Peter is 36. He used to run call centers in the banking industry, working for Washington Mutual, Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union, and the First Security Bank. He is a veteran, having served six years in the military from 1995 to 2001, including tours in Afghanistan. He is a diabetic. He is a former assistant volleyball coach at Issaquah High School. He is single, and has no kids. He is not an alcoholic, he is not a drug addict. After the collapse of several banks last year, Peter found himself living on his savings. He doesn’t have a good relationship with his parents. The savings started to run out, and he fell behind on his rent. He started living in his car, parking in a largely abandoned business park in Bothell. The savings ran out and the car was repossessed. In November of 2009, Peter, 36, who used to run call centers in the banking industry, who once helped coach volleyball at Issaquah High School, found himself homeless. He is not an alcoholic or drug addict. He is a resident of Tent City, the homeless encampment which moved to Issaquah on Saturday. He is your neighbor.

I first met Peter at the Issaquah Community Church on Saturday morning. We were lugging pallets around the car park, part of the large team of community volunteers and homeless men and women who were helping to move Tent City 4 from the Bellevue First Methodist Church, where it has been for the past three months, to its new home in Issaquah. I took him as one of the helpful local residents. He didn’t, you know, look like a homeless guy.

The shifts of volunteers came and went all day, and by nightfall a small village had sprung up in the car spaces, one that can hold up to 100 men and women seeking shelter, in rows of tents on top of the pallet grids.

At the moment there are about a dozen vacancies. Often, when the camp moves, which it does every three months, some residents drop off, if they are unable to commute from the new site to their work, or if they don’t make the move-in day. (Under Tent City rules, only those who help out on move day are permitted to stay.)

I had spent a little time at the Tent City site in Bellevue, met some of the residents, and so knew what to expect at the new Issaquah site. When I went back there on Monday night, after the dust had settled and the tents were all up, a few guys told me they liked the new site better than the Bellevue one.

For those who haven’t checked it out, Tent City kind of looks like the set of M.A.S.H., without the helicopters and camouflage. Rows of tents toward the back of the village make up the sleeping quarters. There is separate structure with a shower, a basin and mirror, a washer and drier, and another to store equipment. A long, marquee-style tent serves as the common area, where in the evening residents sit to eat meals, to smoke, read, and play cards. There is a small kitchen, a tent to store food and other supplies, even a TV room, with books and DVDs.

And at the entrance to Tent City is “the office.” Visitors are always welcome, but you must check in here first.

There are strict rules — no alcohol, no drugs, no bad behavior. Act right, you can stay. But the rules are strictly enforced. Tent City has a reputation of treating graciously the cities that host it, and it’s not a reputation they can afford to lose.

When I caught up with Peter he was helping Dave, another resident, who was doing some repairs on his tent. Dave had just made his “mattress,” eight milk crates tied together with wire, 4 x 2, to form a narrow six foot long platform.

“It gets you up off the ground, away from the condensation,” he said. He’s thinking he might be able to make a desk.

I had heard that one of the biggest issues for homeless men and women trying to get their lives back on track was access to transportation.

The Institute for Research on Poverty found that a lack of access to a car or reliable transportation was one of the major barriers to finding regular employment, as prohibitive as a lack of skills, and behind only drug addiction. With local, county, state governments and transit agencies all dealing with budget cuts, homeless people and advocates like SHARE, who run Tent City, are worried that access to subsidized bus tickets may be about to run out. In addition, the introduction of the ORCA card and a new policy where King County Metro bus transfers will not be recognized on Sound Transit buses, is jeopardizing the ability of low-income job seekers to get around. Particularly from cities outside Seattle, like Issaquah.

A representative of Sound Transit said this week that tickets purchased through the Metro Ticketbook Program would still be good on both Metro and Sound Transit buses. The problem now is whether agencies like SHARE can continue to raise the money to buy them. And whether councils who control the purse strings, like Seattle City Council, will begin to address homelessness more compassionately and effectively than

sweeping “offenders” off the streets.

Peter said that, tickets aside, transportation was a huge issue when it came to making yourself regularly available for work.

“I am willing to do any kind of work, go anywhere, day or night,” he said. Peter has done tile-setting and carpentry, managed video stores, and is CPR and defibrillator trained. “I’ve been lucky enough to get some day-laboring, through Work Ready in Bellevue. They like for you to be there at 5:30 a.m., but the way the bus schedule is, the earliest I can get there from here is 6:45 a.m.”

Peter started with Work Ready a couple of weeks ago, and the $8.55 an hour minimum wage he makes is just enough to keep him in insulin and the basic necessities. At the moment, he spends $280 a month on diabetes treatment. But after hearing about a new generic version of insulin offered by Walmart, he hopes he can bring that down to $100 a month. There will be effects on his health, but at the moment, he has to cut corners.

And so, minimum wage isn’t enough to make an inroad into the debts he has or put down a months rent on an apartment. But he is enormously grateful for Tent City, and the generosity of those who support it.

“Eight weeks ago I didn’t even know there was a Tent City,” he said.

And Peter has shown his thanks by doing whatever he can to help out. The community has noticed, and in December elected him to their executive committee after just three weeks as a resident — an honor typically reserved for those who been a part of Tent City for a number of months.

“My goal is to get into full time work by February 20, and into an apartment by March 20,” he said. “I want to get back on my feet before Tent City moves again (in April). I want to be warm. I want to have regular meals. I just want to be grounded again.”

Peter said he struggles with constantly being cold, and he hopes to be able to put enough away every week to be able to buy a winter coat.

He said being homeless had opened his eyes to the many small things people take for granted, especially when they are looking for work. Peter has a cell phone, but can only afford to put credit on it every now and then, pay as you go.

Access to a computer is another thing he knows would help him in searching for work and insurance information.

The libraries are great, he said, but there is a lot of demand for computer time. And often library staff and patrons don’t look kindly upon homeless people who sometimes use them as day hangouts.

The Seattle Public Library system recently passed rules of conduct designed to keep the homeless out, including banning all rolling carts except strollers, and the possible ejection for “appearing to be sleeping.”

The irony is, of course, that the great masters of literature, people like Dickens and Thoreau and Orwell and Whitman and Bukowski, for whom the libraries were built in the first place, were on occasion vagrants themselves, and huge supporters of the idea that books are to be an inspiration to all, especially the common man, the working classes. They would be rolling in their graves.

If Peter got a job interview, he would need a day’s notice so he could get to his sister’s apartment — she is keeping his suits.

Although he is clearly an enormously educated and astute man, talking to Peter I could tell the recent turn of events had dented his confidence. But he still keeps the goals in front of him.

“I have a bike in storage, and I think I will have enough money to get it out this week or next,” he said. “That will be great. I love to ride. It will make it a lot easier to get around.”

Peter said that being in this position had deeply changed him as a person, and that when he gets back into the workforce he will do a lot more to help others in the community.

“I hope I have hit the bottom of the barrel, and I’m on the way back up,” he said. “You know, there are some people who have been here for a long time, and it is a way of life for them. They stick around and make sure Tent City functions, and keep it going for others who need it, like me. But the thing people need to realize is, everybody here is trying to accomplish something. Whether it’s getting a job, or getting back on their feet in some way, everyone is trying to accomplish something. That’s no different to anyone. We just hit a bit of a harder skid, is all.”

To find out more about Tent City in Issaquah, e-mail Elizabeth Maupin of the Issaquah/Sammamish Interfaith Coalition at elipeter@juno.com., visit www.sharewheel.org., or contact me, Jake Lynch, at 425-391-0363, or jlynch@issaquah-reporter.com.