12/24/2024
It was Thanksgiving 2003 and I was 23 years old.
I was sitting in LA County Jail watching tv in the common area where my bunk was placed due to overcrowding. You could not hear the tv over the clamorous racket of heavy metal doors clanging shut, bunk beds sliding around and dominos being pounded on the metal tables. I didn't care so much. It was far nicer than the cardboard box I had been sleeping in just days before.
The subtitles on the tv told of a man holding a woman captive in a park restroom after he had carjacked someone and kidnapped the woman. There were SWAT Team people crawling all over the small, unassuming beige bathroom building.
It went on for hours. Ever since the OJ Simpson chase, that's the way it goes in LA. Any ongoing crime scene that has a car chase is televised and takes over the tv, so no parade, no Charlie Brown special would be seen on this day.
I remember staring blankly at the scene unfolding on the screen, my body aching and stomach turning. I was withdrawing from he**in and staring at the tv helps die keep my mind off of the agony my body was in. Eventually, the SWAT team threw flash bombs in through an opening at the top of the bathrooms and at that moment, the jail turned off the tv for chowtime.
**TRIGGER WARNING: EXTREME VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, GRAPHIC DRUG USE, SEXUAL ASSAULT**
The next day I was rolling around in the scratchy wool blanket on my bunk. My hair had formed into one solid matted mess that stood straight up on my head. I was quite the sight and the other girls in the pod all promised to help me brush my hair out once I could stand to be touched....once my skin stopped feeling like I needed to rip it off my bones. At some point I heard my name called. It felt odd...it wasn't chow time, I never got mail, I wasn't lucky enough to receive medications...why were they calling me? I was ushered into a cement stairwell and searched. They took the golf pencil out of my pocket and handcuffed me to the metal railing of the stairwell. After some time, a Catholic priest came, sent by my sisters, to tell me that my mother had been murdered.
She was the woman in the bathroom.
I fell to my knees. I think I screamed, but I can't be sure. My ears were ringing and the guilt and shame I felt would not allow me to breathe. The priest prayed for my mother's soul and mine and left me there in agony on the cold cement steps. I was there for hours, a precaution, in case I was going to harm myself, they later said.
I was supposed to take care of my mom.
Now she was dead.
She lived in a port-a-potty and died in a public restroom. Stomped to death, r***d, burned head to toe with ci******es and crack pipes....and worse.
My mom was the crazy lady with dreadlocks yelling at the sky on the street corner. She was a bag lady, like the kind you see in the movies. She carried mountains of trash, which was a treasure to her, everywhere she went.
I loved my mom. We were best friends. We had a lot of scary and hard times together, but we also had crazy fun adventures and I lived a life like nobody I ever met because of her carefree nature and strange thinking.
We were homeless together. We slept huddled against the wind and rain, shared a last stale piece of pizza with each other to stave off the hunger pains, washed our hair in tiny gas station sinks. She was my best friend and she was gone.
I never want another homeless person to die feeling as alone as my mom probably did.
Eventually I got released from jail but I was totally despondent. I had no care for myself. No sense of self-preservation left, which was vital for surviving where I lived....Skid Row, LosAngeles.
I became a shell of myself.
I didn't care if tricks/johns even paid me for s*x work anymore. I stopped fighting back when people took advantage of me. I imagine that I smelled a lot like a dead body. I stopped making any effort to shower and had puss filled, oozing abscesses that I shot he**in directly into since all of my veins were too damaged (unless I could afford to pay someone to shoot it into my neck artery for me).
One night I was at a man's house and he r***d me, beat me, strangled me and I just laid there and let him do what he needed to do. I had learned that fighting back caused me greater harm.
A few days later I was back in my tent on Skid Row. I was selling drugs on a small scale to support my habit. I was by no means a successful drug dealer. Any homeless person who lived in the area was trusted by the gangs to hold and sell small amounts of drugs so long as we turned in the correct amount of money at the end of the day. You weren't going get rich, by any means, but you cold at least have enough he**in to not go into withdrawal. The gangs were ruthless...they would kill a person over $20, so it was a very high-risk exchange, but I just couldn't work the streets that day.
The man who had picked me up and assaulted me most recently, showed up to buy drugs from me...but he had a plan to get more for his money. He came back later and had a fellow pr******te come to the front of my tent to buy a balloon of he**in. We sold black tar he**in in $7 increments packaged in folded and tightly rolled water balloons that we held in our mouth and spat out when a person handed us the money.
Well, as I spat that balloon in the working woman's hand, the man who'd recently assaulted me, Ernie, sliced the rear of my tent and stole all of the drugs that I had on loan form the gang to sell.
I was TERRIFIED when I realized they were gone! I knew these people would kill someone over $20 and I had been taken for over $100 worth!
When they came around to collect, I blurted out the story of what had happened and they told to to worry, that they understood and that they were going to "check" Ernie. I didn't know if I could trust this. I thought it more likely they would "check" both of us. "Checking" in this instance means and enforcer will come around at some point in the near future (and you just have to wait and wonder when) and rough you up a bit.
Well, that is not at all what happened.
The next day or a few days later, I can't be sure, these people from he gang were standing near my spot as they often do, when Ernie walked up. They immediately grabbed him by the arms and began stabbing him in the stomach in broad daylight, on the side of a very bust street with plenty of people within the general area.
I was in shock and lucky to be alive, but I was not thinking straight. Because I didn't not report the crime like a dutiful citizen, I was arrested by homicide detectives and was facing life in prison. I was perplexed how I could be put in the same category as these hardened criminals who did this awful thing. I certainly never dreamed that was what was going to happen! But the police did not believe me, or maybe they did and they just didn't care. I was a pathetic mess of a person. I was covered in accesses, my hair was matted, my teeth were crumbling away, I had untreated STD's that were so severe I could barely walk, and I couldn't be bothered to shower. To this day I cannot believe there were men that would pick me up in their cars, pay $10 or $20 to have s*x with me and then go back to their wives and children.
As you can imagine, Thanksgiving is a hard holiday for me, but all holidays are hard for those who are feeling lost and alone. Christmas is the hardest for most.
I tell you my story for two reasons, but first you need to understand that this is only a small part of what I survived....I lived through many more hells and so do the people on these streets or in sub-par living circumstances.
I tell you my story to lessen stigma and to help people understand that these people begging for change for their fix, those mothers who aren't capable of being mothers right now, those suffering souls who make decisions that just don't make a lick of sense....to help people understand that they dint want to be in the position they are in. Most are dealing with he affects of some pretty horrifying adverse life experiences.
And if we can talk about it more openly, if we can normalize the conversation, we can work towards solutions more readily.
A lot of people ask me the questions: if these women who are trafficked can come to you and get condoms and clean clothes, why don't they just run away from here traffickers?
And the answer is simple...because the prison we are kept in isn't visible to the masses. It's the prison our mind...it's the street boundaries we are allowed to roam within. Not only does the pimps tell you what streets you may walk on, but society tells you which ones you are not welcome on.
My point is, it's just not as simple as some may think.
When I hear people say things like: "they don't want the help. They are just lazy and they choose to do drugs and commit crimes regather then work like the rest of us" I have to laugh a little to myself because Think "if they only knew what we endure out here!"
..it is far more work to survive out on these streets than it is to clock in at a 9-5 job. You have to stay vigilant all of the time if you want to survive out not he streets. There is ALWAYS someone looking take advantage of the weak and vulnerable. ALWAYS.
Nobody would choose that life.
This holiday season, when you are out shopping and going through the Starbucks drive trough, imagining all the smiles on your family's faces when they open the most thoughtful present you are procuring for them, remember to be grateful fro the bounty you have and that your family is safe and fed and privileged.
Also, try to consider those who are right here in our community who have nothing and nobody.
More than anything, try to remember that there is a reason they came to be in the state they find themselves in. Most have endured unthinkable amounts of trauma. They might be women like me who have survived hells on earth, or veterans who were willing to lay down their lives protect our country, or just about any other kind of person who survived something extremely traumatizing....but only just barely.
No child in kindergarten draws pictures of their future as a drug-addicted homeless person! Nobody dreams of living in clothes soaked with urine and diarrhea. Something happened!
Try to remember these are human beings. These people on the streets who continually make terrible decisions and squander perfectly good resources....why would they do that?? Why would they not take the help available and get better??
Because they are hurt.
Because they feel as though they are not worthy of better.
One thing I like to do is carry some blessing bags in my car, or some $5-10 gift cards to Dollar Tree so that people in need can get some basic necessities or $5 Fast food gift cards so they can use the restroom and warm up while also hydrating. During this exchange, not only are you helping with things that they need, but you are telling them they are seen, heard, and loved unconditionally. You cannot put a price tag on that.
Other things that are great to keep for people this time of year are: Blessing bags, hand warmers, water bottles (its tough to keep enough water for the day from freezing), sleeping bags, backpacks, socks, boots and gloves...but really, anything you see fit...the gesture means so much.
Above all, look at them in the eyes if they seem comfortable with it and smile at them. I can tell you from personal expericine, the amount of people who will not look at you when you are homeless is incredibly alienating. It almost hurts worse than they say something nasty to you.
You truly begin to believe you have been disposed of. Simply smiling at a person and shaking their hand or hugging them, if they are comfortable with that, can shatter some illusions they have been under.
Holidays are surreal when you are homeless, living with housing/food-insecurity, or completely alone. There is a post-apocalyptic feeling on the streets.
The first Thanksgiving or Christmas a person faces when homeless kind of cements things...it really makes one feel like a non-person when you think of everyone happy and full and playing board games, or snuggled up on couches watching tv with their loved ones.
It is good for us to remember how much we truly have to be grateful for....sometimes we have to take it back to a real simple place....we have shelter and food....we have family and we are able to care for and empower those in need right here in our own city.
Thank you, everyone, for helping us serve those in need. It means the world on these more family-centric holidays especially and I know hundreds of men, women and children who are also very grateful ❤
p.s I love you, mom, and dad. I hope you're both smilin' down the next few days as we look out for the people on the streets. I couldn't save you, mom, but I will always serve in your memory. (that's me and my mom and dad in the photo)
