- [Male Interviewer] Kimberly and Boo
Almost a year ago,
just a couple of days
when we first recorded your original video.
You're in a shack,
living in a tent camp
and now,
you're living in an RV
because of the coronavirus
and this is Project Home based
- Correct.
- [Male Interviewer] Tell me about it,
tell me about your year,
how's your year been?
First off, you guys look wonderful.
- Thank you!
From a year ago,
- It's been great.
We didn't
usually have to pay for our gas and
make sure we have lights and stuff at night
for our generator.
And they come over here
and you got beach and needin runnin water
and you ain't gotta go out there and
get water.
- Right.
So I'm washin' dishes pretty much
more than once every two weeks.
- It's when we first met.
- Right. Right.
- You had like a wagon.
- And I was washin, coming down to wash my dishes.
- [Male Interviewer] Yeah, you had a wagon
and you was bringin' them up
to where the faucet was
washin your dishes
(laughs)
and to me, eh, outside
to me, that was really powerful
because people don't
understand that homeless people
still has to wash dishes.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh we have a shower
we have a shower
and we have a small tub that's about
my dog's size.
We can stuff it up and sittin in it
wouldn't be possible
to soak or anything.
But,
that constantly running water.
- We have our, we had, 2 TVs
- Oh yeah, so we can watch them both
- You know a running water,
a place we can hang our clothes up
and,
we don't have no rats running
- Oh yeah.
- In and out
- No rat. No rat problem.
- [Male Interviewer] And you can lock the door?
- Oh we have a lock on our door.
- [Male Interviewer] That's a big deal.
- That's a real big deal.
- [Male Interviewer] That's a big deal
I think we talked about that in the original video
that you can't lock up.
- Yeah, but our main thing is,
we gonna pay somebody some money to live some place
- Right.
- The next step.
- [Male Interviewer] Cause this is still homeless.
- Right. We're still homeless.
And we are,
our next step is permanent housing
and we looking forward to that
shoot
- [Male Interviewer] And you two, if I remember,
were entrepreneurs
- Yeah, we're still doin' the yard work
- And we uh, we bought a car
or we buyin' a car.
We're saving enough money to buy a car.
And, we're um, gonna need a truck too.
But um, we're saving enough money
or trying to get money and stuff together
to get a car
- To get a truck and a car.
To get a car and a truck.
- Cause the bikes are getting little
and I was hit.
- Oh yeah.
- [Male Interviewer] That's what, that's what Kimberly said
you all right?
- No.
(laughs)
that's what I'm kinda understandin'
tryin to stand
at night, that seems the worst
but other than that, this is a great place
- This is a good move.
Yeah
It took us uh,
it took us a while to decide
whether we were gonna stay
over on seventy-seven or come over here
cause we were asked twice
before we came here
and we declined it because
we were findin out that
we couldn't our stuff like
we can only bring so much stuff and
we have a lot of stuff
and so
we decided
let's take everything that's important
over there and walk away from
what's left
and we did
and we did.
It's taken a minute to transition.
- [Male Interviewer] It's hard to let go of stuff
I'm going through that right now
cause I got a bunch of stuff
working over the last bunch of years
and now,
I'm gonna relocate back to Los Angeles
and I'm not gonna be able to take my stuff
- Right.
- [Male Interviewer] And it's emotional,
cause it's my stuff! You know?
- You kinda gotta peak through it one by one,
and well I really don't need that
- That's the way for me to do it
if not, I had to stop goin over there.
Cause every time I'm goin over there I say,
- He was coming back to the trailer fool.
- Yeah I need this. I need that.
And um, you know like when we leave
people and the little camp man
they decided,
they wanna go in there and get stuff.
- Yeah
- Which wasn't a good thing,
but it kinda helped me out.
(laughs)
- [Male Interviewer] They cleaned it out for you?
- Yeah
- Yeah they did.
It was like, they couldn't wait.
- [Male Interviewer] It's called stealing
- they couldn't wait until we left.
Because you know,
everybody down there, we had an open door
pretty much
and you know they could come in so,
we gotta lot of stuff.
So once they figured out, that we left
cause they didn't know
we left
at first
cause we were goin everyday
and every night
and they didn't know that we were gone
permanently so,
- [Male Interviewer] People don't realize that
stuff, not being able to take your belongings.
You know many shelters
only allow you two small bags.
Here, I think you're lucky that you have more
than two small bags
but it's still
they're small trailers.
I've seen photos on a,
on the internet
I thought they were bigger than these.
- Some of them are big.
Some of them are big.
- [Male Interviewer] But the ones you got are
pretty small.
- Uh, well, yeah.
- If you have a storage,
- They have containers for storage.
Yeah so we were able to get some more of
our stuff(laughs)
- [Male Interviewer] So, compare the life without
showers, without lockin the door,
without dignity safety to homelessness.
I mean to this.
- To this.
It's still a transition.
- There's sometime you wake up and
you wonder, where am I?
- Yeah.
Still, there's a ceiling.
(laughs) there's actually a ceiling with lights in it.
- Wonderin' where am I at? You know.
- Yeah, it's still a transition.
- [Male Interviewer] Well, how long were you outside?
- We've been outside since 2017.
May of 2017
- [Male Interviewer] Oh my gosh,
it's gonna take a little bit.
- But you know,
well yeah, it is.
Because honestly,
we have a shower and,
takin one, you know,
just the access
havin the runnin water and
access to a shower every day.
I still don't take one.
I can but I'm just not used to takin one
everyday.
It's like you probably took a shower once a week
over there.
And you know,
I'm taking showers more than once a week here
but
it's just transitioning from
knowin that to take a shower
on seventy-seven, we had to go get water,
warm water, you know,
then let it cool down some cause
it's just a process of getting the water.
You know and,
you know and that, that too,
and then the laundry service.
We have laundry service here.
- [Male Interviewer] Oh my gosh!
Hey Boo you wanted to say somethin?
- Yeah. It's like when we got here,
there's still
people that's over there
that
we would like to see over here.
- [Male Interviewer] So you have friends in the community
of your old ten city that you wish
would get over here?
- Some of them really need to be here
- [Male Interviewer] Right. Because of health issues?
- Yeah
and it's uh
you know, goin over there and then
or sometime they may call us and then
tells us all about the stuff that they
going through over there.
Because even like even,
like where they stay in nicks Georgia
it was like security for them.
- [Male Interviewer] and it's tough I know for me
goin out of homelessness
and then still connecting with homeless people.
Sometimes you don't wanna share
- [Male Interviewer] Oh my gosh, I gotta you!
- Yeah
- [Male Interviewer] Cause then you feel bad
but then on the other the hand,
you want to show that there's a path
out of homelessness.
- Right.
- [Male Interviewer] Cause when you're homeless,
you often feel like it's a dead end.
- Yeah. We got to that point.
That's how we come, we got here.
- I don't know exactly how we got to that point
cause I know,
we work
- Everyday! Even on holidays.
To survive.
- And you know now,
- We can't wait to get back home.
- We really don't want to go to work,
we wanna stay here all day.
- But it's just to be able to,
even though, you know, they all know
we can just stay out here and
show the sign
but let me tell you it's a lot of work.
It's a lot of work down here.
I know, I need people to work with me.
(laughs)
- [Male Interviewer] You don't,
you two don't seem like the type
that just sits in lawn chairs all day.
- It's impossible for him, I can.
- [Male Interviewer] (laughs)
- I can.
- It would be, it would drive him nuts.
He gotta be doin something.
- [Male Interviewer] Right, right, right.
I think most of us.
I bet you might do it for a week but then
you'd be
- I really, yeah, I really wouldn't
I really don't want her to keep coming
that's why I want somebody to come work with me.
- So I can sit on the chair
- [Male Interviewer] You wanna provide for your wife?
- Yeah. And I want her to be able to stay at home
and take care of us cause we got clients.
- [Male Interviewer] Awesome. Awesome.
Your clients are growing.
Your business is growing.
- Yeah it is.
- [Male Interviewer] So when you think you'll be outta here?
- Well
- We've been hopin' we'll be outta here
sometime next week
- But that didn't pan out
that didn't pan out.
It ended up bein a scam.
That was gonna take advantage of homeless people.
- [Male Interviewer] Yeah. There's a lot of that goin on
- Yeah well,
some of us are smarter.
- [Male Interviewer] You gotta check everything these days
- So we hope at least another few months in here.
- Yeah
cause I'm looking and they're looking.
So I guess who ever finds one first,
and you know
make sure that it is legit.
- [Male Interviewer] Right.
- We'll be on our way out.
- [Male Interviewer] Homeless no more!
- Homeless no more.
We wanna pay rent.
(laughs)
We want to,
We wanna pay PG&E.
(laughs)
you know, water bills, we want those.
Yeah.
- [Male Interviewer] Well, they're common.
They're common.
- We can get our credit score.
- Yeah
it's going good to so,
- [Male Interviewer] Awesome!
- Yeah. We got our first credit card.
- [Male Interviewer] Awesome!
- We've been married 16 years and have never had one.
- [Male Interviewer] Oh my gosh.
- So we got our first credit card
and that will help our credit score.
So we need to stay here for another
a couple of months
so we can have at least
650 credit score.
- [Male Interviewer] Yeah I lived in a homeless shelter
far too long and I intended to stay
an extra year
- To get your credit score?
- [Male Interviewer] Once they hired me on,
to save money, so that, when I left
I could buy new stuff.
I was so sick of donated stuff.
- Yeah. I want all those stuff
- [Male Interviewer] You know because for seven years
I lived in a shelter for seven years.
And for seven years, the food I ate was donated.
- Right!
- [Male Interviewer] The water was donated.
I was tired of donated stuff.
And it wasn't that I wasn't grateful,
- You just wanna,
- [Male Interviewer] Yeah, I just want
the self-worth of being able to buy my own stuff.
- I don't think, I need, I want to shop for clothes
and shoes and stuff
- And furniture
- I don't know how
you know what I mean?
- [Male Interviewer] I'll bet you'll learn real quick
(laughs)
- Yeah, once I go in.
I haven't even been in
a clothing store.
And a good year. It's been a good year.
Yeah
- [Male Interviewer] Well, it's great seeing you guys
now if you had three wishes,
what would they be?
- Housing.
- [Male Interviewer] And you've had a whole year to think
about this knowing I'm coming back.
- Three wishes.
Well,
permanent housing
(honking car sound)
- No more homelessness.
- Ugh, well, the main one is housing
I, you know, thinking about wishes,
we don't wish.
You know like I wish this or I wish that.
I have a home, housing.
That's all I can say.
- [Male Interviewer] One wish, housing.
- One wish.
- Just like it happens,
it happens so quick
- What? It's been our side?
- No. Everybody being at our side.
- Yeah. Yeah
- We woke up one morning and
- He's pitching a tent.
- Not just us. I'm not talking about just
everybody was just, oh, I'm losing my house.
- Right.
- I gotta move to a tent.
I just wish it starts clearing up
and next thing you know you see these trailers
start disappearing
or at least they just start giving them to people
who might actually take this.
- Yeah.
Like the last one to get housing or
and then the next ones can
take it with them when they go.
- [Male Interviewer] Right. Cause when you go in the house
and somebody can come in here.
- Yeah. Sure. That's one thing.
- [Male Interviewer] That's what we have to do.
- Rotate. Rotate it
- When you start seeing,
one missing,
two missing,
start seeing the streets that you used to go down
and now you go down them and it's full of tents.
- Tents and shacks
- Then you start seeing
seeing them disappear.
That's what I wanna see
- [Male Interviewer] So you're saying,
you like going down the street knowing that people
are coming in here.
- The house. Coming in here or finding housing.
Or just being project room key, you know.
There's really no rules.
Everywhere has rules but the rules are
laid back
you know.
- Get yourself together before you can get out of here.
- Yeah.
They give you the opportunity to do that.
Whatever you need to do
to get stable somewhere.
- [Male Interviewer] Okay, so you had one wish
divided in two,
housing for you
and housing for everybody.
- Yes.
- [Male Interviewer] Well thank you very much for talking
to me
- Thank you.
(upbeat music playing)