As Amanda Bradley crawled through the bushes in front of the Clark County Public Service Center, she pulled out rain-soaked sleeping bags, dirty pillows and clothes. Bradley, a case manager at homeless service provider Share, unzipped a tattered backpack.
Inside were damp documents, a bag full of makeup, an ultrasound photo and a sippy cup. Bradley carefully peeled the documents apart until she found a name and figured out who it belongs to. She plans to bring the backpack to the day shelter at Friends of the Carpenter so the client — a young woman she knows — can get her stuff.
It can be difficult to discern between what should be thrown away and what may be valuable, she said.
Tess Strickland, a client support specialist, said it’s possible that whoever was sleeping there got picked up by the police on an arrest warrant and left belongings behind.
“That’s usually what happens,” she said.
Strickland and Bradley were among dozens of Share staff, residents and volunteers walking around downtown Vancouver on Thursday afternoon, picking up trash. Share often hears complaints from people about trash presumably left behind by homeless people in the area. The group walked down West 13th Street and up to Mill Plain Boulevard filling up bags with garbage.
Trash became a problem last summer when a homeless camp formed around Share House, the men’s homeless shelter at West 13th and Lincoln streets. People who weren’t living in a tent would come to the area to dump trash.
“There were a set of blinds once. We said, ‘There’s no way that somebody homeless living on the street randomly had a set of blinds, broken blinds,’ ” said Jessica Lightheart, community relations director with Share.
“People will do that. They’ll just drive by and they’ll think, ‘Oh, sure. It’s filthy. Nobody will notice if we throw our trash there,’ ” Strickland said.
Staff members go to Esther Short Park and often hand out trash bags for clients to throw things away. Strickland, who was homeless for five months, said it’s hard to keep clean and keep trash together. It becomes a second priority to shelter and safety.
Trash thought to be left behind by homeless people irritates some downtown residents. The Facebook group Keeping Esther Short Clean regularly post photos and comments about food and refuse left in and around the park. The group encourages people to pick up trash when they see it and reports problems to the city.
The Council for the Homeless and the city have talked with Esther Short neighborhood residents for years about the impact of homelessness in their neighborhood, said Andy Silver, the council’s executive director. Silver said, in general, that residents understand and sympathize with the plight of the homeless.
“Imagine doing everything you do in a normal day at home, outside,” Silver said. That includes using the bathroom, cleaning yourself, eating — activities that generate trash.
Those who are unsheltered have to experience the “great and horrific” impact of homelessness, he said, and those who are housed see that disarray. In May, June and July, 676 households, or 1,173 people, sought help from the Council for the Homeless — a 40 percent increase from those same months last year. The only real solution to the visible effects of homelessness that people don’t like to view is to get more people housed, Silver said.
Michael McLaughlin says his week living on the streets in California was dirtier than what homeless people experience here.
“(Trash) was all over,” said McLaughlin, who’s staying at Share House and helped at Thursday’s cleanup. He said he threw away his trash while he was unsheltered because he was staying in one place, not moving from spot to spot. “Why would you leave the place you’re staying at dirty?”
McLaughlin recently landed a job and aims to move out of the shelter by February.
When Don Gault was homeless, he said, he learned to not carry so much stuff with him because it would get stolen.
“You try to find a place where you can stash it, and people find that,” he said. “If you learn to live with a small bag, you’ll be OK for a little while.”
He said he didn’t throw trash in the street when he was homeless because “it’s bad enough out there.”
Gault now lives at Lincoln Place, an apartment complex for people who used to be chronically homeless. He appeared to be the only resident from there who helped with the cleanup.
Katherine Garrett, who works at Lincoln Place as a director, said she plans to host monthly neighborhood cleanups, at least when the weather cooperates.
“We’re part of our community, and we don’t want to be part of the problem. We want to be a problem solver,” she said.
About 15 men who live at Share House helped with the cleanup, along with several people hanging out outside of the shelter.
