This is the story of a 1981 Ford RV and the expansive dreams of Tina and Chris Drake.
The first time I saw the RV, it was parked in front of Street Roots. Just like Tina and Chris Drake’s dreams, it was too big to fit in a city parking space – glorious in its outsized presence. Tina came into the crowded vendor office with the kind of enthusiasm she so frequently brings, but that day it was exceptional. She and Chris had found a home.
They had been staying at Transition Project’s Willamette Shelter when they came upon an RV for sale, and, as luck would have it, they had just enough money for a down payment. They planned to paint the sides in “trans male and trans female colors,” Tina said, naming it Patriot Pride, and traveling around as joyful ambassadors, seeing, they hoped, a bit of the country.
If you don’t already know Tina and Chris, trust me: To know them is to like them. Whenever they sit at a Street Roots table, it becomes the table where everyone gathers. There is a hospitality about them – how Tina smiles as she greets people, how Chris laughs as he tells stories, sitting in his wheelchair, his tiny dog, Rory, snuggled in his lap.
Each time they came into Street Roots, we’d hear the updates. For a while, they housed two people with autism who found shelter life overwhelming.
“We’re the kind of people that, if you’re down on your luck, we’ll give you a hand to get up on your feet,” said Chris. “If we’ve got it, we’ll give it.”
I’d follow the ups and downs with rapt attention. There was the time rainwater leaked through the ceiling air vent. (“We taped it up, tarped it up, made it work,” said Chris). A few weeks before Christmas, the solenoid went out. “We just did our research on it because we couldn’t afford to fix it.” Google, YouTube, knowledgeable friends – they’d figure it out.
Then one day the whole electrical system collapsed. And sure enough, a green slip posted to the RV declared that in three days, it would be towed at their expense. We met over caramel mochas so they could fill me in: They would try to sell the parts to a junk yard. That new solenoid had to be worth something.
Then the story turned again: Crow entered.
Crow, a Street Roots vendor, had grown up fixing motorcycles. He wasn’t daunted by a failed electrical system, and within 10 minutes, he found the one wire that had that 38-year-old RV up and running again.
“Found a wire that was not connected. Took me 10 minutes to figure it out, wire it up, start it right up. Pretty simple,” Crow explained to me with his calm confidence. And he wouldn’t accept payment, Tina and Chris told me. He did it out of kindness.
But there are so many parts that can break on a 1981 Ford RV. Next, it was the alternator belt. But now that they knew Crow could fix it, Tina and Chris scrambled to buy a replacement belt.
Triumph felt near, but it all came crashing down. When they went back out to the RV, it was gone. Towed. That RV was hard to park legally, let alone when it sputtered to a stop.
So a few days ago, Tina came by to tell us all goodbye.
“Street Roots truly is a family to me,” she said emphatically. They were boarding a train in 40 minutes, seeking out Chris’s relatives in Georgia. I was impressed, as I always am, about how they quickly adapted to bad options with new plans. Gumption.
All they wanted was a home, and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get it to work. They didn’t have the money to live in a house, but they had enough for an old RV. They couldn’t park it in most RV parks, where RVs over 10 years old aren’t allowed. They had to keep it moving from spot to spot so it wouldn’t get towed.
If we know the barriers, surely we can remove them.
We can learn from our neighbors. The city of Beaverton will pilot a Safe Parking Pilot Program this year. Eugene runs its Car Camping Program through St. Vincent de Paul, making use of various lots around the city.
In Portland, people can allow an RV on private property because Commissioner Chloe Eudaly issued a memo de-prioritizing code enforcement throughout the housing emergency when she was in charge of the Bureau of Development Services. Mayor Ted Wheeler now is in charge of BDS.
And religious institutions in Portland can host up to three RVs – a provision written in Portland Zoning Code Section 33.920.470.B – provided the guests have access to sanitary facilities.
“A place to safely park” Tina said to me, “is an opportunity for a person to take that middle step from homelessness or houselessness to being properly housed.”
Tina and Chris, I am sure, will chase new dreams, and I look forward to what they come up with next. The rest of us need to dream a little bigger with our laws and our partnerships.
We have upward of 600 religious institutions in Portland. That’s a lot of RV parking.
Or how about we create spaces for legal RV and car camping here in Portland? And when an RV breaks down, let’s provide towing to those safe lots so people don’t lose the one home they have.
As a city, we need to expand what is possible so we can catch up to Tina and Chris’s way of thinking: “If we’ve got it, we’ll give it.”
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.
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