Cameron Whitten is exactly one day younger than me. The exact same day I showed up homeless in Portland he began carrying out a hunger strike at our city hall. Tomorrow will be my 50th day homeless in Portland. It will be his 50th day hungry. I like this correlation. I feel connected to the movement with the way it aligns with my own homelessness. In honor of his 50 days there will be a protest out front of City Hall.
I actually heard about this when I went to church on Sunday but forgot about it until a Facebook friend invited me to the event. I intend to go. I feel attracted to this. Lately, things have been a lot harder on street kids. Cops are cracking down to put us out of sight from tourists. We don't have anywhere to go. Shelter is overflowing. It feels like things are spiraling out of control and something is going to have to happen. Tempers on both sides are rising.
For every homeless person there are five vacant houses. Something in out country is not working, because it makes no sense for empty houses to out number homeless people. I'm not going to lie and say I know what the solution to this problem is. I don't know. I have no idea. I'm really just a little homeless kid. I know nothing about how these things work all I know is right now, this system isn't working.
I'm excited to see what happens tomorrow.
--mm
No comments:
Post a Comment