Portland State Magazine Spring 2018

29 Raising more awareness of the problem of homelessness was what drove him. He hoped to surmount what he calls the barriers that society erects to isolate others. For most of his subjects he includes shor t narratives. A common theme he detected was that everybody has a dream, such as “being in a better job, or just having a better future.” Homeless people “are very self-aware, something I never had anticipated,” says Oliveira. Some, such as a young woman addicted to heroin from her early teens, told him they blame their predicament on themselves. Most subjects don’t have the oppor tunity to see the photos he takes of them, but this woman did: When he texted her the picture, she told him she cried, seeing herself that way.  –written by Cliff Collins, a Portland freelance writer. DANNY