CONTIA ORSBY, 58, stood with the deacon of her church on the lot of Andy’s Towing on SE 82nd last Friday afternoon, September 12. She was there to retrieve her all-white 1988 four-door Cadillac Brougham, bought five years ago for $4,700 from a used car lot up the street, during more fortunate times. It had briefly been her home, until police confiscated the vehicle on Independence Day.
Orsby had already handed over $400 to the towing firm, and $225 to get a release for her vehicle from the courthouse. Still owing $600 more, the manager of the towing company had generously cut her a deal.
“He told me if I promised him $200 from my next disability check, I could come and get the car today,” she said.
Too bad, because the towing firm had lost the keys: They called a locksmith, and tried to charge Orsby for the cost of cutting some new ones.
“We’re doing you a favor,” the manager told her. “We’re only supposed to keep the car, technically, for 30 days.”
Orsby refused to pay for the locksmith, and ultimately, the towing company handed over her car. Her deacon, Albert Woods, from the Emmanuel Church of God in Christ United on NE 30th, had taken the afternoon off to drive Orsby to the towing lot. He shook his head.
“They wouldn’t treat her like this if she were the president, that’s for sure,” he said.
Orsby, a geriatric nurse from Louisiana, moved to Portland 12 years ago, to continue her 23-year career in nursing, which was cut short in March 2005, when two discs slipped in her back while she was trying to prevent a 93-year-old patient from falling and breaking his hip. Unable to work, she received a $14,000 worker’s compensation settlement, which gradually went toward living expenses—eating tinned Vienna sausage and Ritz crackers in an apartment on 125th and SE Stark, paying $495 a month in rent, until the money ran out late last year.
“Orsby’s church helped her with some rent money and when they could no longer help, she was evicted from her apartment,” says Cindy Mosney, homeless women’s outreach worker with NW Pilot Project, who has been working to get Orsby into housing ever since. “She stayed with various people, but it was unsafe, and some of them took advantage of her, and it didn’t work out.”
Orsby ended up sleeping in her car, bathing in gas station and hospital bathrooms, trying to hold things together while she awaited a decision from Social Security on whether to pay her disability. She got her first check, for $600, in May this year.
On July 4, Portland Police Bureau Officers Joseph Cook and Judy McFarlane rolled up on Orsby at 2 pm as she was slumped in her car outside an apartment complex on SE 122nd. They searched Orsby and found a pair of brass knuckles in her pocket, which she claimed she was using as a key ring. The officers charged Orsby with having a concealed weapon, driving with a suspended license, and driving without insurance. Instead of taking her to jail, they towed her car, handed her the citations and drove off, leaving her homeless on the street.
All three charges against Orsby were thrown out last Thursday, September 11, after the district attorney’s office declined prosecution.
“The police stopped her under the guise of what they call a welfare check,” says Orsby’s defense attorney, Brad Kalbaugh, with Multnomah Defenders. “But instead of caring about her welfare, they ended up making her homeless.”
Orsby walked the streets, destitute, for six weeks, sleeping outside. Finally, Mosney got her into the East Burnside Thriftlodge in mid-August, thanks to a grant from the Women’s Emergency Services Collaborative.
“But for the police to stop there and say she had a concealed weapon, this 58-year-old woman, frayed to death, sleeping in her car, no, that’s not right,” says Mosney.
“I felt like an ant out there,” says Orsby. “An ant with nowhere to go.”
Mosney has arranged low-income housing for Orsby on the westside, starting next month. Orsby says she is looking forward to moving in, and buying a parrot for companionship.
“Ideally you would have beds available for folks and a coordinated system so that people could be housed,” says the cops’ spokesman, Sergeant Brian Schmautz, in response to Orsby’s story. “We’re a component of a comprehensive system, but we’re not the whole system. We’re the part that deals with law enforcement.”
Yes Portland Mercury, we understand… all police are evil and exist for no other reason than to hurt us and make life easy for the rich and privileged. Obviously Portland would be much better off without police. There are hardly any transients in this city and those that are here are just peace loving intellectuals that would otherwise be gainfully employed if not for this repressive American system. Keep up the non-biased reporting, its top notch!
Yes Venzetti, we understand… all police are good and exist for no other reason than to help us and make life hard for the poor and disadvantaged. Obviously Portland would be much better off not reporting any incidents involving potential abuses of police power.
Keep up listening to AM talk radio, its top notch!
Yes “The Portland Merkur,” I love it when suspended drivers with no insurance hit my car and I am stuck paying the bill.
I see one quote paraphrasing the towing company.
Methinks there is much more to this latest chapter in the police-is-bad–give-us-a-welfare-state series.
I think Johnny and Venzetti have missed the general point. If what we are being told is true, there is no reason this person shouldn’t be housed. Housing is a human right. Pending you’ve not failed society and still deserve that right.
Yes, she had no license, and no insurance, and should be treated accordingly. I don’t think Matt was implying she should be allowed to circumvent the law. Maybe he’s asking you to scratch your head and say, “is this is the kind of society I want to live in?” The shit or get shit on mentality scares me to the bone.
It’s really a shame there aren’t more cops that would take an extra minute to follow through with the welfare check and give her a phone call or some means of seeking housing for the night.
I must’ve missed that part of the constitution that guarantees housing to everyone.
Nonetheless –
‘It’s really a shame there aren’t more cops that would take an extra minute to follow through with the welfare check and give her a phone call or some means of seeking housing for the night’
We don’t know if they did or didn’t, being my original point of holes in the story. And a brass knuckle keychain would probably snap your key off the transmission.
But mmm … Vienna sausages and Ritz …
$4700 for an ’88 Caddy is the less happy story.
do the right wing no nothings have nothing better to do than write asinine comments to Merc news stories. Oh sorry there are so many people down on their luck polluting your fucked up view of the world.
Please give us a welfare state. I would bet most people who are against social welfare don’t see themselves at risk for hard times; and have never been out of the country to see a functional social welfare system.
We continue to allow the rich in this country to get richer under conservative rule. The working class and poor (anyone reading this) continue to shoulder the burden without having the benefit of a safety net. The sheer amount of wealth that this country has could easily provide all everybody needs and more.
But lets continue to preted that a “free market” and every man for himself attitude is best for society. Sick.
I actually KNOW this lady. She is one of the laziest whiniest people I have ever encountered. Her head is filled with Gillette Shaving Gel. Though, I might assume that the cause of this is that she is totally addicted to pain pills. Many of the times I encountered her she could barely open her mouth wide enough to speak. She had a storage unit at the facility I worked at and she never paid her rent, half the reason is because she just didn’t want to come in. She would call with all these excuses before the rent was even due. “Oh Alex, hey it’s Contia, how you doin?” I say “fine” but of course I am pissed because she calls me every month. “Oh Alex, my back be hurtin’ me so bad, you mind if I come in and drop this off tomorrow?” Then I would tell her, that would be fine because it wasn’t due until three days from now. Than she would ask over and over if I was sure. Which I was. “Oh Alex God Bless you, thank you so much.” Then she wouldn’t come in for a week and half. I guarantee this woman has done nothing to better herself in the last five years, besides finding local suckers to mooch off of. For instance my good-natured aunt and apparently her church.
Just another shining example of someone who has chosen to opt out of society and expects everyone else to pick up the tab.
Jesus what’s wrong with you people. Like someone chooses to blow their back out so they can walk away from a 20 year career. I’ve so often thought, screw-it. My soft dry bed is so boring, and I’m tired of cooking, I’m gonna live in my car for a few months. Maybe I can get the state to pay for my showers cause I’m tired of paying my water bill, I’m a communist and I wanna stick it to the rest of society for awhile.
As a matter of fact I had decided that this was the week, except my conscience got the better of me. In the end I decided to keep my job if for no other reason than it will allow me to pay my share of the $700 Billion dollars I owe Wallstreet now that our good president has found yet another way to bankrupt our country before he leaves.
D et al want a return to Cave Man morals, where women who’ve literally broken their backs taking care of sick people for 23 years sleep on the street because of some bad luck. i hope D et al don’t bitch when they get hit with the next clubs that cross their paths, ’cause they’re assholes, and Cave Man justice requires that assholes get hit with clubs a lot.
i’d love to see ms. orsby get some training for a job she’d like to do that won’t hurt her back. but no, anything short of her “getting it together” (magic! the cave men are so rational) and working in a mine for ten cents an hour is a “welfare state” to the cave men, and the republicans won’t allow it.
Doesn’t anyone find it odd that this woman had brass knuckles for a “key ring”? Give me a break! It’s not like they sell brass knuckles in the knick knack section at Longs…
It is also a right for a person to live in that which they have obtained themselves. People have a right to live in their cars if that is what they have. So she had no licence and no insurance. But it was where she lived. What should have happened is she should have been given a ticket for driving, and told to park the vehicle somewhere.
If you committed a traffic infraction, would you want to have your home sold out from under you?
To read an example of what would happen should the middle class be treated like the homeless, read this:
http://jointheclasswar.blogspot.com/2008/1…
If you’re interested in disability in PDX, click to Where’s Lulu – http://www.whereslulu.com – where you can rate and review local cafes, pubs, show venues, etc. based on their accessibility.