Oregon Public Broadcasting

Over the last few weeks, OPB has been considering homelessness in Oregon.

It's a problem that can strike any time: when you're old without money; when you're middle aged and wrestling with an addiction; or when you're young and not getting along with family.

Kristian Foden-Vencil talked to several homeless kids and found that over the last few years, Portland has developed a new way of making sure that runaways don't slip into homelessness.

It's 8 a.m. in downtown Portland and Michael Budd, who's known as Buddha because of his size and temperament, waits for breakfast outside a non-profit.

Michael Budd: "Last night I spent in a doorway down on 24th and Northrup, down in the bottom part of Portland. A nice little covered area, nobody can see me."

Kristian Foden-Vencil: "What do you look for in a doorway and do you spend the night in the same doorway every night?"

Michael Budd: "I have a couple of different doorways. One's for rainy days, the other for not rainy days. And usually I look  for good cover away from the wind make sure that I have a place to sleep and not really be seen. I mean you can see my feet but unless you're looking you can't see me."

Budd's been homeless for about four years now -- since he was 18.

He doesn't want to spend the night under a bridge, because apparently, that's where there's a lot of serious drug activity.

He used to stay in shelters, but he isn't allowed there anymore.

Michael Budd: "I've done almost everything. You know, heroin, meth, cocaine, LSD, mushrooms, marijuana. And I've done it. I smoke a little bit of marijuana now and then, especially out here. Like, if I have nothing to do I'm going to get in trouble, I'm going to go do something, so I smoke a little bit of weed, sit back, relax, let everything happen, take a chill-pill."

Like many of the young people out here, he says he's trying to build a life. In January, he's hoping to go to Portland Community College to become a probation officer.

Until then, however, he fills his days by dropping into the various non-profit programs and hanging out with friends.

Michael Budd: "Today, I got to go down to a program called Pear. It's an art program and I'm going to go down there and do some painting. I'm going to sell my food stamps today, get a little bit of cash, go fix my bike. My bike is falling apart so that's going to get taken care of. And then later go kick it inside at my friend's house."

He says he doesn't need his food stamps. He says if you know where to go in Portland, you can eat five times a day.

At Outside In for example, they serve a good breakfast with fruit and milk. Inside, Kathy Oliver, the director, estimates there are about 1500 young people living on the streets of Portland.

Half come from homes in the city. A quarter are from rural Oregon and the rest are from across the country.

They're homeless for many reasons she says: they're parents are cooking meth; they've been abused; or they simply want to strike out on their own. But more and more, says Oliver, they seem to identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender or in the process of questioning their sexuality.

Kathy Oliver: "It's still not acceptable in many families to be a sexual minority youth. And even though I think the world has changed remarkably, it hasn't always changed as much as I would hope it has."

20 years ago, she says, 17 percent of homeless kids identified themselves as a sexual minority. Now it's closer to 35 percent.

Heather Brown, the youth development director at Outside In says adults may preach the doctrine of diversity. But away from prying eyes, kids can still be cruel. 

Healther Brown: "I do think that school communities are really trying to be accepting and supportive but that doesn't mean that every young person's experience is always supportive. And if they're feeling targetted for any reason, they might choose to leave."

For whatever reason a kid decides to leave, the streets of Portland are not safe, says Monique Williams. She's 25 and lives in a doorway near PGE Park.

Monique Williams: "A girl died down here like seven years ago, some other guy got stabbed to death down here, after they poured hot grease on him. They're not nice people down here.   Oh, and if other people hear this. Tell little kids not to come down here, like little 16-year-olds, because it's not safe for them to come down here and they think it's a cool place to hang-out, but it's not. There's guys that are pedophiles down here who are homeless. Kids get raped all the time down here. People get raped all the time." 

For these reasons, Multnomah County and the social service agencies in Portland have drawn a bright line through the homeless community.

For the last decade, anyone who's homeless and under 18 gets immediately whisked into a social services program: like Harry's Mother.

Steve Olsen: "Sometimes just the fact that the youth and the family have a little break from one another, plays into the solution."

Steve Olsen is the director of Harry's Mother, where a runaway can come and stay for a few days -- to cool off and then work on a compromise with their parents -- so they can go back home.

Steve Olsen: "The youth has their side of the story. The family has their side as well. And somewhere in between lies the truth. And after that it's negotiating what would work for both parties -- parents and youth."

Olsen says there are about 3,000 reported runaways in Multnomah County every year. Nowadays, under the new system, the vast majority go back home -- or move in with a relative.

It's much better, he says, than the days when kids were allowed to live on the street. Essentially, he says, it stops runaways from becoming chronically homeless.

Steve Olsen: "Runaway youth sometimes look up to homeless youth. Here's a 17-year-old that's essentially making it on their own, with help. And they can appear heroic to a 15-year-old who's having trouble at home."

Multnomah County was one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to draw such a bright line between runaways and homeless people. And many regard it as a big success.

But what about the kids who runaway from home after their 18th birthday?

In Northwest Portland, the Streetlight Youth Shelter is an old 60-bed hotel that was recently remodeled.

The director, Kevin Donegan, gives the grand tour.

Kevin Donegan: "You can see how its been converted, removing some of the walls to open it up for a lounge area. And then when we walk into the dormatories, the men's dorms are a bit open here, I removed a couple of walls. Upstairs, the only difference is I didn't remove those walls, to make it more of a college dorm settings, since they stay up there longer."

Donegan says the shelter is open to anyone under 25 and beds are available once the doors open in the evening on a first-come-first serve basis.

They can stay for a maximum of eight days a month, unless they agree to engage in the various social service program that help them try and find work of get free of their addiction.

Joshua Ackley and his wife, who's four months pregnant, are staying at one shelter. Because of the showers and free clothes, they're clean and dry. They also look relatively healthy and well fed.

Ackley thinks they have another six months in the shelter before they're forced to leave.

Joshua Ackley: "And by then my wife and I'll have the kid obviously and we'll be on section 8, or we'll be on controlled income housing or we'll also have TANIF and we'll be moving into a place."

He says he wants to work his butt off to get stable housing for his new family. He says he can do electrical work, janitorial, fast food or carpentry.