After splitting up and each travelling on their own schedule, they ran into each other again two years later in front of that very same 7-11. Sullivan is from northern British Columbia and is a Wet’suwet’un Nation, or First Nations people, which is what Native Americans call themselves in Canada. DeSantis is from northern California. Members of the MHCC Mental Health and Human Services Club on Saturday shared a home-made chili taco dinner, made by JOIN worker Joe Clark, with Sullivan and DeSantis, a homeless couple trying to find housing and employment in Portland. That day had started out rough for the two, who were sleeping under the east side of the Burnside Bridge when a man started a fire. DeSantis woke up and told the man to put out the fire since it was right under I-5 and it could be dangerous if the smoke got too big, not to mention attracting the police. “He looks back, all crazy and picks up a knife and pipe and comes at me,” said DeSantis. About that time, seven people woke up and convinced the man to put the knife down and he did, and eventually the pipe as well, while Sullivan was putting water on the fire. “But after he put down the pipe, he came at me. Luckily I had done wrestling and martial arts when I was younger so I could keep him from hurting me,” said DeSantis, “We did get in a fight and I pretty much beat him up.” Sullivan said, “As soon as someone drew blood, I broke it up” and then “we got on with our lives.” The two packed up their stuff and left, but friends told them the man had gathered a few buddies and came back with more pipes and knives. “This is the type of stuff we have to deal with. We come here (JOIN) almost every day, go take a shower and then go downstairs to work on our resumes and turn those in,” said Sullivan. “Now the story had somehow morphed to that a mentally challenged kid got beaten in the face with a rock by the three of us and we killed a dog,” said Sullivan. “That’s what they’re going around and saying, and that’s not what happened at all.” “I can tell he’s a straight up meth case, he only has two teeth,” she recalled of the man who lit the fire. “Meth is horrible. I’ve seen meth turn the nicest people I know into a freaking nightmare. There are drugs that you can recover from, and you can be okay again. But meth is like blowing it all,” she said. DeSantis is from northern California, but was in the Sierra Nevadas when he was 18 and first decided to hit the road. He said so many people did meth and “that was pretty much the reason I left and went on the road with my cousin,” he said. His cousin had been traveling the country and at the time was in Arkansas. “I got $16 to my name and that’s all I got,” DeSantis told his cousin. He told me to get myself a piece of cardboard and write “stranded, need gas, please help,” said DeSantis. It worked. He has been traveling ever since. “The first time I was homeless was when I was 13 years old,” said Sullivan. “I was in a horrible foster home and there was nowhere for me to go and it was in northern British Columbia, minus 40 weather and I had to walk around with my bag and knock on doors. You just can’t sleep outside in the cold. Some nights I would be up all night because I didn’t find anywhere to sleep,” she said. One day, two friends were planning to move to Mexico. She asked how much it would cost and was told about $1,200. She sold everything she had and then met with her
Genevier Sullivan panhandles with her dog Buster with a sense of humor.
Photo by Yuca Kosugi/The Advocate
native family. They held a going-away party and gave her $300 for her move. She is diagnosed with depression and PTSD, but said that going to Mexico during the winter is probably the best cure she’s ever had. She lived alone on the beach for three months in a tent. “They all thought I was Mexican down there,” said Sullivan, “so as long as I didn’t talk, no one screwed with me. I remember going to a karaoke bar in Cabo San Lucas. They gave me a few beers and I got up and sang AC/DC and Guns ‘n Roses and they were like ‘you’re English is so good. Did you go to escuela (school)?’” However, a slew of events eventually led the couple to seek residence in Portland and they plan to get married in March. “Once you settle down in a city, it’s tough unless you’ve got family or friends who are willing to take you in to sponsor you,” said Sullivan. “This (JOIN) is the only one (social service agency) we’ve stuck around with. We were walking around for a week going to Central City Concern and all these places but all they are is concerned,” said Sullivan. “We walk in there and they tell us that we can’t even get on the waiting list to get on the waiting list.” The two talk about how the system takes them in circles by making it illegal to live a homeless life when it is nearly impossible to find housing without a job or a job without housing. “We walk off all our energy and it’s completely exhausting. My muscles are sore everyday,” said Sullivan. “And to have someone completely unaware calling you lazy, they don’t even know.” They must walk to the other side of town to get a meal, and then walk out (of the city) for somewhere to sleep. Sometimes people will stay up all night to be safe and then must sleep during the day, which gives the wrong impression that homeless people are lazy, said DeSantis. And being a female homeless, there are limited places to go to the bathroom so Sullivan said she does not drink much water. “And in the middle of this, you get people yelling at you to get a job. How are you going to get a job when you’re carrying your backpack around and you have nowhere to live and nowhere to shower?” said Sullivan. During dinner, they got a call from one of the apartments they were looking at. DeSantis answered the phone and nonchalantly handed it to Sullivan. It might not turn into anything, he said, so he doesn’t get his hopes up for every call.
see Homeless couple page 9
Services:
Continued from page 1
Criss, “Just leave him be, he’s not having a good morning.” A moment later, a man rushes out of the Blanchet House and hastily asks if people have seen anyone walk out with a green backpack. He gets a tip that a man in a red jacket may have taken it by accident since there were two green backpacks left inside, and he runs off toward the Bud Clark Commons, where some guessed he may have been headed. “Everything was in there, my birth certificates and family photos,” he said before he took off. The students from JOIN stood quietly outside Blanchet House in the cold, still waiting for Bishop. About 10 minutes later, the man came back smiling broadly with another man who had, in fact, taken the wrong bag in an honest mistake. “There’s only so much you can lose,” he said, and thanked the man as they both departed on their respective ways for the day. Bishop showed up around 7:30 a.m. in a denim jacket with a cutout of an Occupy Portland shirt pinned to the back with “coffee man” hand-written across. Bishop, 63, is from Illinois and first came to Portland in 1967. Since then he has been “back and forth” between different cities. Up until six years ago, he had been homeless and so he knew about the services provided around Portland like the back of his hand. He has been helping JOIN immersions by giving tours of the various services around town. “Here in Portland, a person cannot starve,” Bishop said. “There’s always a place serving free food.” Walking, Bishop led the student to a variety of stops — the Royal Palm, Bud Clark Commons, p:ear, Sister of the Road Café, the Macdonald Center, the Downtown Chapel, SAFES, R2D2, the Union Gospel Mission, and the Portland Rescue Mission — with Bishop explaining the different services provided at each location and oftentimes running into people he knew. After the two-hour tour, which ended in front of the Portland Rescue Mission, Clark separated the group into three pairs for a scavenger hunt. He gave a page filled with scenarios and questions that might come up if one was homeless and each pair had to find answers by talking to people. Clark also gave each person a dollar and challenged the students to eat lunch with only the dollar, or even less if possible. The pairs were Criss and first-year MHCC student Ashley Bright, Boyd and first-year MHCC student Angela Gilleran, and second-year MHCC student Liz Fosteer and the reporter. The pairs went in different directions and had varying experiences. Boyd and Gilleran were mistaken as a homeless couple and Boyd said the cops had eyed them a few times, probably thinking they were homeless. He also noted that the shelters were ready to give Gilleran a room in a shelter while they told Boyd that he can be in the warming rooms. All six ended up back at the Blanchet House for lunch since the meals are free. Fosteer met a cheerful homeless man, Steve, who also went by “Old School” or “Ikey”. Steve had a full shopping cart covered in a tarp, and offered to escort Fosteer to the Bud Clark Commons. The group met back up at 12:30 p.m. in front of Portland Rescue Mission and went to their last stop at Dignity Village via bus 73. The village, a state-recognized homeless camp, is located near the airport between a composting site and a correctional facility. Scott and Lisa Layman, who live at the village, showed the students around Dignity Village and talked about its ups and down. Lisa said public transportation is not very convenient, adding that Scott has to go to work early on weekends when the bus does not start coming to their stop until 9:30 a.m. People also lose their sense of taste because the composting facility next door emits a mix of methane and ammonia, said Lisa. The little wooden shacks at Dignity Village do not have electricity or running water, with the exception of a few who need it for medical reasons, Lisa said. There are 51 people living in the village, and each person must adhere to the rules and put in volunteer time for the village. There are also 25 cats and eight dogs which are all spayed or neutered and given medical attention by PAWS, a veterinary service. “We are a member-based community,” said Scott, “How many of you know 50 of your neighbors?”
6 living arts December 9, 2011
Guest Column
Student asks, ‘What’s next?’
advocate the
December 9, 2011
Homeless couple take life ‘one goal at a time’ by Yuca Kosugi
by Geri Criss
The Advocate
President Mental Health/Human Service Club
I recently had the opportunity to experience a tiny glimpse into what it was like to be homeless in Portland. On Friday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m., I gathered together with five other MHCC students at the JOIN day center at Northeast 81st Avenue in Portland. We brought sleeping bags, absolute necessities, and many preconceptions of what the word “homelessness” meant. Our goal was to learn more about homelessness, available resources, and what we could do to help. What we learned during our homeless immersion was that homeless people are nice, funny, caring, and most of all just like us! After a discussion of our next day’s agenda and a quick lesson on street smarts, we climbed into our sleeping bags for six hours of sleep on the hard floor of the day center. By comparison, many homeless people never get that many solid hours of sleep, because the streets can be dangerous and they are constantly getting rousted by police for sleeping where they shouldn’t be sleeping. Although the day center didn’t have heat, the temperature outside dipped close to freezing, and we were thankful to be in an enclosed building. We awoke at 5 a.m. and jumped onto a MAX train to head toward downtown Portland where we lined up for a free breakfast at the Blanchet House in Old Town. I was thankful for a hot meal in my belly! Soon after breakfast I experienced a frightening incident where one homeless man thought I was trying to steal his shopping cart, and another homeless man who I didn’t even know stepped in to protect me from harm. Our day continued with a tour led by a previously homeless man. He showed us the major resource locations in downtown. There are a few locations where the homeless population can take showers, do laundry, and connect with service agencies. He showed us a few warming centers and we understood how important it was to get in out of the cold, if even just for 10 minutes. We had an opportunity to jump onto public transportation and travel out to Dignity Village on 33rd and Northeast Sunderland. We were given a tour of the property; we met village members and were shown the utmost respect and hospitality. I was truly impressed with the “village.” They self-govern their space, and are some of the most creative and inspiring people I have met. We travelled back to the JOIN day center where we had dinner with a homeless couple and their dog. We spent time talking with the couple, learning their story and asking them questions. Our evening concluded with all of us reflecting on the question “Now what?” Obviously, one 24hour period can’t entirely change my life, or my views on homelessness. It can, however, change how I view the people I walk past on the street, and it has changed my perspective on the human experience. For more information about JOIN, please visit www.joinpdx.com.
living arts 7
JOIN: walking in the shoes of the homeless advocate the
Steve, a homeless man, and second-year MHCC student Liz Fosteer escape the cold weather in the Bud Clark Commons.
Photo by Yuca Kosugi/The Advocate
Students discuss hope for the homeless by Yuca Kosugi The Advocate
On the first night of the homeless immersion hosted by JOIN, five students from the Mental Health and Human Services (MHHS) club discussed what homelessness is and what it means to them personally. Geri Criss, MHHS club president in her second year in the program, found out about the immersion when she was considering interning at JOIN, which is a social service day center in Northeast Portland. Although she decided to pick a different service center, she thought that this would be a good experience for the students in the MHHS program. Criss, 45, took up school again through the Transitions program offered at MHCC. Bill Boyd and Liz Fosteer are also second-year students in the program who attended. Ashley Bright and Angela Gilleran were first-year students in the program who participated in the immersion. Bright, a 20-year-old Reynolds High School graduate, will assume presidency of the club in the winter term. Boyd worked in construction for many years but was laid off and decided to go back to school. He said he went into the MHHS program because he had a natural knack for wanting to help people, which he noticed back when the “guys” in the construction work would talk about their problems to him. But to this day, Boyd remembers an incident that happened about 10 years ago. He was sitting in a van eating lunch while on a construction job when two homeless men walked up to him. He told them to “get the hell away from me” and one of the men said, “You don’t even know what I want.” Boyd replied “I don’t give a shit, go away,” and they walked away. “I still remember that and think, god, why did I do that? And now,
here I am in a different position in my life and I want to help the same guy,” Boyd said. “I wasn’t sure if old dogs could learn new tricks,” said Boyd, 59, but he got an A in the first class he took, which was psychology. Boyd’s step-daughter is addicted to heroin, so he is no stranger to addiction and homelessness. She is not allowed to stay in the house because of her stealing habits, he said. Every few months she would tell him that she’s going to come clean but he said that he wants to see her do it, not hear about it. Fosteer said that when she was growing up, both her parents were heroin and meth addicts and went through periods of sobriety and lapses. Her father became clean when she was in high school, but her mother still fights the addiction. “Probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do was tell my mom that she had to leave my house and sleep outside,” said Fosteer. “I had tried everything, all the tools that I knew. I was trying to be her little social worker — and it didn’t work.” The JOIN worker who led the immersion was Joe Clark, a 23-year-old Vancouver native who graduated Seattle University last Spring. He started at JOIN in mid-August through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC). “Jesuits are like the hippies of Catholicism,” said Clark, although he said he is not very religious. Clark’s sister is a meth addict and is homeless. “All that we could do as a family is say that we support her and love her and whenever she chooses to move past that, we’ll be here still. We can’t really make somebody give up drugs.” Gilleran said her half-sister, who had five kids, lived in extreme poverty, often taking care of the kids whenever she could before they were moved to foster homes. Bright had gone on two
overseas missions to Cambodia where people in extreme poverty lived in huts without walls and have to suffer through scorching hot summers and pouring rain which often results in flooding. Clark said, “It’s amazing to see how many different pathways there are. Just in this group you see a widely diverse experience with homelessness. One thing I’ve learned since I started working here is that there are just as many stories for how people become homeless as there are homeless people.” Although he says he’s not the biggest fan of Dave Chappelle, a TV comedian, Clark recalls a sketch he had seen that resonated deeply about homelessness. Chappelle describes watching Sesame Street with his nephew, when he noticed “Sesame Street is a way that we teach our kids to hate homelessness because they have Oscar the Grouch, this guy that lives in a trashcan,” said Clark. The MHCC students tried to specifically describe what homelessness is. What would you expect someone who is homeless to look like? Smell like? Clark questioned the group. Fosteer mentioned that often time homeless people have a lot of bags. “Imagine what your entire life would look like inside of a backpack,” said Clark. A few students said they were afraid the homeless might not be happy with having students observing them, “like we’re making a spectacle of them” said Fosteer. Bright said, “My hope is that I get to brighten someone’s day. I don’t like seeing people upset or sad. I just want to help so bad, but I don’t know how.” Clark said, “Sometimes it seems like the work you do will be useless, and sometimes it will be. That’s where the hope comes in, because you will be changing lives regardless of what you think.”
“We love each other. That’s what keeps us going,” said Genevier Sullivan when asked how she and her traveling companion Justin DeSantis stay sane living on the streets. “All of those vows that people exchange: for rich or for poor, through sickness and in health, for better or for worse. I see so many people get divorced over money. We pretty well got it figured out that we don’t care if we run out of money again,” Sullivan said. “We’ll still love each other. He makes my life all that much better. It doesn’t matter if we’re sleeping under a bridge” It’s a quirky love story with a twist, to say the least. Sullivan, 29, and DeSantis, 21, had both been travelling the country when they first met in front of a 7-11 store on the strip in Las Vegas. After splitting up and each travelling on their own schedule, they ran into each other again two years later in front of that very same 7-11. Sullivan is from northern British Columbia and is a Wet’suwet’un Nation, or First Nations people, which is what Native Americans call themselves in Canada. DeSantis is from northern California. Members of the MHCC Mental Health and Human Services Club on Saturday shared a home-made chili taco dinner, made by JOIN worker Joe Clark, with Sullivan and DeSantis, a homeless couple trying to find housing and employment in Portland. That day had started out rough for the two, who were sleeping under the east side of the Burnside Bridge when a man started a fire. DeSantis woke up and told the man to put out the fire since it was right under I-5 and it could be dangerous if the smoke got too big, not to mention attracting the police. “He looks back, all crazy and picks up a knife and pipe and comes at me,” said DeSantis. About that time, seven people woke up and convinced the man to put the knife down and he did, and eventually the pipe as well, while Sullivan was putting water on the fire. “But after he put down the pipe, he came at me. Luckily I had done wrestling and martial arts when I was younger so I could keep him from hurting me,” said DeSantis, “We did get in a fight and I pretty much beat him up.” Sullivan said, “As soon as someone drew blood, I broke it up” and then “we got on with our lives.” The two packed up their stuff and left, but friends told them the man had gathered a few buddies and came back with more pipes and knives. “This is the type of stuff we have to deal with. We come here (JOIN) almost every day, go take a shower and then go downstairs to work on our resumes and turn those in,” said Sullivan. “Now the story had somehow morphed to that a mentally challenged kid got beaten in the face with a rock by the three of us and we killed a dog,” said Sullivan. “That’s what they’re going around and saying, and that’s not what happened at all.” “I can tell he’s a straight up meth case, he only has two teeth,” she recalled of the man who lit the fire. “Meth is horrible. I’ve seen meth turn the nicest people I know into a freaking nightmare. There are drugs that you can recover from, and you can be okay again. But meth is like blowing it all,” she said. DeSantis is from northern California, but was in the Sierra Nevadas when he was 18 and first decided to hit the road. He said so many people did meth and “that was pretty much the reason I left and went on the road with my cousin,” he said. His cousin had been traveling the country and at the time was in Arkansas. “I got $16 to my name and that’s all I got,” DeSantis told his cousin. He told me to get myself a piece of cardboard and write “stranded, need gas, please help,” said DeSantis. It worked. He has been traveling ever since. “The first time I was homeless was when I was 13 years old,” said Sullivan. “I was in a horrible foster home and there was nowhere for me to go and it was in northern British Columbia, minus 40 weather and I had to walk around with my bag and knock on doors. You just can’t sleep outside in the cold. Some nights I would be up all night because I didn’t find anywhere to sleep,” she said. One day, two friends were planning to move to Mexico. She asked how much it would cost and was told about $1,200. She sold everything she had and then met with her
Genevier Sullivan panhandles with her dog Buster with a sense of humor.
Photo by Yuca Kosugi/The Advocate
native family. They held a going-away party and gave her $300 for her move. She is diagnosed with depression and PTSD, but said that going to Mexico during the winter is probably the best cure she’s ever had. She lived alone on the beach for three months in a tent. “They all thought I was Mexican down there,” said Sullivan, “so as long as I didn’t talk, no one screwed with me. I remember going to a karaoke bar in Cabo San Lucas. They gave me a few beers and I got up and sang AC/DC and Guns ‘n Roses and they were like ‘you’re English is so good. Did you go to escuela (school)?’” However, a slew of events eventually led the couple to seek residence in Portland and they plan to get married in March. “Once you settle down in a city, it’s tough unless you’ve got family or friends who are willing to take you in to sponsor you,” said Sullivan. “This (JOIN) is the only one (social service agency) we’ve stuck around with. We were walking around for a week going to Central City Concern and all these places but all they are is concerned,” said Sullivan. “We walk in there and they tell us that we can’t even get on the waiting list to get on the waiting list.” The two talk about how the system takes them in circles by making it illegal to live a homeless life when it is nearly impossible to find housing without a job or a job without housing. “We walk off all our energy and it’s completely exhausting. My muscles are sore everyday,” said Sullivan. “And to have someone completely unaware calling you lazy, they don’t even know.” They must walk to the other side of town to get a meal, and then walk out (of the city) for somewhere to sleep. Sometimes people will stay up all night to be safe and then must sleep during the day, which gives the wrong impression that homeless people are lazy, said DeSantis. And being a female homeless, there are limited places to go to the bathroom so Sullivan said she does not drink much water. “And in the middle of this, you get people yelling at you to get a job. How are you going to get a job when you’re carrying your backpack around and you have nowhere to live and nowhere to shower?” said Sullivan. During dinner, they got a call from one of the apartments they were looking at. DeSantis answered the phone and nonchalantly handed it to Sullivan. It might not turn into anything, he said, so he doesn’t get his hopes up for every call.
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Criss, “Just leave him be, he’s not having a good morning.” A moment later, a man rushes out of the Blanchet House and hastily asks if people have seen anyone walk out with a green backpack. He gets a tip that a man in a red jacket may have taken it by accident since there were two green backpacks left inside, and he runs off toward the Bud Clark Commons, where some guessed he may have been headed. “Everything was in there, my birth certificates and family photos,” he said before he took off. The students from JOIN stood quietly outside Blanchet House in the cold, still waiting for Bishop. About 10 minutes later, the man came back smiling broadly with another man who had, in fact, taken the wrong bag in an honest mistake. “There’s only so much you can lose,” he said, and thanked the man as they both departed on their respective ways for the day. Bishop showed up around 7:30 a.m. in a denim jacket with a cutout of an Occupy Portland shirt pinned to the back with “coffee man” hand-written across. Bishop, 63, is from Illinois and first came to Portland in 1967. Since then he has been “back and forth” between different cities. Up until six years ago, he had been homeless and so he knew about the services provided around Portland like the back of his hand. He has been helping JOIN immersions by giving tours of the various services around town. “Here in Portland, a person cannot starve,” Bishop said. “There’s always a place serving free food.” Walking, Bishop led the student to a variety of stops — the Royal Palm, Bud Clark Commons, p:ear, Sister of the Road Café, the Macdonald Center, the Downtown Chapel, SAFES, R2D2, the Union Gospel Mission, and the Portland Rescue Mission — with Bishop explaining the different services provided at each location and oftentimes running into people he knew. After the two-hour tour, which ended in front of the Portland Rescue Mission, Clark separated the group into three pairs for a scavenger hunt. He gave a page filled with scenarios and questions that might come up if one was homeless and each pair had to find answers by talking to people. Clark also gave each person a dollar and challenged the students to eat lunch with only the dollar, or even less if possible. The pairs were Criss and first-year MHCC student Ashley Bright, Boyd and first-year MHCC student Angela Gilleran, and second-year MHCC student Liz Fosteer and the reporter. The pairs went in different directions and had varying experiences. Boyd and Gilleran were mistaken as a homeless couple and Boyd said the cops had eyed them a few times, probably thinking they were homeless. He also noted that the shelters were ready to give Gilleran a room in a shelter while they told Boyd that he can be in the warming rooms. All six ended up back at the Blanchet House for lunch since the meals are free. Fosteer met a cheerful homeless man, Steve, who also went by “Old School” or “Ikey”. Steve had a full shopping cart covered in a tarp, and offered to escort Fosteer to the Bud Clark Commons. The group met back up at 12:30 p.m. in front of Portland Rescue Mission and went to their last stop at Dignity Village via bus 73. The village, a state-recognized homeless camp, is located near the airport between a composting site and a correctional facility. Scott and Lisa Layman, who live at the village, showed the students around Dignity Village and talked about its ups and down. Lisa said public transportation is not very convenient, adding that Scott has to go to work early on weekends when the bus does not start coming to their stop until 9:30 a.m. People also lose their sense of taste because the composting facility next door emits a mix of methane and ammonia, said Lisa. The little wooden shacks at Dignity Village do not have electricity or running water, with the exception of a few who need it for medical reasons, Lisa said. There are 51 people living in the village, and each person must adhere to the rules and put in volunteer time for the village. There are also 25 cats and eight dogs which are all spayed or neutered and given medical attention by PAWS, a veterinary service. “We are a member-based community,” said Scott, “How many of you know 50 of your neighbors?”
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Retire: Jones will spend retirement doing ‘anything’ she wants Continued from Page 8 was evicted, partitions to our jazz program, that’s a theme. Our campus was known for its jazz, that Susie and I have worked our tails off to maintain it, it’s not appreciated as it should be,” he added.
Administrative appeal
In a May 2009 press release from the board meeting on May 13, in which the board unanimously voted to move KMHD to Oregon Public Broadcasting, then MHCC President John Sygielski said, “We are excited about this new partnership and the many opportunities it will create for our current and future students through internship opportunities with OPB’s radio and television stations. For KMHD, the City of Gresham, the College and those who have supported it for almost three decades, this agreement ensures a more stable and robust future for all who greatly enjoy the station and its jazz format.” McIntyre said of the tuition waivers, “For many years (decades) the vast majority of waivers intended for instruction (which is the area that the music department falls under) were primarily going to music students. Students in other areas of study with financial need or who demonstrated academic excellence did not have the same opportunities for these waivers. In order to make the distribution more equitable and reach out to a greater number of students; starting this academic year, the Board approved to distribute the waivers across all divi-
sions and departments giving priority to those eligible students who reside in the district” She added that faculty are “in the process of working on alternative strategies and club activities to increase scholarship opportunities for our music students.” Jones said, “All of these things happened without our knowledge. You can kind of describe it like, when looking at the music program the administration was kind of like thieves in the night. They came and took a program away behind closed doors; they were not very out in the open. “I would hope that the current administration would rescind the destructive actions of last year and restore the music program to its previous successful level,” she added. “It was never a big announcement or obvious move to eliminate the music department. It was more like tearing off limbs and watching us bleed to death,” said Jones of the administration’s actions. Jones and the rest of music faculty met with vice president of student success and enrollment services David Minger and vice president of instruction Christie Plinksi and interim President Michael Hay separately in order to address their concerns. “We (Jones, Barduhn and Tuttle) met with them (Minger, Hay and Plinksi) regarding our concerns and we are waiting for an outcome,” said Jones. Looking back on her time at MHCC, Jones is not quick to forget the successes of the music department. She made
Jones
a partial list 46 alumni from the music department at MHCC who have earned their living in the music industry at one point or another. That list includes performers such as Chris Botti, a Grammy-nominated solo trumpet player who has performed with likes of Sting, Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon; Peter Dyer, who played keyboard for Mariah Carey; and Ben Wolfe, who played bass for Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. The list also includes alumni who now teach music from New School for Jazz in New York to University of Denver to David Douglas High School. Jones said, “This is just a partial list. We just got started making it. It’s pretty substantial,” adding that many of them would attribute their success to their education at MHCC.
Festivals
Jones has coordinated two festivals — MHCC Symphonic Band Festival in March and the NW Jazz Band Festival in May — at MHCC for the last 12 years. Although students do most of the work, meaning very little cost to the college according to Jones, the MHCC Symphonic Band Festival is not happening this year because the high schools that would’ve been involved are already booked. The newly formed Mt. Hood Jazz Club this year is intending on holding the NW Jazz Band Festival. The aforementioned CD recordings resulted in seven of the 12 CDs being picked up by the label SeaBreeze. The 2005 recording received a national award for being on of the top 10 campus CDs and two other CDs received first-round Grammy nominations said Jones. Jones also helped the Jazz Band take six trips to play events in Taiwan, including the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung.
“The primary focus for me has always been helping students be successful and reach their potential. My secondary goal has been to promote the program and the college,” said Jones. She estimates that the festivals she coordinated over the 12 years have brought MHCC and the music program to around 30 thousand prospective students interested in the campus as a whole.
Before and after MHCC
Prior to working at MHCC, Jones worked at 16 other schools in the David Douglas and North Clackamas School Districts as an itinerant music teacher before MHCC. She was a student here in the late 1970s before going on the University of Portland to get her bachelor’s of music education and masters of music and composition degrees. “I enjoyed every age level. They each have their challenges and rewards. I think it was probably best to end at the community college level, rather than start there, because you can see the progression. If you start teaching fourth, fifth and sixth grade and then you teach middle school and high school and then community college, you can see where those community college students come from so it gives you a better understanding of what they’re bringing into the classroom,” said Jones. “I’ve always had a passion for the college and especially the music department. And when that job became open, I was at a point in my life where I thought it was a good time to make the move to my dream job. Teaching music at Mt. Hood Community College was my dream job,” said Jones of her career experiences, adding that she came to the realization that teaching at MHCC was her dream job while a student here. In her spare time, Jones still plays tenor and alto saxophone, currently with the Art Abram’s Swing Machine Big Band. She said she has played with many other bands throughout her years, many of them big bands. “I still gig,” she said, adding that she probably will never stop playing music. As a result of the actions of the last year’s administration and their decisions regarding the music program, Jones will retire and live out her retirement doing, in her words, “anything I want.”
Homeless couple: Couple’s love holds them together through thick and thin on the streets Continued from Page 7 Asked if his family knew of his situation, DeSantis said that at the beginning, he used to call his mom almost every day or at least a few times a week. But he admits that he has not talked to her for about five weeks. Geri Criss, president of the MHHS club, mentioned that she also has a son who is 21 and can sympathize with how Justin’s mother must feel. “I have a son your age and you remind me of him. I have that mom thing going on, so I would want to hear at least once in a while and make sure my boy is okay,” she said. Second-year student in the MHHS program Liz Fosteer said that when people think of the homeless, they automatically assume that they must have made a bad decision in their life or that they are stupid and flawed in some way. “But hearing you guys talk, you just sound like really intelligent, capable human beings. I’m just really impressed with how well-spoken you are, and how tough you are. You just really impress me,” she said. DeSantis said, “Ideally I’d like to go back to school and be able to get in a position where I’m employable for the kind of things that I would like to do. I’m pretty confident that as long as I have the education under my belt , I can probably find my own work.” Sullivan said, “We wanted to take an ESL course so we can teach English somewhere where they don’t speak English. But right now we just do one goal at a time. Getting into a place is our next goal.”