University senior Mason Gummer has had a number of roommates over the years, but none stands out more than the homeless man who lived with him for about six months last year.
A man named Eugene knocked on Gummer’s front door at his Ferry Street residence and asked if he could live in the shed.
“Apparently, he scoped out the place, and he may have lived there before with the previous tenants,” Gummer said. “This is basically what he does, he goes around and finds cheap places to live — it’s a way to survive.”
Gummer said he and his roommates did not care if Eugene paid, but Eugene insisted on giving them money. Eugene paid $50 in advance and offered more money later — when he had it — and he gave the students things he found. Gummer said Eugene based his income on mowing lawns and raking leaves for college students, and on collecting cans.
Richie Weinman, the Eugene neighborhoods and affordable housing manager, said each year 1,600 to 1,800 people in the city come to or are turned away from shelters. Because many people who are homeless do not go to shelters, he estimates there are three times that number of homeless people in the city — a third of whom are under the age of 18.
The homeless problem in Eugene has escalated recently with the reopening of Broadway, causing some homeless people and panhandlers to migrate to East 8th Avenue and Oak Street, Weinman said. Many homeless people have also started protesting for places to sleep, including “Traveler,” who made his home recently in a tree in the Lane County Park Blocks.
“There is a great source of frustration in the area because people have been exhibiting behavior (other people) consider inappropriate,” Weinman said. “We have put up a fence around the man in the tree … because if something falls from the tree, it could be dangerous.”
Gummer said he thinks there is a high concentration of homeless people in the West University neighborhood, but added he does not think it is an unsafe place to live.
“I don’t think homeless people cause harm — they are mostly harmless,” he said.
University senior Marie Malpass said she thinks homelessness is simply common in today’s society.
“There are rich people, and there are poor people,” she said. “I don’t know how to stop it, but they are going to be everywhere, and people just have to get used to it.”
Weinman said he has not heard complaints about the West University neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean there are not homeless people in the area. He said the neighborhood does have low income housing, and many homeless people go to the area to receive help from organizations like the White Bird Clinic.
Weinman said the community has a lot of programs to help people living in poverty, but it is not enough. He said the local and state governments do not have the money to solve the problem.
“The state government doesn’t seem to be interested in the problem,” he said. “So it just goes on.”
Gummer said Eugene moved out because the real estate company discovered they had an extra tenant living there.
“It was the middle of winter at the time, so we paid whatever fines the real estate company gave us, and as soon as he found a place to go, he moved out of our shed,” Gummer said.
Gummer said he was glad to have had the opportunity to meet Eugene.
“He’s a genius,” Gummer said. “It amazes me the stuff he did. He even built his own bicycle with miscellaneous parts. It was all different colors, but it was working.”