LEAGUE honors the late Martha Bryson

Presenter: LEAGUE, the county’s Lived Experience Advisory Group for Unhoused Engagement, honors the late Martha Bryson. On July 11, advisory group Chair Richard Self:

Richard Self (LEAGUE, chair): We lost yet another member of LEAGUE and a champion for the unhoused for over 45 years. Martha Bryson passed away on Sunday and has been just a huge influence in what happens here with this group, with the CoC funding that she served on, and other elements of both the county and—

Even when she’s not a part of a group she has influence over it. So when things are said in the Human Rights Commission’s Homelessness and Poverty Work Group end up, some of what she says ends up in there and has always been a part of the discussion.

[00:00:59] Martha was one of a kind; very, very independent for being confined to a wheelchair. She was somebody that usually didn’t ask for help and usually didn’t need it, but there were times that she did.

[00:01:17] When I first met Martha, she was living in a motor home in Springfield with her wheelchair frozen to the ground during winter, and summer she still couldn’t get it through the doors of the motor home. So she was pretty much experiencing a bad time.

[00:01:33] I ended up helping her getting into the apartments I live in and it worked for a while though she couldn’t get her wheelchair through the bathroom door or the bedroom door because it was too wide but she ended up moving to Springfield after a couple of years and that was through being on a list for housing and she finally got called and lived in Springfield for the latter years of her life. And there’s a lot I can say about Martha.

[00:02:03] One thing I remember distinctly is when she lived in these apartments with me, we, she would call upon me to go help her bring food to the unhoused that were living along West 11th and so forth. We did that quite often.

[00:02:20] And she didn’t always win everything she went after. She complained especially about the alley that I live next door to here. This alley on Charnelton would flood and that puddles and mud and she was in a wheelchair. And it was hard for her to get to the garbage can, let alone the recycling. And so she complained to the city who denied that the alley ever belonged to them or they had any supervisory oversight of the alley.

[00:02:54] So she didn’t win that one because of the denial of the city, but we had our post office boxes for this apartment building and they were facing the street. Martha would have to wheel into the street to get her mail and she wasn’t fond of that at all, so she actually got the post office to come out and swirled the whole thing of post office boxes around so that you could get to them through the sidewalk. And that was just one of many battles.

[00:03:26] Martha didn’t start here. She started in Baltimore, I believe, and then in Galveston, Texas, she also made a big huge giant difference holding the feet of the city council their feet to the fire in Long Beach, California. She showed them who’s boss, along with her partner Betsy Cunningham.

[00:03:50] And then she went to San Francisco and still was an unhoused advocate and then spent her latter years here in Lane County doing for people. So she was quite the influence, not just here, but around the country for over 45 years.

This is a loss that just is something I can’t—I can’t tell you how big of a loss this is for the community, for the country, for the communities around the country. Nobody has that kind of dedication.

[00:04:26] And she’s one of the very few people I look up to and say: ‘There’s somebody that’s a lot smarter than me at this.’

[00:04:34] Danelle: This is Danelle. Man, I looked up to Martha too. She was great to talk to. She—man, she could talk, I’ll tell you what. She always had something to say and it was always something you wanted to listen to because she was smart about everything and you know, always had questions and always could help with anything you asked about. So she’s going to be well missed and she was well loved.

[00:05:01] Julie Lambert: Hey everybody, I’m Julie. Yeah, Martha was a good friend of mine. We’ve been friends ever since she was living in the RV that Richard mentioned and she was looking to live in and she eventually wound up in Richard’s complex, which was a blessing for both of them. And I’m really glad that that worked out.

[00:05:22] She was just very tireless. She was a huge repository of information ’cause she’d been doing this homeless thing or unhoused thing for 20+ years. And one of the things I really love about Martha is she warned me, she said, ‘If you’re going to go to rallies, I want you to my phone number on your arm with Sharpie,’ you know, ‘because they’re going to take your phone away from you and you don’t know anybody’s phone number, do you?’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t.’

She said, ‘So write my phone number on your arm with Sharpie.’ And that’s what I did. I let her know before each rally, ‘Okay, I’m going, if you get a call, that’s going to be me, calling from jail.’ And I never had to use it and now that I probably will have to use it, I’m going to have to find a different number.

And I’m I’m going to miss her tremendously. She was a great influence on me and on this community and it’s a great loss for all of us. Thank you.

Presenter: Amanda Borta:

[00:06:21] Amanda Borta (Lane County): Yeah, this has been very hard to hear, just especially given Willie’s passing and I know that’s hard for the group as well. We’ve had a lot of loss in a very short period of time and that’s been hard for me as well. I really cared for Martha. I had a lot of good conversation with her over the years.

[00:06:40] The first time I met her, she yelled at me. I’ll always get it from her, don’t tell people. She put me in my place ’cause I was talking about permanent housing and she told me what it like in real life and what the experience is for folks isn’t what, you know, we’re talking about and I’ve loved her ever since then.

[00:07:01] And I was like, ‘I like her. She, you know, is going to tell me like it is.’ And she’s been actively involved since then and I have appreciated her so much just for her activism and her perspective. And she’s like you said, she’s been doing this a very long time and did that work even when she was, you know, on the streets and a single mom.

[00:07:21] And I just really admired her for that effort that she’s put in for so long. As you know, it’s really easy to kind of give up when you’ve been doing this for a long time. And she always said, she hasn’t seen that much change and she’s still fighting for a lot of the same things. So I really appreciated her for that.

[00:07:42] And yeah, I know she will be definitely missed here. I’ll miss hearing from her. And I’ll just say that if you want to honor her, I would appreciate you going to the Homes For Good board meetings because she always said she was the only one that would go. I’m sure she would appreciate if anyone would like to honor her, she would love to see that.

[00:08:05] Presenter: James Ewell:

[00:08:06] James Ewell (Lane County): Yeah, I would just add a couple of things Amanda said, but you know, what a fierce advocate Martha was. And I think what I always appreciated about her was she would push the buttons where she needed to push and she had no qualms about it.

And I had a similar experience. I think I’ve done a few community events that Martha was at, but we were on a panel together for the ‘No Place to Grow Old’ movie in the spring and I was talking about coordinated entry and she just cut me off immediately. It was like, ‘No, that’s not how it is at all. You don’t know.’

She was 100% right. And everything she said was completely the truth and that audience just by the end of it were so captivated by her and I always was as well. So we’ll miss her in that advocacy, for sure.

[00:08:57] Richard Self (LEAGUE, chair): Rebecca chimes in, saying: ‘Martha was a beautiful soul and her passing is a great loss to our community near and far. My heart goes out to all who will miss her and her presence and great spirit of love.’

[00:09:11] Thank you, Rebecca, for that. Yeah, there’s a lot to Martha that is beyond that. Martha was a great legal knowledge of information. So she was able to tell you what’s what as far as the law and what’s what as far as, you know, where we are going with things and, and that the, you know, law doesn’t exempt anybody. And I always appreciated her legal mind on all of these things. And so, again, it’s going to be a great loss for our community and we’re also probably going to need somebody to fill her spot on the CoC and other committees that have to do with funding for the unhoused that she served on so diligently.

[00:10:07] Okay, so, well, Sarah and Molly are here.

[00:10:10] Sarah (Martha’s daughter): Yeah, hi, Richard.

[00:10:12] Richard Self (LEAGUE, chair): Hi there, Sarah. Would you like to share anything about Martha? We are remembering her here, and I would love to have you or Molly speak if you’d like to.

[00:10:26] Molly (Martha’s daughter): I’ll say something, and that is, is that my mom was a passionate and dedicated person and she believed in this committee.

[00:10:36] Richard Self (LEAGUE, chair): All right. Very much appreciated.

[00:10:40] Presenter: LTD’s Community Resource Liaison Sarah Koski:

[00:10:43] Sarah Koski (Lane Transit District): I wanted to give my tribute to Ms. Martha. So I only knew your mom three times. And just like Amanda, the first time I met your mom, she was screaming at me. I was at a meeting with some, like, OGs of the game of, of like, helping out with homelessness.

[00:11:06] Martha was sitting next to me and she was like, she didn’t know I was part of LTD. And she was like, if LTD would only step up and do all this and donate land and all of this. And I just loved her passion. And it opened up dialogue to the fact that LTD has actually donated land, right? Like 310 Garfield Safe Sleep Site is LTD property that we lease for a dollar for folks to do and all of this.

[00:11:34] And so when I told her that she’s like, ‘Hmm, okay, we still need to do more.’ And that’s when we first connected on Facebook. And I got to kind of see the way that she told her stories. And then meeting here, her storytelling and her knowledge and some phone calls and everything, she made a dramatic impact in my life, right?

[00:12:00] And I think that as we talk about like, Willie, or we talk about Martha, the concept of legacy of like what do we leave behind as we like transfer into the next realm, right? And for Martha’s legacy.

[00:12:13] So one thing I liked about Martha was she was not afraid to tell stories that were difficult to tell. And so in terms of transit, Director of Development owns all of the portfolios of land, right? And he’s in charge of a lot of different decisions on: ‘Should bathrooms be at different stations?’ Like, stations are put in terms of, like, different shelters, all of this.

[00:12:40] So every time, every Wednesday, I’m over at the Glenwood office, I sneak into his office and sit in a chair before, like, he actually sees me coming, like we have this game where he rushes to see if he shuts the door [laughing] and I’m learning really good to like hide in, like, a blind spot, but I think he’s starting to put mirrors in different locations so I can’t slide in, right?

[00:13:01] But I’ve been telling him stories from like Martha, from Willie, from League, about what life is like, and bathroom access, and not just from the lens of the unhoused, but from the lens of the community, and folks with children and accessibility needs and elderly and everything.

[00:13:18] To the point, I was surprised two days ago from an email from him, and it said, “I have heard and listened to you talk about how hard it is during severe weather to keep getting water and water bottle fill.’

[00:13:35] Now granted, it’s been really incredible that there’s three new fill stations over by the park blocks. The third one just got installed yesterday. I was doing a tour and so there’s three: drinking fountain, fountain for a pupper or a kitty cat or a service animal and a water bottle fill, right, in the park blocks.

[00:13:56] For downtown in our area, we have had it in LTD, inside, but it locks at a certain time and obviously the library, right? Everything else is paid water.

[00:14:06] Our director of development invested $10,000 in a unit that will now be a Lane Transit District water fountain and water bottle fill. They just retrofitted it so it won’t freeze. And they’ll be installing it on Monday, which means if you think about it, $10,000 unit plus the retrofitting for the freeze and the labor is probably going to be a $20,000 investment.

[00:14:32] And so I asked him, I slipped into his office again, and I said, ‘Hey, I’d like to dedicate this to someone. I’d like to call it Martha’s Well.’ So we are going to dedicate the drinking fountain and water bottle fill station to Ms. Martha.

[00:14:47] And so that is kind of how I would love in my way of just memorializing your mother, that how many people now are going to be able to get water and then take that water with them? And every little drop is just a testimony to her advocacy. So that’s just what I wanted to say. I’m just really honored to be able to know her. I’m so grateful.

[00:15:10] Sarah (Martha’s daughter): That’s beautiful, Sarah. Thank you. 

[00:15:12] Presenter: Members of the lived experience advisory group LEAGUE remember Martha Bryson. She will be memorialized with Martha’s Well, a new all-season water station in downtown Eugene.