This Week in the Mercury
Thursday, December 18, 2008
News / Media When The Cameras Stop Rolling
Posted by Matt Davis on Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:10 PM
There's been a good deal of media interest in the West Burnside Portland Rescue Mission over recent weeks, with Christmas approaching, and the cold weather setting in—cameras from KGW and Fox 12 have been spotted outside by this reporter on rides past the shelter over the last seven days. But one homeless woman says she's troubled at having been treated inconsistently after the cameras stopped rolling.
This is Princess H, with her dog Sevie. The H stands for "homeless," she says. The nickname was given to her in Arizona a few years back, and she guesses it's almost as common a street name as "wolf, shadow and bear." But she likes it. "I can be a royal pain in the you know what," she jokes. Sevie, meanwhile, got her name on June 17th, when Princess rescued her from being dragged off by the humane society. She's a friendly five-year-old black lab/pit bull cross.
Princess has been living at the SAFE women's shelter on 5th and Burnside since September. She went to the Rescue Mission last Thursday, when she says there were news cameras outside, and was able to sit in the chapel with Sevie to keep warm. She went back the next day, and again the day after that, she says, when news cameras were still hanging around, and there was no problem with her being able to sit down and warm up, chat with people and have Sevie around. Then on Tuesday this week, she was told in no uncertain terms that she couldn't bring Sevie inside.
"It's just the lack of consistency, with wanting to look good when the media's around, and then not giving a flip when they're not there. It's kind of annoying," she says. "When the news is there it's okay for you to come inside and snuggle up with your dog, but once the donations are rolling in, it's a different story."
Princess' situation is illustrative of the barriers faced by many homeless people with dogs—which can often be a barrier to obtaining services, or even a warm place to sit. She has called the humane society twice to try to arrange emergency board for Sevie in the cold weather, "but I don't have a cellphone so they can't call me back."
"We do have a policy that animals aren't allowed into the facility," says Rescue Mission spokesman Bill Miller. "I have to admit that there's been so much activity down there over the weekend that we've had bigger concerns than policing whether somebody is coming in with an animal, but perhaps when it's quieter we would work hard to enforce it."
"But it's really got nothing to do with the TV cameras," Miller continues. "And I hope Princess understands that."
I've seen them try to bring their pit bull in a ton of times to the mission and other places and they've been told a ton of times that they cannot have a non-service animal in there and they continue to try to bring her in... months and months ago they've been told the same thing...
Nothing to do with the cameras for sure, just them not giving a crap about everyones safety by bringing a non-service animal (a pit bull/lab??!!!) into an already pretty crazy busy and tough place, even after being told a ton of times that it's against policy, I heard them being told that last summer, so they just plain know the deal.
Shame on them for ignoring the rules over and over again and making the place that helps us out day in and day out seem bad.
Pits and non-service dogs just can't be in crazy places like that, as we don't need any dogs freaking out on us and already have enough crap to deal with without having to worry about some pitbull or other non-service dog ripping us up.
If you can't feed or shelter yourself, deal with the fact that you can't get into places with a dog and let some family have a shot at a good pet by bringing it to the humane society. It's pure crap to expect the city or missions to find ways to let people with pets, some of which are insanely dangerous, in for shelter. The humane society already has said they'd take animals in.
Get rid of the dog, use the shelters we got, and when your back on your feet, then you can take on a pet.
3
It's the blog and all, but does the Mercury even have an editor?
5
Pit bulls and homeless people... well, it generally has to do with the fact that they are mean and scary and it keeps people away.
when you are homeless, you have no safety of a front door, no safety of four walls and a roof. so you find something else to act as your front door, such as a dog that barks.
you need something to keep you warm at night, snuggling up next to a dog is a lot better than shivering in the snow, trust me on this.
you need something to keep you sane... while homeless you live in a world where often the nicest thing that happens to you is people mocking you on a blog. It generally goes down hill from there; from laughing at your face, to ignoring your existance or humanity, to throwing stuff at you, to acts of violence against you based on nothing but your housing status. in that lonely life, a dog/cat/ferret/bird/spider/whatever can be what keeps you at least a bit sane...
why this pit bulls in particular? in this case it was because she found the dog and felt compassion for it. to me the story kind of missed the mark. it should have been about that, that a woman saw someone/something that needed her help, and she gave what little she had.
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