Street Corner Series

SW Taylor at SW 12th

Fentanyl has left its mark.  That mark has been loud and clear for a few years, more acutely since the pandemic.  It's a jolt every time I arrive.  The change to downtown, in particular, but it affects every neighborhood.  

Daily, one sees things that one can't unsee.  People getting high.  Little bits of burnt foil strewn.  People folding in on themselves like living origami.  Or strewn like rag dolls left on the ground.   Are they alive or dead?  Can I see breaths being taken?  The vulnerability of it all.  To us all.  

As I make my way across downtown every day, I see the ebb and flow but also know the hotspots,   Some hotspots are the same each time I’m here, the downtown Safeway, Central Library, the Plaid Pantry on SW Jefferson.  The latter without fail and I don’t know how that Plaid Pantry remains in business, the other two locations have seen a shift.  Each day I am not sure what I will encounter and I think about how much the city has changed.  

I've had many conversations with people over the past 4 weeks, they seem relieved to talk about it when I ask.  Their worry for their safety moving through their city.  The worry that something cannot be done.  The worry that they are becoming inured to what they see every day.  How does one balance empathy, humanity, yet the need for boundaries in the face of this?  They don’t know.  And what will be the tipping point?       

The city, county and state all appear to have focus on the fentanyl crisis, a 90 day emergency earlier this year, a reinstatement of a drug law began September 1...  But what does this really mean and how will this all be?  Do the adequate support systems exist?  It never seems so.  

This person was still in this spot when I went by again an hour later.  (The bicycle gone.)

This is a big subject, I only scratch the surface and plenty has been written by those more qualified than I, and documented more powerfully.