Laura Moulton
Moulton is Street BooksShe lives in Portland.
I first met Ben Hodge Hodgson, a man living on the streets of Portland, at Street Books, a bicycle library I had started that summer in 2011. He showed up in his usual shabby coat, the same one he always wears in any season, and pointedly noted that my library didn’t have any books by PG Wodehouse, which no self-respecting librarian could afford not to stock.
Hodge has struggled for years with mental illness, a condition that led him to live on the streets, and his experiences are documented in a book we co-authored. ““Loaners: The Birth of a Street Library” After three and a half years on the road, Hodge entered a housing program for veterans and has lived in an apartment ever since. He also serves on the board of Street Books, working as a book dealer on the same streets where he once slept.
A few months after we met, while Hodge was still living outside, he gave a tour of Old Town to some students from Lewis and Clark College, where I was teaching. “Writing in the city“ At the end of the lesson, we gathered in a circle to thank him and say goodbye, and he surprised us all by suddenly reciting a poem.
He drew a circle to shut me out
Heretic, rebel, contemptible
But love and I had the wisdom to prevail
We drew a circle around him.
The poem, “Outwitted,” by Oregon native Edwin Markham, who was Oregon’s Poet Laureate from 1923 to 1931, offers a vision of what could be possible if we focused on including and accepting people, rather than labeling and excluding them.
Touring the city with Hodge that day transformed what the students thought they knew about people outside. One student later told me she thought about Hodge all the time and what an interesting and deep thinker he was. Now, when she sees someone pushing a shopping cart or stuffing their possessions into garbage bags, she wonders, “What if they were like Hodge?” Just as funny, just as smart, just as human?
Of course, they’re like Hodge. They may not produce the same legendary puns as Hodge, but among the people outside are a mentally ill doctor, a waitress diagnosed with cancer and no health insurance, a kid who was aged out of foster care, and a Portland native who can no longer pay rent.
In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court justices ruled last month that it is OK to arrest and fine people for living outdoors, even if they have no other place to go. This latest ruling can be filed alongside many other ordinances, such as sit-and-lie-down ordinances, camping ordinances, and, if you live in Grants Pass, criminalizing pillows and blankets. But focusing on creating laws and ordinances about who can use this square of sidewalk or that park bench is overlooking a bigger, more urgent problem that cannot be solved by legislation. The biggest cause of homelessness in the United States is a lack of affordable housing. Until we have a place where people can live, we have to decide how to treat people who have nothing.
Writing in the New Republic, Tracy Rosenthal wrote, “Research shows that rather than reducing homelessness, criminalization perpetuates it and prevents homeless people from accessing necessary supports like federal housing assistance. Bad credit scores due to criminal records and debt mean fewer employers and landlords are willing to take a chance on homeless people. In the short term, arrests and roundups hinder the efforts of service providers. Homeless people lose medications, important documents, survival equipment, and fragile support networks, adding to the physical and mental strain of living outdoors.”
In the 14 years that Street Books has operated, we have rarely encountered anyone living outside by choice. That’s why we joined a coalition of community partners to file an amicus brief in Grants Pass v. Johnson, arguing that homelessness is an involuntary condition that is made worse when it is addressed with arrests and citations. Everyone has a right to a safe place to sleep, and we are a better community when we have a place where everyone belongs and can call home. My hope is that in the post-Grants Pass era, we will focus more on how to provide that housing, rather than looking for ways to weaponize the power that this ruling has given us.
A few years after I first met Hodge, I received a letter from his niece, Natalie, who had read an article we published together. She wrote that while Hodge was living on the street, her family had no idea if he was alive or dead. She was grateful that the staff at Street Books had looked beyond his living situation and recognized him as the smart, lovable person they knew him to be. By that time, Hodge was our family, too. And it wasn’t hard; we just drew a circle around him.
