corinna scott/VANGUARD STAFF
Richard Falconer sells Street Roots from his post outside of Smith Memorial Student Union.
From his post under the sky bridge between Cramer Hall and Smith Memorial Student Union, a gentle, long-bearded newspaper seller blends into his surroundings as crowds of students rush from one class to the next.
Richard Falconer has been homeless since the early ’80s, and has sold Street Roots at Portland State for 15 years.
“He’s the nicest Street Roots vendor I’ve ever encountered. We’ve made eye contact for years—he always smiles, but I’ve never talked to him,” graduate student Austin Hudson said. “I guess all you have to do is stop and talk to someone, but everyone is so busy.”
At his post on campus, Falconer listens to a small black radio to pass the long stretches of time between customers. He likes Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond and conservative news coverage.
When they come around, Falconer chats at length with his customers and friends in the PSU community. He greets paper buyers with a nod; they leave him looking both sorry and touched.
The Street Roots vendor makes 75 cents per sale.
Like anyone living on the streets, Falconer has had his share of indignities; thieves have robbed him and punks have hassled him. He said he can often dissuade hecklers by being nice to them.
“Some people you run into, they’re not going to be able to understand you. They don’t like you because you don’t look like them,” Falconer said. “But I try to be a nice guy.”
Falconer didn’t have the ambition to finish Jesuit High School in Tigard, and cites that as the reason social services got a hold of him as a teenager.
“They threw me in a boy’s home,” Falconer recalled. “They said, ‘We’re going to put you in this little hole for while.’” His parents were separating at the time.
After a year and a half, Falconer was fostered to a woman who abused him.
The son of a truck driver and a train secretary, Falconer has been estranged from his family for more than 20 years. His parents are dead, and he has seen his younger brother, a train engineer, once in two decades. He does not know why his older sister does not contact him.
“I can’t mend everything. I didn’t raise myself,” Falconer said.
This time of year, with leaves falling in yellow beds in the Park Blocks, Falconer hopes to get an apartment for the winter. He has done it before, but that was more than a decade ago, when he was a street musician.
“There is an obvious change in Richard when the weather gets gray,” said a former Aramark employee, Matthew Russell, who hopes his friend will find more permanent winter shelter.
“[My happiest days] are just waking up in the morning,” Falconer said. “I’m not that safe. I worry about my health; it deteriorates. But I’m pretty geared up for [sleeping outside],” he said, deflecting sympathy.
At the Street Roots office he is able to clean up, wash his hair and get drinking water.
Falconer accepts individual handouts graciously—but not from government sources. He believes the cost is too high.
“Since my fondness for the government is so weak, I don’t want to go through the programs [they sponsor],” Falconer said. “It’s about integrity.”
Falconer does not get food stamps and avoids soup kitchens.
If life were exactly the way he wanted it to be, he would just lie in the sun and relax.
“I just wanted to be a middle-class family guy,” Falconer said.