I am currently reading the non-fiction book “Invisible Child,” a recent Pulitzer Prize winner written by New York Times reporter Andrea Elliott. What caught my attention at the Powell’s display was the book’s subtitle: “Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City” and the book does not disappoint. Elliott tracks a black family in New York from roughly 2010 to 2020, creating a dramatic account of an inherently racist, shelter-only system gone wrong and its traumatic effects on a father/stepfather who rotates between rehab and jail, a loving but irresponsible mother, also an addict, and eight children, centering on a young girl named Dasani from 9 years old through her teenage years.
Dasani is bright, gifted athletically, and exuding personality, but her life is marked by constant chaos: moving (more than 10 times in eight years), new schools, family court appearances, baby-sitting but really mothering her siblings, begging for food and money on the street, teaching her siblings dance routines to perform for money in the subway (the youngest is four years old), and a mix of influencers, some positive but many negative. And Elliott enriches her story with factual commentary about poverty and homelessness; the contradictory and for the most part ineffective housing strategies of the Bloomberg and De Blasio administrations; and the harsh realities of living in the projects of Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. Hope comes for Dasani when she is admitted to the Hershey School in Pennsylvania, a private school for smart but disadvantaged kids that transforms her life.
Though it is quite long and often very challenging or upsetting to read, I strongly recommend the book. But my point in this column is to return to the theme of the traumatic uncertainty that the poor live with. Well-meaning (and for the most part white) liberals think of poverty in terms of food, clothing, and shelter, but it is the trauma of uncertainty for both children and adults that is the greatest tragedy.
Where will I be tomorrow? A month from now? A year from now? Will I go to bed hungry and, again, what about tomorrow? Will I be with or separated from my family? Will I ever be able to deal with the disrespect and bullying that my condition brings with it? Do I dare to dream of the future when every dream so far has been crushed? I know that addiction is destroying my life but is my life even worth saving?
As we work on the various dimensions of poverty in Portland, let us always think first about the innate humanity of those we are seeking to help. That is why the Alliance emphasizes not just action but awareness and empathy. It is hard to imagine how Portland will ever be able to serve the whole person when we can’t even provide enough basic shelter, but we must never lose sight of that ultimate goal: creating certainty/stability and then moving to mental and other “services” with the goal not just of housing the unhoused but restoring souls. That message resonates throughout “Invisible Child” and explains why this work is the most powerful of anything I have read on homelessness in America.