So I have a place to live and will make it through the winter - but so many other people do not.
EDITED: I sent a link to this diary to Senator Merkley. You can find him at:
@SenJeffMerkley on Twitter.
EDITED AGAIN: Operation Deckhand is in full swing - please PM me if you can help!!! See my Diary Operation Deckhand for details.
Let me tell you about my friend, The Deckhand.
The Deckhand lives on the next dock over and has been a marina resident for years. He's a 12 stepper, damn good at his job and had a really rough patch in life for the last several years. He's Chinook Indian, a proud local people who are an important part of the history of the Pacific North West - but they got screwed by the US government and are not a recognised Nation. No BIA help, no rez - nothing.
The Deckhand was beaten very badly several years ago before he started the program and has severe injuries as a result. As a deckhand he didn't have health insurance offered as part of his job and now he is to a point where he is in so much pain he's damn near crippled - and only recently was accepted into Oregon Care because he can no longer make enough to disqualify himself. He has been back and forth to Portland several times in the last few weeks trying to get the treatment everyone agrees he needs not to end up in a chair - but they won't do the surgery for 6 months.
In the meantime, he's losing his home too.
His father passed away recently and his own relatives screwed him out of the miniscule amount of inheritance that was rightfully his and would have caught up his moorage. He's in the same boat I was in day before yesterday - but doesn't have anyone to ask for help.
I saw him this morning on the docks and we talked for a little while. It's a beautiful clear day here - a real shock since we were assuming the monsoon was here and we were going to be wet until May.
But on this beautiful day, The Deckhand told me he had thrown his cross into the harbour last night in despair. He said he felt like he couldn't pray anymore in the face of watching door after door after door close in his face. There was nothing I could say. I can't make that better.
I get so angry. I don't want to be angry. I want to find solutions, to solve problems, to make things better. I want to just pull that money out of my ass and pay his moorage - but I can't. He needs more than I did. He's too ashamed to ask for help - and lost hope in believing that anyone cares, including his G-d.
The thing is - the man is brilliant. He's got some designs for crab pots that would revolutionize crabbing. He just needs an investor or three and help with the patent paperwork - I've seen this thing, there's nothing like it. He was prepping his own boat to be a charter until his body gave out on him again. It's not that he is unwilling to work - the man does nothing but work. But when you can't even get yourself out of bed from the pain - it's hard to stay on top. When the people you trust betray you over a little bit of money - it's hard to have hope. And when your nation leaves you to die when you have the ability to innovate - just not the money to make it happen - you have no dreams either.
I don't want to be angry. I want to do something. I just don't know what to do.