Brandy Westerman is the director of emergency humanitarian operations, a new role that oversees both Safe Rest Villages and the larger sanctioned camp sites.
On Wednesday afternoon at Laurelhurst Park, two women shared cigarettes and paintbrushes as they spread globs of acrylic paint over stretched canvas frames. Mama Zeigh, a woman in her mid 60s with a grey-flecked mohawk, worked on an octopus painting, while Alma Barrett, a younger woman with a small white dog, painted a vibrant sky. “This is how we find calm,” said Zeigh, who asked to be identified by her nickname. “We need something to.
After seven years living on Portland sidewalks, Anthony Hurt was ready for a change. It was 2019—nine years after his 2-year-old daughter’s death sent his life spiraling into a fog of depression, addiction, and homelessness—and the 36-year-old had reached a breaking point. “I was tired of waking up cold and wet and not knowing if my things would get stolen if I left them anywhere,” said Hurt. “It was too hard.” Hurt checked himself into.
Becky Lange had spent months building and maintaining the community vegetable garden at NE Dekum and 33rd Ave. Neighbors had donated planting containers and vegetable starts at the beginning of spring, and the late-June heatwave meant the garden was finally producing enough bounty to share. That’s why, on June 27, Lange held back tears as she surveyed the garden plot. Plants lay uprooted and wilting in the hot afternoon sun in a garden bed dimpled.