Homeless in the OR city where he was once mayor
Seattle Times
BEND, Ore. — As he navigated one day last fall through a crowded grid of beds at one of Oregon’s largest homeless shelters, Steve Martin, a longtime rancher and community volunteer, was brought to a halt by a familiar voice that called out from an unfamiliar face.
“Aren’t you going to say hi, Steve?” said the man, with eyes peering through curtains of white hair and a beard that flared in neglected disarray. Martin, who spent many of his days working among the shelter’s residents, considered the man’s gaunt frame, searching for a clue. Then the man spoke again: “It’s Craig.”
The words jolted Martin with a mix of recognition and disbelief. He had known Craig Coyner for more than 50 years, watching with admiration as the man from one of the most prominent families in Bend, Oregon, rose through an acclaimed career — as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer and then a mayor who helped turn the town into one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities.
Now, at 75, Coyner was occupying a bed at the shelter on Second Street, his house lost to foreclosure, his toes gnarled by frostbite, his belongings limited to a tub of tattered clothing and books on the floor next to his bed.
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