Packs Jade every day. Packs for eight weeks.
If she doesn't want to be found,
she won't respond. Shannon
Starr has searched the streets f
Portland for her daughter Jade,
known as Packs on the streets.
Well, have you seen her?
I haven't seen her since Wednesday last week.
We found her by chance while
reporting on a story downtown.
But I've been out here for
like. 3-4 years almost.
Jade moved from Arizona to
Portland with a friend in 2019.
The town that we were living in is more
of a smaller community and theyt
wanted to kind of spread their wings.
She had her own apartment
and was a manager at her job.
It's 1314 months officially on the streets,
but I literally used to live bed
this building. In an apartment
she was living downtown and just
basically tent city started to befriend
some of the people downtown and
I guess someone gave her
her first blue pill and
not long after she ended up hery
body just came out on me and
then I started using drugs.
That's when her mother started
making the trip from Arizona to
Portland just to be with her.
She wasn't like that at all growing up.
I didn't have any of that to
worry about with any of my kids,
and Portland sucked the lifeout of her.
It really just ate her up and I'm just
hoping it's not going to spit her out.
Shannon took a leave of absence
from her work to help her daugh,
but that ends this week,
so I'm hoping I find her today.
I've run out of money.
I ran out of money weeks ago,
so it's just.
I just come out here.
I try to give her water.
I try to convince her to even
just get medical care. Through
this, she's come to learn
these streets almost as well as
those who live on them. Have
you seen packs? Hi. Hey.
I hope this 10, this is Ryan.
People use drugs to get through,
but that's one way I try to find
her is I is networking. It's
the only thing she can do.
Since legally she's not allowedo
force her daughter into treatmet
or take her without consent.
So it just seems like there's jt
roadblock after roadblock that there's
nothing I can do because of her.
And hopefully she lives to to see her
29th birthday at the end of this month, a
painful reality she's learning to live with.
I don't want my daughter to die.
I'm supposed to die first.
She's supposed to go to my fune.
So she keeps doing the only thing she can
staring at bodies on the street.
Like, is that mine?
Is that person dead?
Is that person alive?
When I do find her,
I I'll park and I'll sit
there for hours with her.
We visited SW 4th and Harvey Mi,
a spot she often camps. Could
this be my my sweetheart?
It could be
packs. It is her sweetheart.
Oh no, it's not my daughter.
Are you okay, you need some wat?
I thought it was her,
but it's not the same because
she cut her hair.
I go like this and now it's low
so that it's like this emotional
up and down every day, every
day, hoping to catch her
before it's too late.
We're told by other
people to turn our backs.
To let them hit rock bottom.
But this is rock bottom.
I don't I don't see how St.
life is any sort of life at all.
And Blair joins us now. Blair,
I mean, you really feel for Sha.
They're talking about rock bott.
She feels like they are there.
She did not find her daughter t,
but she has found her in the pa.
When they do find each other,
what's that conversation like? o
from what the mother tells me,
it really depends on the amount
of drugs that Jade has done
that day where she is mentally.
Shannon carries supplies with her every day.
This things like water, food, clothes.
Sometimes they'll sit together for hours.
Other times, Jade will
get angry with her mom,
angry that she's even out
there trying to help her.
So it really depends
What options does Shannon have? Well,
her options are limited,
and that's the sad part.
Unfortunately, parents like thi.
They can take this sort of relentless
route of going out day after day
trying to find their child and
convince them to go into treatm.
Or they can let them reach that
rock bottom on their own and
try to wait for the moment they
see the light on their own,
which both options aren't.
That great?
Yeah. To say nothing of what happens if the
person wants to go into detox or treatment.
I remember talking to a mother t
year who her daughter was an alcoholic.
She was trying to get her into treatment,
had to send her out of the state
to find treatment as well.
So I guess the question is, what happens now?
It sounds like Shannon has
spent a lot of money.
She's got to go back to work and frankly,
that she is absolutely terrifiee
is not going to see her daughter again.
I mean, let's be blunt.
That's a reality.
That fear is very real.
She's learned to live with it every day.
But like you said,
she has to go back to work,
at least for this next month.
Then she plans to come back her.
And she's hoping that that timer
this next month will sort of shw
her daughter what it's like to t
have her right in her back pock,
to not know that her mom is
out here searching for her.
So maybe that'll push her to
want to get help on her own.
But we'll see what this next month brings.
Yeah. Hoping that time away
makes something change there,
something to break the cycle.
Right? Yeah. Thanks so much, Bl.