binudsingh: A shivering homeless woman, a cast of good Samaritans -- and ...

Homelessness never bothered Cindy Williams until, as she puts it, "I got slammed in the face with it every single day."

The 51-year-old security guard works at Portland's City Hall.

When she's not at her ground floor post, directing visitors or monitoring the building's video security screens, she patrols the sidewalks. Williams has gotten to know the men and women camped outside by their first names. She makes sure they know the rules: They can camp overnight along the Fourth Avenue curb, but their belongings must be packed up by morning.

One hot day this summer, Williams walked along the sidewalk, reminding the campers to drink lots of water. "Make sure you hydrate yourself," the red-headed security official in the white crisp shirt cautioned. "I don't want anyone falling down on my shift." ?

So it wasn't surprising the steps Williams took when she got word last week that a young woman camping outside City Hall, known among campers as "the Scratcher," was in distress.

What happened next shows how complicated it can be to help someone who is homeless, showing signs of mental illness and in need of aid -- even when a security guard, a police officer, a bureaucrat and a city commissioner go to bat on her behalf.

It started at 9:53 a.m. Tuesday when a City Hall employee alerted Williams a woman was curled up in the fetal position in a restroom. Williams entered and found a young woman washing her hands. Her clothes were soaking wet, her body shaking.

The woman said she was fine and walked out.

"She was just like a frightened little mouse," Williams said.

Less than an hour later, a male camper found Williams and said people were worried about the woman from the restroom, who had red welts on her hands and was now crouched in the rain.

Williams referred the man to the Office of Neighborhood Involvement while she went to the office of Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees housing and homeless matters, for guidance.

John Dutt, manager of the information and referral program in the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, works to connect people to services every day. Dutt began a series of phone calls to mental health and homeless organizations that produced little help. He called JOIN, which provides outreach to the homeless, "but I couldn't get through to a live body." Finally, he called the police non-emergency line to ask someone to check on the woman.

Fish's office, meanwhile, took steps to contact JOIN, and Williams got ready to take a lunch break.

Then another camper walked in. "He was worried," Williams recalled. "I just gave him my cup of noodle soup I had just warmed up and told him to 'make sure you get this out to her.' "

She also dug in her backpack and pulled out four bus tickets.

"I was trying, but I was getting the runaround from agencies," Williams said. "I figured if I can at least arrange for transportation to help someone get the woman to a hospital, that would be the next best thing."

Williams persuaded another camper, Desiree Booco, to take the woman by bus to OHSU Hospital.
When Williams arrived at work the next morning, Williams found Booco outside. Booco said the hospital treated the shivering woman for lice and scabies. "She had open sores all over her stomach," Booco said. The hospital shaved her head, gave her two showers, dry clothes, medication and lotion.

But Booco told Williams the young woman was back sleeping outside City Hall, the staging ground for people protesting city homelessness policies. Williams handed out rubber gloves to the other campers so they could throw away the woman's old blankets and bedding.

Williams also alerted Portland police officer Stuart Palmiter, who has been regularly waking the campers each morning. "He goes above and beyond the call of duty," she said.

Palmiter found the woman curled up in a ball, lying on a wet piece of cardboard, covered with a lightweight blanket and tarp. She was shivering again, a little wet and slow to respond.

"If you don't find some shelter out here, you're going to die," Palmiter told her. "I don't think you want that, do you?"

Palmiter asked her to follow him inside to get warm. He called Project Respond to send a mental health worker. Williams warmed up a cup of soup she had brought for lunch and gave it to the woman with a slice of bread. She learned the woman was 27, from Texas. She hadn't seen her parents since age 15. ?

Project Respond workers arrived and said they had received many calls about the woman before. After checking with a supervisor, they told police she did not fit their criteria for a mental health hold.

Palmiter, unwilling to leave the woman outdoors, drove her to OHSU's emergency room Wednesday morning.

"She's unable to care for herself, and she's a danger to herself," Palmiter told the ER staff. "I'm not going to let her die on the street of hypothermia."

Project Respond workers said they'd contact the hospital's social worker, with the hope of holding the woman long enough to get her to a court competency hearing so she'd get some long-term care. By Thursday, the woman remained hospitalized.

Marc Jolin, executive director of JOIN, said he received the e-mail from commissioner Fish's office about the woman earlier in the week. "It sounds like the communications didn't happen as soon as it could, in terms of the urgency of this," Jolin said. "I really appreciate the efforts of the security guard and officer. So often it does fall to community members who see a situation to step in to try to solve it."

Jolin said his agency usually doesn't handle crisis situations but would try to connect with the woman.

Williams, a mother of two and grandmother of three who started as a playground guard, has worked for Group Four Security for 10 years. She said it was maddening to get an agency to help the young woman.

"To tell you the truth, I have kids that age, and it would break my heart if one of them was out there and if someone didn't try to help them," Williams said. "I just did what I had to do to help. I would not have been able to sleep with myself if I just walked by."

-- Maxine Bernstein