PORTLAND, Ore. — When Occupy Wall Street protesters took over two parks in Portland’s soggy downtown, they pitched 300 tents and offered free food, medical care and shelter to anyone. They weren’t just building, like so many of their brethren across the nation, a community to protest what they see as corporate greed.
They also created an ideal place for the homeless. Some were already living in the parks, while others were drawn from elsewhere to the encampment’s open doors.
Now, protesters from Portland to Los Angeles to Atlanta are trying to distinguish between homeless people who are joining their movement and those who are there for the amenities. When night falls in Portland, for instance, protesters have been dealing with fights, drunken arguments and the display of the occasional knife.
However, many homeless say the protests have helped them speak out against the economic troubles that sent them to the streets in the first place.
“The city wasn’t giving us what we needed,” said Joseph Gordon, 31, who trekked his way from Cincinnati two months ago and noted that there is nearly always enough food but never enough shelter. “You can’t feed your problem away. It took this camp to show people how it really is.”
Some organizers see the protest and the inclusion of the homeless as an opportunity to demonstrate their political ideals. They see the possibility to show that the homeless are not hopeless and that they, too, can become a functional part of society.
In Portland, the protest has swallowed up two square blocks. There are shaggy-haired college kids, do-gooder hippies and couples with their young children. They came by the dozen, in cars and vans, on bikes and on foot and in rides hitched on the highway. Rain falls daily and dry socks are at a premium.
At the center of the camp are the medical, information, library and wellness tents. Along one side are families, who established a play area for children. On the opposite side is the “A-Camp” — for anarchist. It’s where the city’s anarchist faction and long-term homeless sleep.
“We’re here to spoil each other,” said Kat Enyeart, a 25-year-old medic who says she spends half her time tending to the homeless, some of whom are physically and mentally ill. “It’s a big, messy, beautiful thing.”
As the occupation enters its fourth week, divisions have begun to emerge.
One man recently created a stir when he registered with police as a sex offender living in the park. A man with mental health problems threatened to spread AIDS via a syringe. At night, the park echoes with screaming matches and scuffles over space, blankets, tents or nothing at all.
In Los Angeles, protesters are dealing with similar issues: Homeless transplants from the city’s Skid Row have set up their tents within the larger tent city.
“Occupy” across the globe
CALIFORNIA: Hundreds of protesters defiantly remained at their campsite outside Oakland’s City Hall early Saturday, despite a city order to vacate.
NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque police subdued a 48-year-old man who lunged with a knife at a group of protesters gathered Friday evening near the University of New Mexico in support of Occupy Wall Street. Miguel Aguirre told investigators he had been on a drinking binge for days and that he felt protesters had no right to be on university property.
MICHIGAN: Two people have gotten married in the midst of Detroit’s version of Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Detroit spokesman Lee Gaddies said Stan Guarnelo and Brook West wed Saturday afternoon in Grand Circus Park, where protesters have gathered since Oct. 14.
BRITAIN: St. Paul’s Cathedral has closed to the public because of Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters camped outside, church officials said Friday. The Dean of St. Paul’s, the Rev. Graeme Knowles, said the decision to shut the doors of the iconic London church to visitors and tourists following the afternoon service was made with “heavy hearts.” He said health, safety and fire concerns — notably the presence of flammable liquids and stoves set up by protesters — were at the heart of the issue.
GERMANY: About 4,000 people took to the streets in Frankfurt on Saturday to protest the banks’ dominance in what is continental Europe’s financial hub, police said. Organizers put the turnout at 6,000.
The Associated Press
