Lee: life-on-the-streets

Life on the Streets: The full moon

In history and in pop culture, the full moon continually sparks feelings of fear, curiosity, and excitement. In the latest addition to ‘Life on the Streets’, the Street Roots series that tackles issues people facing homelessness experience, vendors speak on their own encounters with the ever-mysterious full moon.

Life on the Streets: Public transit

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. Some vendors say they’ve seen public transport inspectors profiling homeless people. Here they talk about their experiences.

Life on the Streets: Fear goes both ways

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. That homeless people are dangerous is a clear misconception, vendors say. And for some on the streets, it’s housed people who are feared.

Life on the streets: Foot health, a never-ending struggle

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. When you’re on your feet all day, wearing tatty, worn out and often sodden shoes, and then sharing space with groups of people in shelters that aren’t exactly kept in the best state, it’s no wonder people on the street struggle with maintaining healthy feet. Street Roots spoke to vendors about this often overlooked problem.

Life on the streets: Growing old

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. In the US, the proportion of elderly people experiencing poverty and homelessness has risen by more than 20 per cent in the past 15 years. For this instalment, Street Roots explores what being homeless is like for people in the later years of their lives.

Life on the Streets: Beating the heat

Summer may be over, but due to pollution, the trapping of heat in urban areas and global warming, the autumn months may not prove to be much cooler for people living on the streets. In a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about, Street Roots vendors talk about the burden of living on the streets when the weather is hot.

Life on the Streets: Prone to loss

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. People in extreme poverty are experts on loss, whether it be their belongings, their privacy, their dignity or anything else.

Life on the Streets: The proliferation of private guards

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. Some Street Roots vendors welcome added security; others say private guards – who are not police – overstep their bounds.

Life on the Streets: A love story

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. Through the tough times and the good, vendors Johnny and Stephanie find that life is better together.

“You have to wait in line constantly”

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. Here, vendors talk about how they’re “spending a hell of a lot of time” waiting around.

Sick with nowhere to go

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. In this instalment, vendors describe how a common cold can potentially turn into a life threatening illness when they have nowhere to go to recuperate while sick.

Surviving the cold

Portland’s Street Roots has a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. In this instalment, vendors talk about how they get through Portland winters on the streets, sometimes having to resort to novel, and in some cases dangerous, ideas.

The pain, cost and stigma of parasites from living on the streets

Portland’s Street Roots has started a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about. In this instalment, now shared with INSP, vendors describe their experiences of picking up parasites and bugs, such as head lice and scabies, mainly at hostels and shelters, and the effect it has on an already difficult way of living.

Homeless in a woman’s body

In the most recent count of the homeless community in Multnomah County, Oregon, 1,355 adult women were identified as homeless, making up 36 per cent of the total homeless population, a 16 per cent rise from the previous survey. Street Roots spoke to five of its vendors about what women living on the streets experience.