- [Interviewer] Felicia.
- Yes?
- [Interviewer] We're out here in a park
near Los Angeles International Airport. You're homeless.
Tell me about it.
- Yes. I became homeless when I came back
to California from Nevada.
Henderson, Nevada.
And I was living with my nephew, he said he had apartment,
and he lost his apartment in 2020.
So I became homeless after that.
- [Interviewer] Is this. Go ahead.
- And I'm a senior citizen, 70 plus,
and the apartments here are outrageous in price.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- So I could not afford to get apartment,
not even a senior citizen apartment.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- It's overloaded. These people have lost their mind,
by charging all these high already problems,
with these apartments here.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
Your mask is falling again.
- Okay.
- [Interviewer] (laughs) And you're a senior citizen?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] 70 plus?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] I mean you told me, but I won't.
70 plus.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] You're living in a park.
And you told me you had health issues.
- Yes, I have diabetes, or I had diabetes.
It's still in my system and I have to watch what I eat.
By living out here as a homeless person, senior citizen,
it's not a good health thing for me to be out here,
because I'm not getting hot, nourished food out here.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- So, I may have diabetes real bad,
where they have to cut off a leg or a nose or whatever.
- [Interviewer] I hope not.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] But I mean, do you sleep in a tent?
- No. I very fortunate, I don't sleep in a tent.
I do have a cargo van.
- [Interviewer] Okay, so you live in your van.
- Yeah, I live in my van. So, but it's freezing cold
in the van. Freezing cold. So you have all these agencies
that come out here, non-profit organizations,
who promise us everything, like hotels or whatever,
but nothing's happening.
They know our age, they have our history,
they bring the doctors out,
but they are not doing anything for us.
So they're compliance of their non-profit status,
they're just collecting money and hiring people,
but they're not doing anything for us.
- [Interviewer] Well they are. They're, what's happening
is they've actually helped more people
than they've ever helped,
but sadly more people are entering into homelessness,
then they can help.
- Well, they're entering in homeless
because of the structure of our government
who took their eyes off of people and looked at greed.
- [Interviewer] Amen.
- Looked at money. Money.
- [Interviewer] Amen, amen, amen.
- That's all they're about, is money, greed.
And therefore, it's a lot of people gonna be coming out
in the street.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- Because they cannot afford to live in a place,
apartment, home, or whatever.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- Because of greed.
- [Interviewer] Do you get social security?
- Yes, it's not enough.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, I know.
- And I'm able to work. I plead to these non-profits
to even work. Assist, even if it's part-time
to supplement my income. You can't even get that done.
- [Interviewer] Oh my gosh.
- They can't even get that. And I am well educated.
Not so much PHD educated, but certification,
and I could do a lot of things.
And I've been doing it. And I'm able to do it.
My mind is still sharp. It's still there.
It's just I'm a little slow because of my diabetes.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- And that is my problem there.
- [Interviewer] Well I know you're sharp.
I came walking up to the table and you said,
"I got a story to tell."
(laughing)
- So, I don't know how we gonna fix this,
but our government, the people that we put into office,
we really got to look at them appealing to the people,
versus appealing to the dollar.
- [Interviewer] Oh, I agree.
And what they've done is,
they've gone after housing developers and money,
instead of low-income housing and now seniors like you,
I mean, elderly homelessness is growing.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] And you, these are your retirement years.
I know you want to work and that's amazing,
but these are your years and you're living in a van.
- Yes. And I've never thought in 2020 I would be living
in a van in my wildest dream, you know.
So, I also ask these non-profits to assist me
in paying for other skills that I can use or need
to get other jobs to assist them.
But what they're doing is hiring people, younger people,
who doesn't have a clue about life.
And we need to teach them something,
but they are hiring the young people
to tell us older people what to do,
and they don't know how to put one and one together.
- [Interviewer] Okay. I just turned 60.
So I'm not that far behind you.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] And it is extremely hard to get a job,
and I noticed this when I turned 50,
to get a job at 50, 60.
And then now, because of Covid, jobs have disappeared,
and you're living in a van, there's no showers here.
- No. None at all.
- [Interviewer] I mean, how do you go and,
you know, get ready for a job interview
or get a good night sleep?
- Absolutely. One thing that we are coming up with,
a lot of creative ideas here living in the park.
They do have a bathroom here that's in the park,
that we just came up with a solar shower
that we can go in there, close the door now,
and we're going to take a shower.
We put the water in the solar, put it on top of our car.
- [Interviewer] Awesome.
- To heat it up and then we're going to be able
to go into the bathroom and take a shower in there.
- [Interviewer] Oh great.
- That's something we just came up with today.
Effectively today.
- [Interviewer] Awesome.
- But we have no place to really cook a hot meal.
And if a lot of times some of these volunteers,
that are people in, that live in the area,
didn't bring us food we wouldn't have hot food.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, yeah. (sighs) Oh my gosh.
I am so glad you said hello. It's an honor to meet ya.
If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- Well, three wishes. I would want my hotel,
where a senior apartment.
I will like to work. I want to continue
to keep my mind sharp. So I'm working.
I would love to continue to work, which I'm going to find
a way to work, even though I have a handicap
from the diabetes.
I still want to continue to work and earn my keep.
- [Interviewer] Yep.
- So, it's been wonderful being out in this park.
I've never camped before. I've learned so much,
how to survive out here.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- I wish that a lot of people come out
and learn how to survive,
cause everybody is two seconds from being homeless.
Most people are, except for the billionaires.
- [Interviewer] Yep.
- Who's running this country.
- [Interviewer] Yep.
I think that's two wishes. One more.
- Well, stay healthy. I want to be stay healthy.
- [Interviewer] Amen.
- That is, I don't want to go under.
- [Interviewer] Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- Thank you for allowing me to share my story.
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