Panhandling in Portland

I have been to a lot of cities in the past ten years across the United States, but I have never noticed teenagers and young people panhandling. In the past it has always been what has become the usual stereotype: older men or women carrying plastic bags full of their stuff around with them as they either move around the city by bus or settle into one spot to panhandle.

On a recent trip to Portland, however, I noticed quite a few, young people sitting in front of drug stores especially asking, "Can you spare some change?" When my husband and I returned to our home-away-from-home, Seattle, I decided to look for more young panhandlers. I found them downtown in front of a large movie theater. One of them, a young blond woman, was there on at least two trips downtown. Our last trip before we left she was there, but as we exited the theater, she got up and went away with a young attractively-dressed man in a business suit. The policeman who was passing by did not seem to notice anything amiss. These experiences made me think about the motivation of those young people. Could they not get jobs, or is it simply more profitable to ask for handouts (or to give oneself sexually) every day?

Having watched some television shows in the past on the subject, I know the usual explanation is that these young people are runaways and are many times drug or alcohol addicted. If underage, they cannot legally work and have to panhandle to eat. The ones I observed did not fit this pattern and were well above the age to work.

I think of my own family's experiences when I was a toddler and beyond where my mother and father seemed to be always homeless. My father could not keep a job for a number of reasons. In spite of having a winning personality, he simply could not keep his hands out of the till to support his gambling habit. Thankfully, we had a number of relatives who took us in during the years: my mother's cousin Mary Margaret from Mobile, her half-aunt Elise from the Mississippi Delta, and other various and sundry friends and relatives. In the 1940's, it was rare for a woman to work outside the home if she had a husband. My mother followed my father around the South, always looking for a relatives to stay with first, or if that failed, a room or small apartment to rent by the week for our family. We never stayed on the streets though my father did his share of panhandling through the years to help us get by.

As usual, I do not have any answers for this social problem of young adults. I know that a number of churches and charities do their best to provide shelter and meals for the homeless. My father's favorite was the Gospel Rescue Mission, located in several states. He never minded listening to a sermon in order to get food and a bed for the night. As he lived though, he died: homeless and shot three times along a Mississippi highway in August of 1976. I would like to think that the fate of the young panhandlers in Portland and Seattle could somehow turn out differently.