An unexpected blessing

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (2 Comments)

Jeremy of Hinshaw's Honda of Auburn

 

This past Monday I had plans to do as much as I could in one of my garden plots  but the day had plans of its own! I had dropped Maggie off at school and was heading to Kent to meet a Facebook friend at Kona Kai’s coffee shop but just before I got there, the van’s engine light started to flash off and on. Soon after, it was rattling so I continued to a parking spot just outside of the coffee shop and popped the hood so that I could check the oil. It was a little low but I dreaded that oil wasn’t the problem. Not more than 2 weeks ago, I had just taken the van in to have it checked out because the engine light had come on but it wasn’t flashing. The mechanic had cleaned up some oil he had found splashed on a spark plug and replaced it. After he worked on the van that day, the engine light went off but I was advised that if that light came back on, I would need to take it to a dealership to have it checked again as it could mean a more serious problem was on the way.

After my meeting at Kona Kai’s, I decided to head towards Auburn to the Hinshaw’s Honda dealership even though I had no money to even do a diagnostic but I knew I had to get the van off the road because it was too risky to keep driving around with a flashing engine light. I parked outside the dealership’s building and just sat there wondering what and where Maggie and I were going to go if we lost our only shelter and transportation. Unless I had the money to fix the van, it would have to be parked somewhere until I did and there was no guarantee of how long it would take to earn enough money to pay for expensive repairs let alone get enough donations to help pay for everything! On top of that, the dread of getting a ticket for parking too long in the wrong place or getting the van towed was starting to kick in. While I was in the middle of thinking about all this, I saw this brother walk by with a sheet of paper in his hands but he stopped in his tracks and looked over at me. I had the door open so he asked if I needed help. I said “Oh, I’m just here to see about getting a diagnostic on what’s wrong with this van but am stressed about being stranded.” He said his name is Jeremy but if it looked as though I were to be stranded, to come find him inside the dealership and he would help me out. I nodded and Jeremy went his merry way back inside the building.

Well, doing what I do, I got on Twitter and Facebook and started talking about the van’s flashing engine light and my anxiety over what would happen next because in all honesty, I had no idea! I was planning in my head the steps I would have to take to find a safe place to be that night should worse come to worse. In about an hour and a half, enough donations had come in to pay for a diagnostic so I drove the car up to the dealership’s intake doors and walked in. I told the folks at the front desk what I suspected was happening from the last time I had to bring the van in to a mechanic and they quoted me a lower diagnostic fee than the first time I had come in. I gave them the keys to van then went and sat in a quiet corner of the lobby at a small desk that was conveniently located near an outlet so I used it to charge my phone. After an hour then 2 hours went by, I could feel a migraine coming on and I knew if they hadn’t come out after 30 minutes, something was really wrong and it was gonna be expensive to fix. I hadn’t eaten that day but I had no appetite and I was getting nauseous. That’s when Jeremy walked past me but this time he turned and sat in the chair in front of me. I knew I looked pretty haggard and that’s probably why he asked what was going on with the van.

Up until he asked that, I was holding it together but I started to cry as I talked telling him that the van was my only transportation and shelter and if we lost that, I had no idea where we were going to go or do. I had absolutely no money to fix anything! Jeremy smiled then gently asked me how many kids I had and if I was the owner of the van. I said I own the van outright and I don’t owe anything on it because it was donated to me. Jeremy kept telling me not to worry and that he was one of the managers there but he would do everything he could to help me. He had something to do but he would be right back. I just sat there staring at the wall going over and over in my head about what I had to do if it turns out nothing could be done. True to his word, Jeremy came back and asked a few questions about the van then told me he was going into the shop to see if the mechanics in there had a verdict. He then looked from side to side to see if any of his co-workers were nearby (which they weren’t) then said in a low tone, “Sis, listen, don’t worry, ok? I will help you. See, I knew there must’ve been a reason I kept getting this feeling to ask you how you were and I’m glad I did. I know what it’s like, when I lost my job a few years ago and was in school, I had to live out of my car so please, don’t worry. I promise I will do what I can to help you out. If I can get you into a new car with no money out of your pocket, would that be something you’d be interested in?” Well yeah! I didn’t have any other options! “Ok”, said Jeremy, “let me see what they say is going on with your van.”

Jeremy disappeared for a few minutes and while he was gone, I went into the women’s restroom to splash my face and let out a few sobs. Once I felt like I had regained my composure I went back to where I was sitting and sat down to wait some more. Jeremy finally came back and said it was going to be a bit longer as the mechanics were trying to figure out what was wrong with the Odyssey’s electrical system and a coil on the 6th cylinder but the bad news is that replacing those coils were expensive but they did go ahead and wash the van for me. This was definitely not the news I wanted to hear but had a feeling something big was going out on the van even though it only had 48,000 miles on it. Jeremy then said, “Come on and hang out with me for awhile, I want to show you something.” I followed Jeremy out into the lot where some new cars were and he let me drive around in one of them. Personally, I think he was just trying to lift my spirits to distract me from having a panic attack and it worked! I wasn’t expecting to get a brand new car in exchange for the van but I needed something and I needed it fast!

When we got back to the office, Jeremy asked if I needed anything or wanted a refreshment from the coffee stand. I told him I had had enough caffeine but I did grab a couple of cookies mumbling that I hadn’t eaten yet that day. While Jeremy went to his office, I sat back down to recharge my phone and after another hour had went by, the service desk guy I gave my keys to came over and told me what they thought was going on with the van. Jeremy overheard the conversation then sat down in the same seat as before. “Ok sis, we gotta get you into a better vehicle so that you don’t have to worry about paying money that you don’t have on expensive repairs and I don’t like the idea of you and your kids being stranded on the side of a road somewhere for days at a time. Let me get some more info on your van and I’ll be right back.”

I called my teen to get her little sister from school as I wasn’t going to make it to pick her up on time. Jeremy came back with a handful of car keys and motioned for me to follow him out a different door of the building to walk across the street. He showed me a Kia and a Scion and talked to me about the cars but my attention kept going to the Scion with only 23,000 miles on it that came with a warranty. I told him I’d be interested in trading for that one because the tires were brand spanking new, it was a 2010 that looked like it had just come off the assembly line! We went back into the front office only this time I sat in the other lobby and waited. Jeremy introduced me to Ron Heath and said they would be buying me something to eat while they got the Scion’s paperwork ready and filled with gas. Ron brought me some food from Taco Time and Jeremy gave me some fruit they had in their break room.

The Scion

Ron sat with me for a little while and even helped move my stuff that was in the van over to the Scion. Dang it! Just occurred to me I should’ve gotten a picture of Ron! Anyway, both Ron and Jeremy were excellent at customer service in my opinion and through the whole process, they never talked down to me in fact they were more supportive than anything else. If I could give them an award, I would! While I was sitting in the lobby, I had a chance to watch all the other staffers there and not once did I see any of them act less than professional and that tells a customer a lot! I’ve been in customer service for over 20 years and I have never seen such dedicated staff at a dealership in my life!

Now to some, dealerships are just shark tanks waiting to tank advantage of anybody who walks through the front doors and granted, there are some out there that do that but……I have to weigh my options because out here, there isn’t much wiggle room when you’re homeless. I could either keep the van and risk breaking down somewhere really inconvenient and fret about repairs I simply do not have the money to pay for or I can trade straight across for a newer car with better gas mileage and longevity. For me and my situation, trading a 2009 Honda Odyssey for a 2010 Toyota Scion was not just a better choice but a matter of meeting immediate survival needs. If I hadn’t of made the trade, I never would’ve made it to the caregiving job scheduled that night and the next day which was an opportunity to earn badly needed money!

Even as I’m writing this, I keep wondering what would’ve happened to us if Jeremy hadn’t stopped to see how I was doing. I keep wondering if me and Maggie would be sleeping on the bus right now.  Jeremy and Ron went above and beyond their job descriptions and I hope the powers that be recognize the gems they have in these two guys. I do!

Thank you Jeremy, Ron and Hinshaw’s Honda of Auburn, Washington!

 

 

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Helping others to help others

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (0 Comments)

Been awhile since I posted but that’s because there’s always more to do than there are hours in a day! It’s that time of year again to go back to tending my micro urban farms to help those who cannot find enough help to make ends meet but before that, I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing and that’s helping homeless to survive another winter. It’s always refreshing though, to run into other individuals doing what they can to help their communities be a better place for everyone regardless of what other people think. That’s why I tell people to grow a tough hide out here because the more you start making an impact, the more static you’ll get from the status quo!

Just to give you an example of what a typical day is like out here, I’ll share with you how this morning went. First call of the morning came from my very first homeless volunteer, Betty. She found Jay, a local disabled homeless man in a wheelchair, sitting outside of a Valley Cities Mental Health services office without his wheelchair. Turns out it broke down and a church had given him two walking canes to get by on but using them is a big strain on Jay. Betty went to a local senior center before Valley Cities opened to see if she could find a spare wheelchair he could sit in for awhile but she didn’t stop there. She got on the phone and called Jay’s caseworker from Health Pointe and they were on their way with a new chair for Jay. This isn’t the first time Betty’s sharp eyes have caught other people in need when no one was around to help. That’s another fact of life out here. Often, it’s other homeless people that come to the rescue because there isn’t much outreach going on in Kent unless it’s to recruit you into somebody’s church services or….a drug dealer looking for a new customer and for the youth, it’s usually recruiters from local gangs.

Betty has let me know of pregnant women and families with small children living out of their cars or sleeping at parks simply because she’s like me and does her daily walks to check and see where people are and how they’re doing. Nobody is paying her to do this and I don’t get paid either. Sometimes Betty doesn’t feel well but that doesn’t keep her down and if I can help her with rides (when I have gas!), bus fare or help with groceries, it just makes her life a little easier and provides her the support she can’t find anywhere else.

I happened to be in Auburn this morning doing one load of laundry (that’s all I could afford) before the library opened but once it was finished, I drove around the block to check on the older car dwellers to see how they made it through the night. Sure enough I found another gal I met at another park a few months ago, doing her own community outreach to the “campers” needing food. I asked her how the good fight goes in Auburn and discovered that she had been helping a family with small children to stay at a motel for a month because after all the running around they did with local service groups, they couldn’t get help fast enough to find shelter in the cold windy rain we’ve been having. Even though her finances were already strained to the limit, that didn’t stop her from helping others who have it worse than she does. That’s what outsiders often do not understand. For the folks who are out here or have been out here, the sense of urgency is acute. If we don’t act as soon as possible, somebody will die out here. Now this gal needs help making up the rest of her rent and I’m hoping folks who are reading this will make a donation to help her out IF they are able to.

Come hell or high water, for those of us who know what the reality is out here, we often have to make personal sacrifices because there are no options we can conveniently wait around for. When people are desperate, they will do desperate things to survive even if it’s negative so I don’t judge people for that. I do however,  take issue with folks who do nothing to alleviate poverty when they have the power to do so but don’t. This isn’t about enabling people others are quick to judge, it’s about providing our own support system to keep from spiraling further and further into hopelessness. People trying to help themselves will get burnt out sooner or later chasing around dubious services but they keep looking for them anyway. Problem is, it’s taking too much time to get help and that’s why I do what I do. I see the reality every day because I’m still living it myself!!

To those who take up advocacy, I give you these words of advice. Don’t worry about the negativity of other people who aren’t doing what you’re willing to do. There’s no one way to help people and it’s a learning process to find out who is worth your trust but if you don’t give up, the right people will come into your life at the right time. The trick is not to let yourself get distracted by other people that don’t share your vision. I would also say to do your best to take care of your needs by not cutting too deeply into your own resources but I do understand that in some cases, it’s damn near impossible not to. We already know we’re on our own since there’s a never ending onslaught of budget cuts to state and federal programs. We already know people are afraid to step out of the safety of their own comfort zones to care about anybody else. We also know that people are quick to judge instead of actually doing anything but we also know we can’t quit. We may never know the impact we make on other people’s lives but I’d rather do what I can when I can than regret it later.

Just know that your efforts, no matter how big or small, made the world a better place for the people you chose to help.

Thank you for all that you do and thank you for taking the time to read this!

 

 

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Everything costs more when you’re poor

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (0 Comments)

Somebody recently accused me of doing what I do just for attention and you know what? They’re absolutely right! I want to bring as much attention as possible to the reality of homelessness because that’s the only way to get rid of ignorance!

For those of you who don’t know, once you fall through the cracks and find yourself living out of a car, you will quickly discover just how much everyday things begin to eat away at your income.  For instance, once you are degraded down to homelessness, you will spend more of whatever income you might still possess on gas and maintenance to make your only source of transportation and shelter last longer. If you don’t have friends who will let you come over to take a shower or do laundry, you will have to pay to access a laundromat, a hotel or showers at a public pool and there is no way around that unless you live in a rural area but even then, you gotta pay for gas to go somewhere to set up a camp shower.

If you’re a family living out of a car, then most of your income will probably be spent on childcare if both parents are working, not to mention healthcare costs, food and anything else your family needs on a daily basis. It’s worse if you are a single parent paying for everything yourself even while working two jobs, something I can more than speak about from experience.  If there is one thing I’ve learned about being homeless, it’s that you can’t rely on false hope or have the expectation others will help you. You might get lucky here and there but the reality is…you’re on your own and you better hope your health stays intact the longer you’re stuck out here.

For all the studies so-called experts write, I find it curious that not one of them actually tracks how the poor survive on a daily basis and I’m not talking about via prostitution, drugs or violent crimes since you don’t have to be homeless to engage in those activities. Maybe that’s why so many policies fail. How do you even pretend to know how to end poverty when everyone’s situation is different? Also, the face of poverty is not the same as it used to be. People’s lives aren’t as simple as a printout of numbers on a report based off of somebody else’s statistics.

Maslow’s observations on the hierarchy of needs are very true when it comes to poverty. A person simply cannot focus on anything outside of immediate survival when most of their time is spent in trying to acquire basic necessities. Housing isn’t free and subsidized housing is becoming a pipe dream. Everybody likes to believe that education is the great equalizer but in reality it isn’t anymore. Think about it. In order to qualify for higher earning careers, a student must take on heavy debt to pay for an education (something grants can’t pay for on their own anymore since many colleges deliberately raise their costs making it almost impossible to go to college without taking on a loan). If and when a higher income is found in today’s economy, those paychecks will get eaten up paying back student loans in addition to the rising costs of living. In view of reality, how can we keep telling our young people to chase their dreams of a higher education that may or not be worth anything in the future?

For many, income will never be the same as wealth and the working poor already know this. You can have an income but what good is it if you still can’t pay for housing, healthcare, food, utilities, etc.? Everybody knows that the only thing that helps people help themselves is resources. You need resources for housing, education, healthcare, food and the list goes on. What we don’t need is endless vague waiting lists to be put on another waiting list. We also don’t need judgment that gets in the way of actually helping people. The ugly truth in America is that this country could end homelessness if it really wanted to. The problem is that ending poverty isn’t that much of a priority in this country. Maybe that’s because people don’t want to see an ugly reality that has always been there. I think it’s called being in denial.

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Are still echoing

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness | Poetry - (0 Comments)

This is the month I found out what happened to them.
Sammie Jo and her sister Carmen, two homeless native girls I tried my damnedest to help. The man who murdrered them deserves the death penalty but time will tell if that ever happens.

If you wonder why I do what I do with homeless youth, well this it:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/01/04/2401358/child-killer-joseph-duncans-competency.html

Every year I write about how their memory has affected me. This year’s poem is called “Are still echoing”

The haunting has begun
Tears run through my fingers
The way their raven tresses did

Footsteps of the missing
Are still echoing
In those hollow spaces
Filling up my mind

Through the other side
Of a store front’s window
They used to wave at me
Waiting for my shift to end

I’d get them something to eat
Even though
Those closest to me
Refused to get involved

Round and round I went
Looking for resources spent
On never enough
I guess other people’s children
Don’t mean as much

And every drum at the powwows
Is another heart beat dancing
Wanting to be remembered as anything other than
Homeless

How can we say we’re about unity
When everyday our children see
We’re not

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The things people say

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (0 Comments)

“She’s so smart and talented, I can’t believe she’s homeless.”

“Wow, how do you do all the stuff you do?”

“How come you’ve been homeless for so long?”

Sound familiar? Most of the time when I hear comments like these, I don’t take them personally because when people let things like this out of their mouths it lets me know that they are under the mistaken impression that homeless people are somehow less than other people. That’s the result of being out of touch with the reality of lack of resources they think exist. The problem with that perception is that most people also vote on perceptions that are probably just as mistaken so it’s no surprise to me when I look at who it is that votes to strip social services, access to mental health services and quality of life ordinances to keep homeless people out of sight even though the obvious reasons they sleep on park benches, under bridges and in cars in parking lots is because they have nowhere else to go.

Then there are those whose judgmental attitudes are confused with apathy. Everyone is one incident away from homelessness and the truth is, the so-called war on homelessness isn’t winning. Most efforts only make about a 10% difference when you take into consideration the rising costs of living, not enough affordable housing or transitional housing programs to go around and the fact that living wage jobs are becoming more and more discriminatory on who gets hired and when. There’s help available to get out of homelessness IF you have resources!!

For many of the families I see out here, there are several factors that led to being homeless and not all are related to mental health, crime or addiction. Many got caught in the foreclosure crisis, job loss or terminal illness that ate up all their life savings. I see a lot of moms with kids who are hanging my a thread trying to keep a job or two, to pay for ridiculously expensive childcare and gas if they live out of their cars. For those of you who don’t know, having to pay $400 a month for one child, part-time, can keep a family homeless because there is no way to save anything when your outgoing costs are more than your income. State assistance with childcare DEPENDS on whether or not you make minimum wage because if you do, guess what? You don’t qualify for childcare assistance as there are income guidelines and like every program I’ve checked out you must “qualify” for help. If you don’t, you’re just plain ol’ stuck!

Friends and family may not be able to help or…..may not want to as some see helping poor relatives as a burden or “intrusion” on their lives. I see this type of situation with most of the homeless youth I know. Many times I have sat in the library and in parks observing what police officers say to homeless youth and homeless adults for that matter and I’ve come to the conclusion that some officers seem to forget their personal opinions and lack of education on homelessness is not part of their job but then, when you have an entire city out of touch with homeless reality like the city of Kent is, it’s no surprise their police department behaves the way it does. It was that kind of behavior that brought me to Kent to start an advocacy with community leaders like the Reverend Jimmie James.

People only see snapshots of my life and others like me through social media but they have no idea what goes on hour by hour, day by day. For example, I’m about to lose what little I own sitting in a storage unit because I haven’t had the funds to pay this month’s rent on it. One of the reasons for that is because child support has gone missing for a few months. If one source of income disappears, it causes a chain reaction into everything else I’m trying to keep afloat. Now the van needs to be taken in for servicing and since I can’t really afford to right now, that means I’m somewhat grounded. The further I get behind in bills, the more I owe until it becomes a hole too big to get out of. Then there’s the constant dread of knowing that one of these days, these visits to the emergency room are gonna end in a really bad hemiplegic episode that I may never recover from. THAT’S the reality of homelessness these days and why it takes people longer than ever to get out of it. It isn’t always because they aren’t trying to as some would assume and telling people the facts of what’s going on isn’t “whining” as I’ve heard some people claim. Those people are often the very same people who think you can pull yourself up on a shoestring that doesn’t and hasn’t existed for years.

Having said all of the above, does that make me hopeless? No. It just means I have to be realistic about what options I have to live with. Unfortunately, that means I can’t go hanging out with people the way they’d like because I’m simply too busy trying to create my own options and many don’t understand how long that actually takes. To those of you who are homeless, try not to take what people say to you too seriously. You already know what the reality is and you also know whether or not you’re making your life harder than it needs to be, especially if you’re feeding addictions or making bad decisions that’ll land you in jail but then again, desperate people who are tired of the runaround when they try to get help will do desperate things so I have to wonder what’s worse…..The people who do things out of desperation because they don’t have resources to live….or the people who make things harder than they need to be by eliminating resources for the needy?

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The parking lot

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness | Poetry - (0 Comments)

It’s the day after Christmas and
I’m sitting in a distant corner
Of the parking lot

I see people to and fro
Exchanging this and that
For whatever it is they think
They should have got

Bits and pieces of trash
Litter the ever present asphalt
And as the rain slicks the pavement grey
I see
A woman with small children in a car
They look alot like me

I remember her
From a present not so past
Fugitives taking refuge
Wherever there’s a rest stop

I watched her as she sat
Wide awake in the front seat
Waiting for the tears of her children
To subside as they fell asleep
Behind her

She’s afraid to talk to me
But that’s okay you see
I already know what it’s like
To go through the shock phase
And it’s an ugly place to be

So I gave her a smile
Nodding my head
I want her to know that
Despite all the dread
And fear of not knowing
Where you’ll be tomorrow
There’s a friend sitting in a car
Not far from hers
It’s just that right now
She doesn’t know it

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Another day in the life “out here”

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (1 Comments)

Nobody said that dealing with homelessness is easy and that goes for both the homeless and the service providers trying to get people into a better life. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes most folks don’t realize and because of that, assumptions are made that there’s resources to help the poor when in fact, there really aren’t. Local organizations and faith based groups do their best to meet the need but everyone out here knows they can’t.  It’s because of that fact, individuals try to get involved in their communities by helping the folks they interact with on a daily basis but beware! You might incur the wrath of not so compassionate neighbors or local politicians who think that status quo policies are the only ways in which to help people.

I run into that every day of course but I don’t let it stop me because my experience tells me to keep doing what I’m doing but there are times I run into what I call “dry spells”. This is when donations run low or stop all together. In a perfect world, I’d have childcare and a job to pay for what I do without having to ask for donations. Hell, I’d have housing for crying out loud but the reality is that I don’t and these little part time jobs and occasional odd jobs do not pay for childcare nor are they enough to get us out of homelessness so while I’m out here, why not make a difference where I’m at?  I don’t think folks realize how much of my own money is spent on providing basic survival items to folks that aren’t being provided elsewhere but that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Besides, if local orgs and faith based groups could handle all the folks now asking for help, I would think common sense would dictate that they would’ve done so by now and if so, there wouldn’t be all these homeless people milling about with nowhere to go.

Every day, I find a homeless senior, unaccompanied youth, vet, cancer patient, single parent or disabled person living out of their vehicles, under bridges, in the woods, at the airport, around bus stations and under railroad trellises or on river banks but unless major funding comes in to local groups to get them out of homelessness, they will live and die where they’re currently at. That’s a thought always lurking in the back of my mind for myself as well.  When I found out about that mother of five in Skyway that committed suicide because she couldn’t get help when she needed it, I wonder about how bad things will get before people take homelessness seriously enough to actually get involved in doing something about it.

Even now, I’m wondering how long I’ll be able to stay online. My laptop is dying, and my cell phone needs a new battery, a charger or both and without a connection to the internet, my voice will go silent just like so many others do out here. Sure I can try to reserve an hour spot on a library computer but the services there are limited. Then there’s the constant worries over gas, insurance, childcare and a living wage job. I have some new health issues popping up that are directly related to living out of a vehicle but that’s actually the least of my worries right now. They say time is man’s most precious commodity and that’s certainly true out here because most of us are living on borrowed time. Nobody wants to think about whether or not they’ll live to see a spot come up on year’s long waiting lists for housing but that’s what ends up happening out here.

Sure, I could sell the van but wouldn’t get that much out of it and what’s the point of selling your only transportation and shelter? The monies gained by selling it wouldn’t even last a year in rent. People ask me all kinds of questions about how I live out here and to me it’s redundant when I can tell they focus on everything else but the fact that there’s no housing help! I especially enjoy ignorant vitriol from people who live in insulated vacuums because every time they open their mouths, their cluelessness is blatant. To those of you doing what you can to help others I say this; grow a thick skin fast!  Don’t worry about what stupid people say or do because if they aren’t part of the solution, they’re the problem, right?

The point of this blog was supposed to be about asking for donations but with all that goes on out here, one can’t help to engage in the occasional rambling on about what goes on in the daily life of a homeless mother on a mission most people would rather dismiss. Sooner or later, hardships will come knocking on your door. How you handle them depends on who you are, where you’re at and whether or not there’s help when you need it. It is my hope that you don’t lose hope and don’t give up even if the situation seems hopeless.

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A City out of Touch; Part 2 by Carey Fuller and Reverend Jimmie James

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (0 Comments)
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The Journey that ended before he began: The death of a homeless child in the city of Kent (Be advised: the attached picture is graphic and may not be suitable for everyone to view)

 

The last time I wrote about Kent, I entitled the piece “Out of Touch While Others Run Out of Time” on the Huffington Post. Sadly, time ran out for Journey Legatee. Journey’s family is one of many in Kent that has fallen victim to homelessness that could’ve been prevented had there been resources available when they needed them. Had the city of Kent approved a resource center/shelter years ago when first requested by various local orgs, the Legatee family would’ve had a place to go and baby Journey would’ve had a chance to live but Kent has always been in the habit of not taking their growing homeless population seriously enough to be proactive about it.

Journey was the name that Billy and Zincia, the homeless parents of Journey, felt was appropriate after their baby was declared stillborn by miscarriage by the attending physician at a local hospital in South King County.  It has been almost a month since Journey’s tragic death. The particulars surrounding this miscarriage are still being investigated by the family at this time, but the “journey” of homelessness, experienced by this family leading to this tragedy, is the inspiration for his given name.  What should have been a time of celebration for this family is now an added burden of grief and loss to the already challenging and overwhelming reality of being a homeless family in the city of Kent, WA.

Billy is telling his story because he believes he will, and must, make it through this period for his wife and family, and he wants others to know the truth about being homeless.  They are still currently homeless and he invites you to take his journey experience of homelessness in what we call the continuing story of a “City Out of Touch”. As a returning community member from incarceration, Billy had made up his mind that he was ready to take a different path from his previous life. Being admitted into a successful transition program in Seattle upon his release, he was shortly relocated from Seattle, by the Department of Corrections (DOC) after only a month and a half, to a clean and sober halfway house in the city of Kent. Here is where the problems began to mount for Billy already facing the challenges of reentry transition.  WA State DOC pays for three months of housing in which Billy qualified, but the Halfway House approved for him in Kent had activity that was detrimental to his sobriety and safety.  Billy had no choice but to request a move to a relative in Kent which he found out had the same activity. In this process he was not able to maintain the rest of his 90 day rent stipend by DOC.   Right before his release from prison, his wife had an apartment with his three children and a job.  She lost the car and soon after was not able to keep her job for lack of transportation.  She was soon evicted just as he was released.  With a pregnant wife, and three children, Billy and his family continued to struggle to find safe housing in Kent.

He tried all the listed and available resources only to find there weren’t any resources to help their real time needs.  After living in a park for four days he finally flagged down a police officer who was able to get him a one day stay at a motel.  He located a minister in Tacoma who came to visit him and paid for a week’s stay in a local hotel.  When I found out about Billy, I rallied help from other advocates to assist the family.  Billy has enrolled for college and will receive a grant in a few months and will receive food stamps next month, but still has no place to call home right now with his family.  He was told by the police,” We can get some help for your family if you are charged with domestic violence.”  During this process of homelessness his wife was rushed to the hospital with pain.  According to the family, some of the medical procedural activity was questionable and the end result was the loss of their son, Journey.

Billy said in an intake interview, “You know, I could have went with some of my former associates and made some easy money and got us a place to live, but I don’t want to live that life anymore.  I have been in and out of institutions since I was young, but now I am going to do it right, so I chose to live in the park than to go back to that life.  After a few days I couldn’t take my family through that anymore and stopped a police officer and asked for help”.

This doesn’t sound like a person who chooses to be homeless, as many residents and officials in Kent believe.  This doesn’t sound like a homeless person who is just strung out on drugs and alcohol, as many people and officials in Kent have stereotyped the homeless. This isn’t an isolated incident of a person who chose to come to Kent to commit crimes or take advantage of Kent resources, (that do not exist for housing), as many in the Kent business and political community believe.  On the contrary, Billy’s story is just one of many in the homeless population that are trying to transition successfully back into the community from incarceration; they end up in Kent, due to gentrification and or collateral consequence, and find the absence of adequate supports and indifference of their needs from the city and community, hence, A City Out of Touch.

This is a city that still sees Kent as the White suburban community it was twenty to thirty years prior and has been unaware of the negative effects of gentrification and poverty. It is unaware that its diversity numbers are mainly due to displaced low income families. This city has a lack of understanding about problems and solutions for homelessness and poverty.  Seattle Times staff reporter, Lornet Turnbull, wrote an article saying “New immigrants are bringing diverse culture to the once white, working-class communities, forcing city leaders and longtime residents to at once embrace and grapple with change.” (Turnbull, Seattle Times, February 23, 2011). The change in Kent includes a growing diverse demographic of the homeless population (families, youth, veterans, women).

This city still has people embracing fear about the homeless.  As recent as April 6, 2012, the Kent Reporter published a cartoon showing three frames, one of Frankenstein with the word “scary above it; one with a ghost saying “scarier”; and finally one with a homeless person saying “Scariest”.  The city of Kent just recently denied a Union Gospel Mission and a local faith community partnership, Kent Hope, access to a viable building to create a homeless day center. The Kent Hope collaboration could have been an option for a Billy’s family and others like Billy, to come and get a breather, take a shower,  make some contacts, release some of the daily stress of homelessness, get some hope and some help.  Can you imagine being homeless and pregnant? Just within the past few months we have encountered and helped several homeless families in Kent with infants, living outdoors.

As I applaud the Kent Hope faith group for working on a long term solution for a day center, I challenge the faith community as well as the city; because right now, someone is being evicted and need a place to stay- today. Right now, someone is being released from prison and cannot afford go back to their old community and need a place to live-today. Right now, someone is going to work every day, but can’t afford the rent deposit or pass a credit check and needs housing TODAY!  And then there are people, like Billy, who has a family with children, homeless, living in Kent wherever they can, children going to school, hiding the fact that they’re homeless and there is no help.  Wake up City of Kent! Let us make sure that the death of Journey may begin a life of hope for housing the homeless in Kent.

As of the writing of this post, I was informed by Billy’s wife that she still has uncontrolled bleeding from the loss of her son. When Zincia lost the baby, she almost lost her life that day as well. As of next week, they do not know where they’ll be but they do know that we, the local activists in the area, will do all we can to keep them from having to move back into a local park and risk losing a wife and mother.

 

 

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Billy’s campaign

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness - (0 Comments)
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Ever since I met Billy and his family, nothing has felt the same but for this family; their nightmare needs to come to an end. I sent my latest blog to the Huffington Post and I can only hope that they will publish it. In the meantime, there’s still a lot of work to do. I can only go online so many times to ask for donations and thanks to my good friend Vira, I started making pins to help with more fundraising to help Billy and Zincia get on their feet. I will be selling these pins for a whopping $3 a piece and all proceeds will be given directly to the family.

Losing your child because you can’t find help to avoid homelessness is unacceptable. Turning down KentHOPE when they tried to get the resource building in downtown Kent was a senseless yet deliberate decision on the part of the city and their Chamber of Commerce. These pins are a symbol of what happens when clueless people make decisions that directly affect people they don’t care about. Billy and Zincia’s baby boy, Journey Legatee Robbins would still be with us today if this family could’ve gotten help when they needed it. How many more children will die because there is no resource center for families in the city of Kent?

Let the Mayor’s office, the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce know that they are responsible for the death of an unborn child!

Mayor Suzette Cooke

Office of the Mayor

Mayor@kentwa.gov

(253)-856-5700

 

Kent City Council

CityCouncil@kentwa.gov

(253)-856-5712

 

Andrea Keikkala

Executive Director

Kent Chamber of Commerce

andreak@kentchamber.com

(253)-854-1770, ext. 140

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My name is not hopeless

Posted by Carey Fuller in Homelessness | Poetry - (3 Comments)

My name is not useless, lazy or good for nothing

Do not mistake my needing a hand up as a hand out

For I am not a stereotype to be used to excuse your apathy

Expressed as hate mongering to waste my energy

I’ve got better things to do with time

 

I will not censor myself when truth is an uncomfortable reality

Nor will I placate your willingness to maintain

Egregious policies aimed at those you used to obtain

Obscene wealth

You cannot criminalize, demoralize and abuse

That which cannot be taken from us because

Love is not a crime

 

Do not fill my ears with the tinny sound of false hope

Since it is nothing more than static noise

Filling up empties pretending to be something

While nothing keeps adding up

 

My life is not a card board sign

Begging for compassion on street corners

And my life is not a side show to be ignored

Once the light turns green

 

Forgive my brothers and sisters sleeping

On sidewalks, benches and beneath your bridges

They never meant to be eyesores

To your conscientious upbringing

 

Forgive my elders for aging

And needing more than a fixed income

Can actually pay for

I suppose to some

A cardboard box beneath blackberries

Is something to be thankful for

 

Forgive the children of poor families

Not knowing what they live for

Mom and dad can’t find jobs so

They find shelter in their car

If they have one

 

Do more than pray for young people

Caught in the asphalt trap

Parental neglect abandoned them

To playgrounds without safety nets

Every day is the same tiring game

Of making it to the next

 

I will show you my footsteps

So you will see where I have been

The road will not be pretty but I guarantee this

Once you take the journey

You will never be the same

 

It’s because of that I know

My name is not hopeless

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