Some of the homeless camps have dozens of tents, others are just a handful of people in sleeping bags. They spend their days walking from one tent city for the homeless to the next or attempting to secure a meal or a bed in a shelter for the night. Marge has camped with her partner Abel for the past few years. But there are so many barriers, and homeless folk often tend to be the most anti-government because they’ve been screwed over so much.”Īs Americans prepare to head to the polls many homeless political organisers and their advocates argue that neither candidate will address their needs ‘Anxiety and depression’ “Homeless people could throw any election if you could create a block out of them. “Poor people and homeless people – but especially homeless people – are the hugest untapped potential voter pool out there,” says Alley Valkyrie, a Portland-based homeless rights activist. Portland is one of many cities across the US grappling with a growing – and increasingly visible – homeless population.Īs Americans prepare to head to the polls on November 8 to decide between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump, many homeless political organisers argue that neither candidate will address their needs. Of that total, at least 15 percent are classified as “chronically homeless” because they have lived on the streets for a year or more.Īlthough many working-class people who live from pay cheque to pay cheque may be at risk of losing their homes, already marginalised groups – communities of colour, women, the disabled, indigenous people, LGBT people, runaway children and orphans – are particularly vulnerable. She is among the 564,708 people who are homeless in the United States, according to 2015 estimates by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Inside Owsley: America’s poorest white county.Living on the edges: Life in the colonias of Texas.Life on the Pine Ridge Native American reservation.Why does it mean to be disenfranchised in America today? “You come in innocent and you end up tough.” “They turn us into men for a while,” she says casually. Switching between English and Spanish, Marge, who is of Mexican-American descent, navigates memories of police harassment, sexual violence, humiliation and hunger. READ MORE: New York’s homeless left out in the cold
“I haven’t seen her in four years,” she says as she rolls a cigarette on a picnic table in Hazelnut Grove, a community for homeless people that is at risk of eviction. That year, she gave birth to her daughter, leaving the hospital and moving from one temporary homeless shelter to another before ending up back on the streets. Marge, a 59-year-old with short greying hair and tobacco-stained fingers, found herself living on the streets after a difficult divorce 14 years ago. Portland, Oregon, United States – When Marge Pettitt’s seven-year-old daughter broke down in tears in a homeless shelter in 2009, she made one of the hardest decisions of her life: Sending the child to live with her father, who had married another woman and moved into her apartment.