Two young raccoons eating apples in a tree.

A woman in a dive bar talking about her latest cocaine binge and upcoming trip to Costa Rica.

Drivers stopping in the middle of the I-405 bridge in Portland, getting out of their vehicles to take photographs of Fourth of July fireworks. Such behavior perfectly illustrates the supreme and dangerous narcissism afflicting so many contemporary Americans.

Three men passed out in the grass of a park with hot dogs, buns and condiments strewn about him.

A tarot card reading on a sidewalk by a soothsayer drunk on malt liquor.

Congressional hearing documenting Republican treason, insurrection and insanity.

Finding yet another great Elmore Leonard novel in a street library.

An elderly couple driving round Southeast Portland looking for their homeless son and his girlfriend.

A meth miscreant shooting hoops in a city park at seven in the morning.

Ducklings swimming in a former casting pond built by the WPA.

An obviously deranged man drinking hot chocolate and eating Lucky Charms while standing.

A dog bounding into the ocean.

A deer eating raspberries from a table.

A woman wearing nothing but a tarp around her.

An elderly man dressing up as a kind of fairy and roaming around a park.

The moment a writer realized he had to cut 190,000 words out of 200,000 already written about Oregon’s homeless crisis.

I was in a library sitting in front of a large window that overlooked a tiny creek. In my hands was a magazine article containing a withering critique of philanthropy, both the mega-foundation juggernauts and the mom and pop outfits. It was so withering I read it twice.

The author derives her criticism from the perceived hierarchical relationship most philanthropic organizations have over the people and causes their mission statements claim to address. They are above; everyone else is below. Giving comes with a price and a agenda. The recipient must accept the price and agenda. According to author of the criticism, this is naked power and paternalism at its worst. She presents many examples ranging from the Gates Foundation to Catholic Charities.

I disagreed with much of the critique because it seemed so far removed from my direct experience volunteering to help the homeless, although both organizations I volunteer for receive significant support from large regional foundations. You just can’t pass the hat to fund this kind of daily work.

Here are my notes, digression, comments and questions related to the critique.

Is my volunteering an act of altruism or advancing more power over vulnerable people? Is my service paternalistic? No and no. If you saw some of the people I served today, you would never say there is a power relationship between us because they were so far gone they don’t even know where they are or how to communicate on a basic level of understanding. They were starving and needed a meal. They were required to do anything to receive that meal except behave in a dining room. They also had the option of contacting the onsite caseworker if they needed further assistance and many utilized that option.

There is a difference between charity and mutual aid and the latter is preferred because the recipient of aid assumes a role in the assistance with an expectation of reciprocity, you know, like throwing your breakfast bowl, cup and spoon in the garbage before you leave. Is telling someone to do that a power trip?

What works better in working with the homeless—carrot or the stick? Strings or no strings? Can they come to the water on their own? Will they drink? What if they desire to remain homeless the rest of their lives and largely or somewhat dependent on others for survival.

Is the current assistance to the homeless helping to solve the problem, perpetuate it, or making it worse? That’s more than just a political question.

The foundation to all plans for solving the homeless crisis rests on the notion that most of these people will have to/want to work to afford the subsided housing that is coming on line soon. How solid is that foundation? Not very strong, I think. There is something going on in the minds of many Americans today with respect to working a job. It’s not being written about all that much.

Why am I volunteering? Because a national emergency is staring me in the face on a daily basis.

Do I have to justify my participation? No. I care. I want to act.

Should I think about my participation in terms of hierarchy and paternalism? No, that’s academic bullshit.

Am I volunteering merely to gather material for a book called the New American Diaspora? No. I often think my time would be better served volunteering at animal shelters. Here is about the most terrible sentence I will ever write: I sometimes believe American society is better served trying to save American dogs from destruction rather than saving American humans beings from destruction. There, I wrote it.

I believe my volunteering has value and it’s not in service to some dark agenda to exert power over the downtrodden. I sure don’t do it to feel good about myself. I have the time, the rightness of mind and body to serve, the economic means, so why not get out there? I certainly feel it has more worth than what I did in the classroom for all those years.

Besides, volunteering is like attending an unscripted one-act play every week where I watch every possible facet of American behavior on visceral display and it’s a thousand times more enlightening than watching a documentary on television. It is an education like no other one I have ever received.

Why do some people in power and the media use the pejorative phrase “do gooder” to mock those who want to help improve their society? Shouldn’t we all be doing good all the time?

The other morning was my first day of volunteering where I wanted to boot a client out. It didn’t feel good so I took a break and went out to the parking lot and watched dogs play in the park and felt better. Then I returned inside and got to work.

These reflections are the direct result of reading Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, published in 2009.

Her book is about what happens in the immediate aftermath of disasters such as a hurricane, earthquake or terrorist attack. As I read and annotated the book, I was transported to my experiences with the homeless in Oregon and wondered about the possible comparisons between the responses to this crisis and the ones Solnit documents.

Here are my notes, observations, comments, asides and questions:

Is the homeless crisis in America a disaster event? Yes. Look around you. Am I wrong to equate the homeless crisis as a disaster on par with a hurricane or earthquake or wildfire? No.

Have homeless people responded as if caught up in a natural disaster? Yes. They have formed distinct communities to survive the experience. Some of these communities are healthy, others are not.

The disaster of homelessness is the opportunity for positive, even momentous change. But we are not seizing it. Maybe it isn’t disastrous enough.

We know the causes of a natural disaster. Do we know the causes of the homelessness disaster?

Yes.

Solnit writes, “…are we beholden to each other, must we take care of each other, or is every man for himself?”

Yes.

She also writes, “When all the ordinary divides and patterns are shattered, people step up—not all, but the great preponderance—to become their brothers’ keepers. And that purposefulness and contentedness bring joy even amid death, chaos, fear and loss.”

Yes.

Furthermore, “Horrible in itself, disaster is sometimes a door back into paradise, the paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and our each our sister’s and brother’s keeper.”

Yes.

Disaster hits. Then people and their governments respond. People go into action first, then governments and various relief organizations. That’s what’s happening now with the homeless crisis but the actions don’t seem to be making a difference that most people can see. The homeless crisis is a disaster and that’s why and so many others are volunteering to help with it. But for how long?

Solnit believes: you can be your best most desired person helping out in a disaster. It creates that unique opportunity.

Sometimes the trauma inflicted by a disaster makes you act to help yourself and others to survive it. But is that true of the trauma of being homeless?

Perhaps helping the homeless shows the homeless and the housed the best way to live.

I have read virtually nothing about the volunteers assisting the homeless or even about people employed to solve or alleviate the crisis. Why is that? We need those stories, too.

Solnit describes a solidarity formed by people who experience a natural disaster together. I have seen that solidarity in many of the homeless men and I woman I have encountered and interacted with.

There is joy in the community at having survived a disaster that finally came to an end. But will this one ever end?

Solnit is adamant that an authoritarian and/or militarized response to disaster is typically a debacle for the people suffering on the ground. But that is precisely the response many people are calling for, including one Republican candidate for Governor who suggested rounding up all the homeless in Oregon and interning them in facility at the Port of Portland.

The advocates and professionals tasked with alleviating the homeless crisis should be held just as accountable for their inaction and failures as homeless people are held accountable for their inaction and failures.

There are redemptive moments in disasters. I’ve seen them in the homeless crisis on both sides of the issue.

The key to surviving a natural disaster is creating power from below and letting survivors plan or help plan and participate in recovery efforts. Does that model work in the homeless crisis? It would seem like a great idea to try.

Solnit somewhat castigates the Therapy Industrial Complex (my phrase) for reducing people to victims with no capacity to transcend a trauma related to a disaster without professional (and expensive) therapy. The Complex never presents the idea that the trauma inflicted by the disaster might actually lead to something better than a previous existence. Sufferers of trauma should not be labeled and treated like victims. They should be met where they are and immediately helped with consistent and kind follow-up. In the case of homeless people, that means getting them off the streets to better serve them and not prolonging their homelessness and its obvious dangers by advocates claiming trying to do so further traumatizes them and makes their conditions worse. The trauma is the homelessness. Focus on that.

The successful communities that sprang up after disasters relied on creativity and improvisation. In other words, winging it to solve problems. I’ve seen this type of winging it with some of the homeless. Examples include figuring out how to fix a timing chain on 50-year-old RV engine when the part doesn’t exist; rigging up a tiny garbage can to barbecue a turkey for Christmas dinner in a fire pit; using the fine hardwoods of discarded coat and hack racks for material to carve ornamental walking staffs.

There is some hope in the homeless crisis, at least in my limited experience, because many homeless people have come together to create a community to ensure their survival, although some of the survival tactics are undeniably injurious in the short and long runs.

The people I volunteer with to help alleviate the homeless crisis are the finest people I have ever met. Our camaraderie brings me great joy. They have taught me much about how to serve in this disaster.

They gathered at dusk where the babbling brook known as Crystal Springs flowed through a culvert under a roadway. They would hush and shush each other around the decorative stonework and wooden foot bridge, quiet down, and then wait, wait, wait, as the water trickled and tumbled past cedars and willows to Johnson Creek, the Willamette River, the Columbia River, and finally the Pacific Ocean. Down, down, down a mighty and degraded watershed.

Yes, they waited on fine summer evenings until the Bolshevik beavers of Bybee Boulevard emerged to perform their industrious and adorable work of maintaining their magnificent dam stuffed inside the south end of the culvert. It was this dam that impeded the flow of Crystal Springs and infrequently led to minor flooding of the nearby fire department’s parking lot. No matter. No Portland official would dare order the destruction of the dam, because if they did, all holy hell would break loose and someone might lose their job, if not their head.

The beavers wielded major star power, although they were completely oblivious to it. Beavers are like that. But the Bolshevik beavers of Bybee Boulevard were certainly aware of something else related to their nightly beavering in Crystal Springs and that was: by virtue of how they lived their lives with simple purpose, economy, equality, dedication, collaboration and artistry, they were modeling how to live better and practice a bit more communism in a corrupt capitalist society.

They came from near and far in the Sellwood and Eastmoreland neighborhoods to witness the spectacle. Just to name a few: golfers, firefighters, retirees, Reedies, plutocrats, yoga-pants-wearing mothers pushing toddlers in sleek strollers, denizens of zombie RVs, and even dancers from the strip club downstream who had set up a special tip jar at the rack to support more beaver reintroduction into Portland’s salmon-bearing streams.

Oh what marvel it is to watch beavers work, chinking and notching sticks and logs so they snugly and securely fit together in the construction of dams and lodges like so many frontier log cabins. Their nutritious needs then transform into building materials and also unique works of art. In their beavering, they are foragers, engineers, builders, architects, artists, craftsmen, and creators of vibrant ecosystems such as sloughs, ponds, and marshes that foster and nourish all kinds of life, including wild salmon, not the hatchery fakes.

Indeed, it was quite a show for the residents and transients of the neighborhoods! But the fans didn’t know the beavers of Bybee Boulevard were Bolsheviks. How could they? They didn’t even know the critical role beavers played in the ongoing health of watersheds, and thus in the ongoing health of human beings. Most Oregonians didn’t know anything about these extraordinary creatures, such as their real name, castor canadensis, American beaver; or that it is the state’s official animal; or that lunkhead legislators refuse to protect them from lethal trapping; or that Oregon is known as the Beaver State; or that Oregon is the only state with a two-sided flag and one is a scratchy yellow illustration of a beaver. There is a lot to know about beavers in Oregon and the more you know, the better Oregonian you will be.

The beavers were Bolsheviks because they owned no private property, lived in a society without classes, wanted to nationalize the internet (because the American government initially built and maintained it) and believed labor should always master capital. They also had a similar motto: wood, peace, freedom. Beavers were quite unlike Bolsheviks, however, in that they didn’t make long speeches or murder those beavers who didn’t follow the party line. In this way, they got the best of economic Bolshevism and avoided the worst of its politics, which was ruthless and psychotic authoritarian power and you get that pretty much anywhere, especially in America.

The beavers’ performance at dusk lasted about half an hour. Rarely did their fans stay longer than five minutes. It was a lot of labor posting photos and videos to social media stupidity platforms. But even in a mere five minutes, they would have observed beavers working together and living each according to their bucktoothed abilities and each according to their bucktoothed needs. They shared. They ate organic. They played. They glided. The beat the brook with their tails if interlopers dared venture near and take a selfie with them. They often rolled lily pads and digested them as if smoking fine cigars. They even inspired a homeless man surrounded by squalor to give up his tent and tarp on concrete and relocate to a crude creekside lodge he constructed from castoff beaverwood. And whatever the beavers did, they often left behind wonderful choice cuts distinguished by their signature gnaws and bites that highly eccentric yet attuned human beings collected and admired like so many baseball cards or Hot wheels.

Building dams, building lodges, raising families, recharging groundwater, improving salmon habitat, entertaining human beings, making art, gnawing here and there. The beavers were certainly busy! But in their own way they were clandestine homebodies like Mr. Beaver in The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, the bespectacled, porter drinking beaver who really was a secret revolutionary waiting for the return of Aslan. They differed somewhat, in that their waiting was not for the return of a savior, (Rachel Carson had already come and died,) but waiting for the glorious day when Americans accepted the obvious fact that they were ruining the planet with the insane consumption demanded by capitalism, and must change course toot sweet or disaster was imminent, if not already here. When that day arrived, the beavers would rejoice because Americans, especially rural bumpkins, would finally leave them alone and let them build their damn dams in peace!