2012 was the year I moved to Port Townsend from Tacoma.  While I immediately loved this place, our proximity to nature and the beach, I found myself having difficulty relating to people in my new home town.

It wasn’t that I felt anyone gave off a negative vibe.  Most of the people I met in my Uptown neighborhood  just seemed like they were worlds apart from my own.  I tried volunteering at the Wooden Boat Festival, Film Festival, etc.  I spent some time at the Uptown Pub.  While I had a good time, I never met anyone I connected with.

I grew up in Federal Way.  The people I’d known there and later in Tacoma were, you might say, a bit rougher, grittier, more down-to-earth than the people I was meeting in Port Townsend.

Perhaps strange, I began to feel most comfortable at the Penny Saver, often late at night.  Many folks coming in late in the evening were dirty, just ending a long day of work at the boat yard, mill or other blue-collar job.  I’d built my own automotive businesses.  I knew the dignity and joys of getting dirty in work you love. I found it easy to strike up conversations with this side of Port Townsend.

Many of the homeless would come in during the later hours. I was honestly more comfortable talking to the homeless than pretty much anyone at the Co-op and the parties I’d attended since landing here.

I’d been through plenty of highs and lows in life by this time.  I’d never been homeless myself, but it was easy for me to relate to these people.  I enjoyed listening to their stories.  We had shared experiences.  I’ve seen things they’ve gone through and I was really at ease around them.  

Over the years, I have gotten to know many of the homeless, mostly those who are “from here.”  I’ve gotten to know their stories.  They’ve shared their struggles and triumphs. 

I’ve seen things that bothered me:  the people who come out of Penny Saver with a six-pack of beer and give a can or bottle to a homeless person leaning against the wall.  Or the teenagers who pay homeless person to go in and buy beer for them. 

In all the time I’ve spent with this town’s street people, I have only had a couple uncomfortable experiences.  A homeless alcoholic man threatened me and stuck his head and hands in my car through the window.  He said, “You better watch you back and hope you have good insurance on your car.”  I immediately stepped out of my vehicle and confronted him.  He backed down and apologized.  The cause for his anger:  I refused to give him cash for the sandwich he said he wanted and instead offered to buy him one.  I had known any cash in his hands would only be used to get him drunk.

Another time, I found a bicycle in the middle of the road behind McDonalds. This was late at night. The homeless hang out back there in Kah Tai Park or in the landscaping around the parking lot. I got out of my car to move the bike to the sidewalk and someone I couldn’t see started throwing rocks at me.  I calmly but loudly shouted, “If this is your bike, please, I was just moving it out of the road.”  Instead my car and my person continued to be pelted with rocks.  

Each week I will be telling a story about someone who is or has been homeless that I have come to know.  I hope my personal experiences can open up the minds of our readers and tie in these experiences to our past article by our anonymous contributor entitled, “Knowing the Homeless.”

It is my intention that by putting a face on the homeless, being realistic about who they are, their problems, and the dangers and problems they pose for the rest of us, my writing might help us have a better informed discussion about things such as a homeless shelter, the increased crime attributed to transients, and the impacts of the homeless on our public resources.  We can’t start to address the problem of homelessness unless we know who these people are.