Sean C. Morgan
They aren’t particularly numerous, but they’re noticeable – hanging out on benches, in front of businesses and on the sidewalks downtown, some for several years.
They’re generally referred to as “the homeless,” but they’re not always homeless. They’re often shaggy and bearded and often have beer cans and cigarettes in their hands.
And it bothers some folks.
Over the past couple of years, Sweet Home City Council members have discussed what to do about the homeless in Sweet Home, the issues they raise and solutions to their problems. Then-Chamber of Commerce President Brandi Hawkins appeared before the council, asking for help on behalf of businesses.
A bench in front of Sweet Home Liquor that was a gathering spot for “homeless” individiuals was removed to prevent their gathering there.
Danny Ray Spurlin, 59, who has been a regular presence in the downtown area in recent years, pushing a shopping cart, identifies only three men who are actually homeless.
Two of those have incomes and choose to live outside, he said. One gives away his income to a church, and the other collects a pension but stays outside anyway.
A third, James Robert Warrington, 35, known as “Jammers,” is the only one with no resources and no place of his own to go, the only person Spurlin considers truly homeless right now in Sweet Home, the only one that doesn’t actually choose to be “homeless.”
The New Era made attempts to interview several “homeless” residents. Spurlin had the most to say. Warrington joined him, but midway through the interview, he had to move on, announced he had to “go that way,” and wandered west from the office.
Spurlin himself was homeless when he arrived in Sweet Home, but earlier this year he was able to move into a trailer in Foster, and Jammers stays overnight with him now and then, especially during the cold nights. Spurlin said early this month he was expecting to move back to Arizona.
Many of the “homeless” and their friends have periodically attended Holley Community Church, where they are welcomed and treated like any other visitor to the church, but Pastor Kevin Hill understands the concerns about them hanging around in front of downtown businesses. As a member of the Library Board, he has had to ask them to avoid loitering around the Sweet Home Public Library property.
DANNY SPURLIN pushes a shopping cart containing a collection of his belongings past a local market.
City Manager Craig Martin said police occasionally get complaints especially from some downtown businesses, “of folks hanging out they report being homeless. There’s nothing illegal about presenting yourself on a public street or a sidewalk. There isn’t a lot the city’s able to do. We have responded to requests to have people removed from private property.”
When people are sleeping or staying on private property, it’s a property owner’s right to ask them to leave, and police can get involved, Martin said.
“Some of them are choosing that lifestyle, and we’re really limited as are most cities on restricting their choices if they want to have a lifestyle,” he said.
The Police
Police Chief Jeff Lynn said his department is the first responder to such concerns.
“We’re the ones contacted when someone has a concern,” Lynn said. “The vast majority of the complaints aren’t criminal in nature.”
There is no easy answer, he said. If someone doesn’t want someone on a property, the police will step in.
“It’s really the landowner’s decision,” Lynn said.
Even defining the term “homeless” is difficult, he said. State agencies may have a broad definition that may include “couch surfing.” He tends to use the term “transient,” and those are the people hanging out in public view.
The problem hasn’t really grown in the past couple of years, Lynn said. “I think they’ve become more visible.”
The majority of them are on a property where they are allowed or on public property the majority of the time, Lynn said.
There is no law against consuming alcohol in public, Lynn said. On public property, options are limited.
There have been discussions about whether an ordinance prohibiting drinking in public is enforceable, Martin said. Some jurisdictions still have laws like that on the books, and some use “alcohol exclusion zones.” He said that’s an area the city may have to research. State law grants a fair amount of latitude about whether the city can regulate alcohol.
Martin has had one inquiry about excluding alcohol from the downtown area, he said, but the city doesn’t have anything in the pipeline right now.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s a rather isolated problem caused by a small number of folks,” Martin said.
The police have had complaints about public urination, Lynn said. “We try to be aggressive. Any time that’s happening, we try to deter it. Some have been cited for that behavior.”
Transients may also leave trash and debris behind, he said, but downtown, some of Sweet Home’s youths do the same thing.
“Sgt. Jason Ogden went out just to try to figure out what we need to do,” Lynn said. “Do we need to do anything?”
Ogden talked with several transient individuals.
“The problem I see is we’re getting more complaints,” Ogden said. People are driving by a homeless man urinating on the street or building or sleeping in the bushes.
He asked the transient individuals why they hang around downtown, he said. They told him it was a central hub, a place where they can meet people and get food.
“Keeping certain activities at bay is what we want to do,” Ogden said. “As far as them loitering or if businesses allow them to be there, then there’s no law against it, and I’m not sure there should be. I guess the community’s got to figure out if they’ve got an issue.”
The Business Owners
Rita Houston, owner of Ore-gon Prospecting and Rita’s Relics, said she hasn’t seen a problem with the “homeless.”
“I have more problem with people drinking in the alleyway,” she said. “I haven’t personally had issues.”
Skateboarding on the sidewalks was a bigger problem, a safety issue, in the past, Houston said. She hasn’t given the homeless issue much thought.
She doesn’t think they should be in the doorways to businesses, she said, but she doesn’t know what the community can do about it.
“We’re trying to be a destination place, but that hinders you,” Houston said.
Her neighbor, Hawkins, who owns Periwinkle Provisions, has had issues with at least one individual. Her daughter was working one day earlier this year, and she called Hawkins to report a man standing in the front door drinking something from a paper bag. Hawkins told her to call the police. As the officer arrived, the man moved next door to Trash to Treasure.
“We’re told this was not someone to mess with,” Hawkins said. The man in question can be aggressive and calling the police was the right thing to do, she said.
Another one yells at people outside, Hawkins said. “It intimidates customers. They feel like there’s a lack of control on the streets.”
It has a negative impact on businesses in the community, which face tight competition for local dollars, she said. “It’s not illegal to be homeless, but it’s detrimental to our community to have it be so visible. You want to have human compassion, but you want what’s best for our community.”
Hawkins said she has heard of at least two cases where real estate deals have fallen through when prospective buyers were downtown hearing someone walking down the street yelling.
“In a town this size, to see three or four people with sleeping bags, that’s a lot to see at once,” Hawkins said, and the open containers of alcohol are discouraging. She’s concerned about “homeless” individuals sitting on a bench drinking while children are walking by after school.
She said she doesn’t know how many are homeless by choice, and she doesn’t know if a ministry group can step in, she said. “I don’t know what the solutions are.”
Hawkins suggested that Sweet Home might develop a community center, where they could go for the day. The community might start a dialogue with the county Health Department about how to handle this situation in a consistent fashion. She thinks banning open containers and signs requesting change might help.
Hawkins understands that the city cannot ban open containers unless it is in a limited area, she said. She asked why not limit it in the blocks between Thriftway and Les Schwab Tire Center.
“I think it would make a lot of headway,” she said.
Driving through Salem, Hawkins asked, “how often do you see it? It doesn’t happen. We have to make it less desirable for them. The more desirable it is for them, the longer they’ll stay.”
At the same time, she wonders what their needs are, she said. She wondered whether they need a shave, a haircut, clean clothes. “What can we do to help them not be a liability. I don’t want to offend anybody, but the reality is it impacts our town. It has a visible impact on our community. How many visitors are we going to keep with those kinds of impressions.”
To the homeless and those who loiter on the streets drinking beer Hawkins suggested, “Do what you need to do to become part of the community so you don’t stand apart from the community.”
The ‘Homeless’ Perspective
“Nobody knows what to do,” Spurlin said. “There’s nothing we can do, but I know something I’d like to do.”
The old Willamette Industries mill property between 22nd and 24th avenues is empty, he said. It’s going to waste, and he wonders why one person, two people, 100 can’t camp there. He wonders why not let Warrington put his tent up out there.
The homeless lifestyle is simply different from what most people consider normal, he said.
And society pressures them to conform.
“We’re going to make you into just our image, tell you what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it,” Spurlin said. It’s like being overqualified for a job. “You know the job better than they do, but you can’t be made into their image.”
Spurlin has a home, but he still wants to be outside and see people he knows. That’s why he spends his time downtown.
“You live in Foster, there’s nothing there,” Spurlin said. “You come into town, you see people. You know people. I don’t forget where I came from, brother. I don’t forget. I can’t. Jammers, I’ll help him best I can. I’m going to try to show him how to do it, but he ain’t gonna listen.”
Spurlin said he had help from people in Sweet Home to get there, and he’ll try the same with Warrington, help him access Social Security and whatever resources he needs.
The police “mess” with Warrington, who said he was cited for sleeping in front of the library, constantly, Spurlin said.
But he’s got to find a place to get out of the weather.
Any man on the street finds cover, Warrington said. If it’s not raining, the dew will get him wet otherwise.
Spurlin said Warrington’s not hurting anybody.
Most of the homeless are crazy, legitimately crazy, Spurlin said, and the description describes him too – dysfunctional to the standards of living.
“If you don’t fit in, you’re crazy by society’s rules,” Spurlin said, but then there’s even crazier.
He gave one of his fellow transients a coat.
“You know what he does with it?” Spurlin said. “He throws it in a trash can.”
The real problem is not the homeless themselves, he said. The real problem is the drugs, the “white dope.”
“When you’re homeless, you see everything there is around here,” Spurlin said.
“You see everybody dealing drugs, pills and meth,” Warrington said.
And, Spurlin said, he knows a lot of people that do it.
He said his solution would be no tolerance. He catches someone with it, “I bust your head and take you to jail.”
But the judge is just going to cut the drug dealer loose, he said.
James ‘Jammers’ Warrington
Warrington moved to Sweet Home five or six years ago from the Portland-Vancouver area to help his mother take care of her place on Cedar Street, he said. His stepfather was working out of town on different jobs, recoveries and RV repairs. He would bring vehicles back to the house on Cedar to work on them, and he would give Warrington food and money to make sure he was fed.
Unfortunately, his mother, who had been a needle junkie, had caught Hepatitis C, weakening her immune system, Warrington said. She contracted a staph infection, and “she ended up dying in my arms.”
“After that my brain went a little haywire,” Warrington said. “I grabbed my stepdad’s gun. I was just sitting there playing with it.”
He was disassembling it, put it back together and reloading it, Warrington said. His fiance saw him with it.
“She thought I was going to shoot myself,” Warrington said. “I handed it over after she called the cops.”
When the police arrived, he told them “she’s got the gun,” Warrington said. The police told them both to hit the ground and then sorted out the situation. She left him, and he had a falling out with his stepfather.
“He kicked me out of the house,” Warrington said, and he has been on the street for the past six years.
He has a cousin from the Washougal, Wash. area who comes to Sweet Home to visit, Warrington said. They’ll go out to the lake or do a three- or four-day hike when his cousin has a vacation. Sometimes they’ll visit the grave of his deceased dog, Spike. His dogs keep him company. Right now, he has Oreo, a 6-month-old border collie mix. He said Spike’s daughter Ruby was dognapped at McDonald’s, and another dog, Roach, ran away.
“They’re somebody to talk to when you’re kind of out of your mind,” Warrington said.
“I sleep anywhere I can,” Warrington said – the library, the back porch of a house and in parks while they’re open, Spurlin’s place.
When he wakes up, he is in a state of delirium till he can get a beer, Warrington said. Then he goes out with his dog, “flies a sign” and “prays to the Lord.”
Warrington and Spurlin hang out together, drinking beers and telling jokes. They say they revere Jesus Christ, and they spend a lot of time laughing, bantering back and forth.
“You cannot live and be homeless unless you have laughter in your life,” Spurlin said.
“People ask why we’re laughing and smiling,” Warrington said. “It’s because we have the Lord in our life.
“I talk to people. I make people laugh.”
“He makes people cry,” Spurlin contradicted.
“I do not,” Warrington said.
“Yeah, you do,” Spurlin said. “By your body odor.”
Holley Church
Spurlin “has a good heart,” Hill said. “Jammers appears to have a good heart.”
Spurlin probably attends most faithfully at Holley Church, and he gets others to attend, the pastor said.
“In the church setting, they’re fine,” Hill said. “They come to our church because we treat them like everyone else.”
People talk to them, he said, and when the church is serving, the church expects them to serve too.
“We’re open to them being there without being judgmental,” Hill said. They sit down next to someone, no one gets up and moves.
The church hasn’t done anything special to help them, he said, although that’s a possibility.
“I think they do need help,” Hill said. “In the future, maybe we would do a program, maybe a recovery program.”
He sees his role to be “friendly to them and not treat them like they’re pariahs or a nuisance.”
But if he had a business, Hill said, he understands why they need to move on; and he has had to do that as a member of the city’s Library Board.
“They still have value,” Hill said, although “they don’t feel they have value. Most of society would say they don’t have any value.”
“I think most people are willing to try to offer assistance, assuming the person wants or needs assistance,” Martin said.
Danny Ray Spurlin
Spurlin has spent 13 years riding trains and 10 years in a penitentiary, he said, after growing up in the North Carolina mountains in a “very prestigious” community.
“They have made more movies there in that county than any place in the south,” he said. His father and his father’s friends went to war together and returned to Rutherford County. His dad’s friend became sheriff, and his dad became a bootlegger.
His brothers, sisters and parents were what Spurlin calls “home bound.” Their lives were totally different.
His mom told his dad, “Danny Ray is a rolling stone,” Spurlin said. “A rolling stone gathers no moss, always gotta see what’s on the other side of the hill. It’s the same thing – different people.”
Spurlin said he chose homelessness after he had enough of the military, where he served flying missions in Laos, and prison.
“I went to prison in ’96 for assault with a 2×4,” Spurlin said. “I forgot to take the nails out of it, so I busted his head pretty good.”
He spent time in Denver, Colo., parking cars, even though he can’t drive, he said.
Then he heard about a job in Tucson, Ariz., so he got a ticket for Albuquerque, N.M., thinking it was just the next state over. He found out it was a long way to Tucson from there. When he finally arrived there, he found a job selling jewelry and went to work.
At one point, he had money in the bank, he said. “I had the most beautiful place in the world,” Spurlin said, but it didn’t last.
Spurlin and his wife, whom he met in Tucson, later went to Casa Grande, Ariz, where they slept behind a Wal-Mart. A woman told them how great it was in Eugene, bought them tickets and gave them directions to a park.
They arrived in Eugene and found the park – and signs: “No camping allowed,” Spurlin said. “I said, ‘I guess we’re here. Throw your bags out.’”
They stayed in Eugene for a year, Spurlin said, and they met some “crazy” people.
Spurlin’s wife died in Veneta on Oct. 15, 2010.
“I went somewhere else, I mean way somewhere else,” Spurlin said. “When my wife died, everything went out the window. I wanted to get off the street. The first thing in my mind was get a place now. It cost me, but I got off the street.”
Spurlin had first visited Sweet Home with a friend, David Bell, in 2002. They stayed in the Cascadia area for about 10 days.
It was one of the best vacations Spurlin had ever had, he said. “I fell in love with this place.”
He remembered Sweet Home and moved here in 2010, he said.
When he arrived in Sweet Home to live, he stayed in box cars on the rail line and on the old Willamette Industries mill property. Spurlin and Warrington stayed in a box car for about nine months.
“We had it perfect in the box cars,” Warrington said, and the businesses on the mill property gave them wood to burn.
Spurlin has been homeless much longer.
“When I got SSI (Social Security income), the first thing that hit my head was get a place,” he said.
Earlier this year, he was burned for $1,000 when he tried to get a place to live, Spurlin said. He won a judgment in small claims court, but the judgment remains unsettled. He was able to save up and get another place.
“I wanted to be where I was at the time,” Spurlin asid. “I wanted to ride the train. I rode the trains.
“I made a name for myself. My name still stands.”