2017-10-07; Interview Day
First impressions: It is a “gated community” which makes it sound far more fancy than it is, it looks as though the gate is as much to keep people in as it is to keep them out. There is a small “hut” to the right, apparently a prototype similar to the tiny house my daughter and I will be moving into if we get vetted in to this village. It’s 8-foot by 8-foot, a “single,” my daughter and I would be in a “double” which would be 8-foot by 10-foot, a whole extra foot for each of us.
They call this hideously lime green painted hut the “Gatehouse” and have me go inside where a very sweaty, very unwashed man, whose smell I meet long before I meet him, is awkwardly shuffling around papers. He mutters something about looking for an application and whatever other papers he’s been told to give applicants. I take a moment to wonder if the place has a shower and prepare myself to make a note to figure out where one can shower in Eugene Oregon. When a very zaftig woman huffs her way up to the stair and suggests that when I get my paperwork we should sit outside, I almost hug her. Once she gets close enough, I resist the urge, I have my notebook in hand and am digging out my pen thinking, ‘showers in Eugene, showers in Eugene…write it down.’ She introduces herself as Lil.
Getting to this day, my official interview, had already spoken loudly to me about this villages dysfunction. Now that I was actually here I was already seeing the incompetence made manifest in front of my eyes. The first time I had arranged a ride out here, not so easy a task, I had been told on the phone to just come by, get an application and turn it in, best to do so in person. They had told me that interviews were done on a specific day so if I came that day I might get lucky and kill two birds with one stone. That didn’t happen at all. Instead, I was handed a partial application and told to take it home and fill it out or just do the online one, which didn’t exist. I was told there were no openings for months but I could “try calling another time.”
This time I had come prepared, as once again, procuring a ride from Stayton to Eugene was not an easy task. I had called and made an actual appointment ahead of time with a woman we’ll call “Haddie.” I ended up never meeting Haddie, she never did show up. Still, I wasn’t going to just let them send me away again, I was getting my interview, I had my partial application all filled out, had my ID and other varied documents I was told I would need and I wasn’t going to try and get another ride down here, it was now or never. I’d been surfing the couch of an Irish traveler friend who didn’t really have the room and I wanted to unburden her space.
Once we were seated, Lil proceeded to immediately begin asking us what programs we weren’t already “taking advantage of.” Was one or both of us getting food-stamps? Have we heard of this program or that program? She was telling us about these programs using phraseology that implied she was a great person to help with the loop-holes and lies to get as much free government money as possible and do as little as possible to get it. She was a nice enough lady who clearly had no idea who she was talking to. She seemed to assume that I wanted to sit on my hands and collect as much free money as I could get and perhaps try to qualify for more if I lied in all the right places, she’d show me how.
The interview ended up being really just Lil telling me about her sad life. Estranged from her children, well not the ones she does meth with, but the other ones, and sad about all her health troubles and mental illnesses, she was a wreck to be reckoned with to be sure. I quickly caught on that when one is making a livelihood out of being sick, they must perpetuate a toxic environment to sustain their income, and if they can help it, try to get sicker so they can get more money.
It was in those moments that I realized I would one day be living in this place, a perfect place to observe people who assume I’m just like they are. That’s what makes the study covert. As Lil regaled me with the saga of how sad her life was, I was seeing the potential more and more to make some observations about the kinds of people involved in a “Tiny Housing Community.” People meant to help people despite not being able to help themselves, and not wanting to for that matter as it might mess up their free income or worse, mean they have to work.
Though it seemed to serve no purpose as it was meant to be my interview, I listened to Lil. I’d nod my head and make whatever comments I could as she sipped what looked like Mountain Dew from a cup bigger than her head. As she seemed to be running out of steam, I gently reminded her that she had said she was going to give us a tour. She leaned her heft toward me and looked me squarely in the eyes and in somewhat of a hushed tone said, “If you want to get anything out of this you are going to have to be more vulnerable. You’re going to have to learn to play the victim a little bit.”
They call this hideously lime green painted hut the “Gatehouse” and have me go inside where a very sweaty, very unwashed man, whose smell I meet long before I meet him, is awkwardly shuffling around papers. He mutters something about looking for an application and whatever other papers he’s been told to give applicants. I take a moment to wonder if the place has a shower and prepare myself to make a note to figure out where one can shower in Eugene Oregon. When a very zaftig woman huffs her way up to the stair and suggests that when I get my paperwork we should sit outside, I almost hug her. Once she gets close enough, I resist the urge, I have my notebook in hand and am digging out my pen thinking, ‘showers in Eugene, showers in Eugene…write it down.’ She introduces herself as Lil.
Getting to this day, my official interview, had already spoken loudly to me about this villages dysfunction. Now that I was actually here I was already seeing the incompetence made manifest in front of my eyes. The first time I had arranged a ride out here, not so easy a task, I had been told on the phone to just come by, get an application and turn it in, best to do so in person. They had told me that interviews were done on a specific day so if I came that day I might get lucky and kill two birds with one stone. That didn’t happen at all. Instead, I was handed a partial application and told to take it home and fill it out or just do the online one, which didn’t exist. I was told there were no openings for months but I could “try calling another time.”
This time I had come prepared, as once again, procuring a ride from Stayton to Eugene was not an easy task. I had called and made an actual appointment ahead of time with a woman we’ll call “Haddie.” I ended up never meeting Haddie, she never did show up. Still, I wasn’t going to just let them send me away again, I was getting my interview, I had my partial application all filled out, had my ID and other varied documents I was told I would need and I wasn’t going to try and get another ride down here, it was now or never. I’d been surfing the couch of an Irish traveler friend who didn’t really have the room and I wanted to unburden her space.
Once we were seated, Lil proceeded to immediately begin asking us what programs we weren’t already “taking advantage of.” Was one or both of us getting food-stamps? Have we heard of this program or that program? She was telling us about these programs using phraseology that implied she was a great person to help with the loop-holes and lies to get as much free government money as possible and do as little as possible to get it. She was a nice enough lady who clearly had no idea who she was talking to. She seemed to assume that I wanted to sit on my hands and collect as much free money as I could get and perhaps try to qualify for more if I lied in all the right places, she’d show me how.
The interview ended up being really just Lil telling me about her sad life. Estranged from her children, well not the ones she does meth with, but the other ones, and sad about all her health troubles and mental illnesses, she was a wreck to be reckoned with to be sure. I quickly caught on that when one is making a livelihood out of being sick, they must perpetuate a toxic environment to sustain their income, and if they can help it, try to get sicker so they can get more money.
It was in those moments that I realized I would one day be living in this place, a perfect place to observe people who assume I’m just like they are. That’s what makes the study covert. As Lil regaled me with the saga of how sad her life was, I was seeing the potential more and more to make some observations about the kinds of people involved in a “Tiny Housing Community.” People meant to help people despite not being able to help themselves, and not wanting to for that matter as it might mess up their free income or worse, mean they have to work.
Though it seemed to serve no purpose as it was meant to be my interview, I listened to Lil. I’d nod my head and make whatever comments I could as she sipped what looked like Mountain Dew from a cup bigger than her head. As she seemed to be running out of steam, I gently reminded her that she had said she was going to give us a tour. She leaned her heft toward me and looked me squarely in the eyes and in somewhat of a hushed tone said, “If you want to get anything out of this you are going to have to be more vulnerable. You’re going to have to learn to play the victim a little bit.”
