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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Media Tribune Covers Homelessness With Sensitivity

Posted by Matt Davis on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:12 AM

Perhaps someone on the editorial board at the Tribune read our "not invited back to 2009" section, earlier this month, which mentioned the negative attitude of some of the paper's online commenters to issues of homelessness. Either way, it's encouraging to read Peter Korn's sensitive investigation into the life of George Grigorieff, the homeless man we reported to have died of exposure in Lone Fir cemetery over the holidays.

That “drunk” lasted until his death. For about a decade he lived on and off with family and performed odd jobs. Eventually, the downward spiral of alcoholism combined with post traumatic stress disorder pushed Grigorieff into the subset of homeless people who will not enter shelters and who reject nearly all attempts to help them.

It's a sensitively-written piece that obviously benefits from some hard-worked reporting. It doesn't matter that JOIN Director Marc Jolin's name is misspelled. You should go over there and read it, because they quote Jolin saying things like this:
“For too long as a community we have assumed because somebody has been outside for 10 years, they are not interested in going back in, or they have chosen homelessness as a lifestyle,” Jolin says. “In our experience, in the vast majority of cases, that’s not true. They don’t want to die on the street.”

So far, there are two very nice and positive comments on the article. Here's hoping there'll be a few more in that vein by later this afternoon, before the Wild Things come out with their "he deserved it" crap. And thanks, Peter, for such an interesting and humane piece of journalism.

 

Comments (6) RSS

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1
Good on the people at JOIN, for a job the government is not cut out for.
It brings us once again to the topic of work/poor farms and civil commitments.
Because ensuring this man lived to see another day would have surely involved forcing him against his will.

Posted by D on January 15, 2009 at 12:00 PM · Report
2
In some ways, indeed. From the piece I linked to above, where we reported on the death in the context of Commissioner Nick Fish's assessment of the work of the emergency warming shelters:

"In light of the single death, Fish, a former civil rights attorney, said at the meeting that he might consider revisiting the laws for involuntarily pulling a homeless person into a warming shelter in extreme weather. "
Posted by Matt Davis on January 15, 2009 at 12:38 PM · Report
3
Wouldn't you need to deem someone as mentally incompetent to put them in a shelter against their will? That's essentially what we're talking about here, right? This guy became so consumed with alcoholism that he could no longer make decisions about his short term well being.

I gotta say, it sounds like a slippery slope for personal liberty, not that I don't feel bad when people die on the streets. It's a crying shame but just how far do we go to help people?
Posted by Suburban Porn King on January 15, 2009 at 4:15 PM · Report
4
Absolutely. This whole idea came up in discussion on Tuesday:

http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…

Posted by Matt Davis on January 15, 2009 at 5:32 PM · Report
5
"In light of the single death, Fish, a former civil rights attorney, said at the meeting that he might consider revisiting the laws for involuntarily pulling a homeless person into a warming shelter in extreme weather. "

how far from that to "how about we just put them all in jail... it will be better for them, more humane"
did the guy need to die? no... but he also didnt need to be dragged off that night against his will somewhere... JOIN and people like them dont work on the "get them today" model, they work with people, building relationship and helping the person fix their own shit till they can get them in to a place...
Props to JOIN, those guys over there kick some serious ass as far as doing what is needed to be done to get people in to housing.
Posted by Disco Volante on January 15, 2009 at 6:45 PM · Report
6
If the Trib had bothered to interview the "back" household at the house (I work at home all day on weekdays, and someone is usually home eves.) they would have learned that that myself, my g/f, and our other housemate had brought useful items to George on several occasions: blankets, sleeping bag, a hot water bottle, oatmeal, hot tea... though at times it was a different person using the space under the front porch. We were horrified to see a picture of the front of our place (in the print version) along with the news that people at this address (our idiot neighbors in the same building, actually) had called the cops on this gentle fellow. The trash didn't seem enough reason to be concerned about him. The story didn't mention what became of his sleeping bag when the cops took him in. Possibly he became separated from it through no fault of his own, and as a result later died from exposure? That would have been another angle to explore that the Trib reporter somehow missed completely. He was obviously a seasoned homeless person, and comfortable enough with cold weather that he refused requests to be taken to a shelter. He didn't want to be bothered with offers of food or something hot, but thanked us heartily nonetheless.
Posted by organic.brian on January 17, 2009 at 3:41 PM · Report

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