Homeless, but Not Bikeless, in Portland

Three men who identified themselves as “Juan from Russia” and Anonymous 1 and Anonymous 2 people watch along the Springwater Corridor trail. Their bikes, Juan agreed, get them where they want to go, and if necessary, move them quickly away from the police. Photo: Lisa Bauso

In the summer, the bridge overpass provides shade and a space just big enough to fit about a dozen people and gear, which helps discourage newcomers, or “newbies” as Burland calls them. He is “captain” of the patch of pavement where he and a few others regularly sleep after they use their bikes and trailers and shopping carts to transfer their belongings from the Esplanade to the nearby public sidewalk. “It’s just part of the routine,” Burland said of the nightly trek. “I’m captain of this section, and it’s my job to regulate idiots and thieves.”

While to outsiders it may seem a precarious existence – and it is – both Nelson and Burland say their makeshift camp has rules and structure. They have the advantages of access to a set of portable toilets, can get clean water, and are close to food sources. They strive to keep the area somewhat clean and tidy, and also use the space to do bike maintenance and tune-ups.

Lots of newbies, Burland said, especially those from the west side of the city being moved along by the police for sleeping in downtown doorways and against buildings, try to come over and hang out or sleep with the Marquam Bridge overpass group. They don’t get encouragement to stay if they can’t abide by the rules, and scores of others sleep in different locations depending on their mood and the weather.

Oregon’s homeless population increased about 12 percent in the last year and is now nearly 20,000 people, with a shifting number in the city.

A bearded older man who would identify himself only as “Juan from Russia” is another one of those who move around inner Portland by bike and trailer. Juan and his temporary companions, who identified themselves as Anonymous 1 and Anonymous 2 the day they were interviewed, know of the Marquam Bridge camp residents, but said they rarely hang around there. They are loners, they say, and don’t travel together, but they love to sit along the Springwater Corridor trail and people watch. Their bikes, Juan agreed, get them where they want to go, and if necessary, move them quickly away from the police.

Tony Hoar, an inventor, former Tour de France bike racer, and bike trailer manufacturer based near Victoria, B.C., said he thinks local agencies could do much more to give homeless populations better lives by capitalizing on design ideas like that in his JourneyMan mobile shelter. The JourneyMan looks like a bike trailer, but converts to a fold-out camp bed when unloaded, and can easily be covered with a sheltering tent. That and the setting aside of more unused land in the metro area for encampments similar to Dignity Village, which can shelter just 60 people, might give more people a patch of ground to think of as home.

Hoar spends his free time thinking of ways to aid the homeless, and he first tried getting the cost of making JourneyMan tent trailers below $1,000 U.S., but after giving about 10 of them away to street people, says he realized it was the wrong approach.

“The tent trailers are a very expensive item, and also highly saleable,” he said. “They didn’t last long with their original owners. I figured out it actually is more help to the people who are homeless to have them build their own.”

Hoar instead designed a DIY version of his trailer, and gives away the information on how to assemble them, using 100 percent recycled materials, on his website. Hoar has even perfected a design for a trailer that uses repurposed grocery carts, which he legally receives from stores, and another one that reuses ubiquitous futon frames.

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