The incongruously well-equipped homeless campers nearby left a bouquet of flowers at my door which led to me learning that they’re a grad student doing fieldwork for a thesis on homelessness and her husband
They’re from SOU in Ashland, and really, incongruously well equipped - nice new tent, two bikes, portable stovetop and cookware, they put up fairy lights today. Kinda seems more like an urban camping trip, between that and coming in with a literal postgraduate education in being homeless, I don’t know how typical an experience they’re having.
Update: they were sorting through a bunch of their stuff so I talked to them again, for the first time since it’s been raining, and asked them how that went. They said a bunch of the stuff they had been storing under tarps outside of the tent had gotten wet and moldy, so they’d have to throw it out.
Every visitor to town I tell this saga to laughs and goes “that’s so Portland”, every actual Portlander I tell is indignant
