- Kelly
- Yes, Hi.
- You're out here homeless. Tell me about it.
- It's been really difficult.
I was an able-bodied the person,
I worked my whole life from, you know, 16 on.
I worked in customer service and sales,
was awarded for my work, did really well in my field.
And unfortunately, you know, life happened
and my husband passed away, he contracted esophageal cancer.
And it was very sudden, we were married for almost 25 years
and it kind of wiped out whatever savings that we had
and I've been struggling to just get by on my own.
So, it's really difficult and I miss him with all my heart.
He was my best friend.
So, I'm not out here because I've decided to be.
Just because of out of just sheer life circumstance.
In the interim of that I've tried to redevelop my art
that I've worked on you know, pretty much the whole life
aside from my career, of course.
But, and that's what I've sort of revived doing
over the course of this,
over the years that I've been homeless
- And your, your art is online.
- It is.
- You'll have to give me a link so people can see it.
- I appreciate that.
- And because of the traffic,
you might need to speak up a little
- All right.
- There's a lot of noise around here.
- Understood.
- So after your husband died
it was just a spiral into homelessness?
- After my husband passed well, after he passed away,
I just, I was, had to leave my apartment that we had
and we had moved out here for his job.
He had a career move and we had owned a home in Florida
and we had to kind of short sell that, unfortunately
and so then, we moved down here.
So that's what happened.
And then within about a year and a half,
we found that he had cancer. And then, he passed after that.
- Now, you've been out here eight years, you told me.
- It's been eight years. Yeah, he passed in 2014.
And then the resources have been little to none.
You know, in homelessness,
I've, it's very difficult to try to find a job.
And in terms of, I mentioned that being able-bodied before
because of the clean-ups and the constant moving
and you know, it's really wrecked my legs really badly.
What were, you know, before I was, you know,
setting up trade shows and doing sales, you know.
I'm a big girl, I have hypothyroidism,
but even aside from that, I was very
very fast and able-bodied and did my job very well.
You know, this has, has ruined my body.
The clean-ups, constant clean-ups is really difficult
- Now, clean-ups, you mean sweeps.
- The sweeps, rather, yes.
- They come through
and now you even wrote a letter to your council member.
- I did, yes, I did.
Several years ago, I wrote a letter,
it was around Mother's Day.
I wrote a letter to the District Councilman.
Asked, wrote a beautiful letter, you know
thanking for him for what he had, has done so far
you know, at that time, pardon me, and asking for
(coughs)
Excuse me,
(coughs)
Pardon.
Can we please have a city station homeless encampment?
At that time, the, the community here was staying
across the way in, in the, in the waterway,
kind of the gully area.
But unfortunately that area is the flood zone.
And it has flooded a few times.
So is not safe, it's dangerous, but it served its purpose
for his time, you know, in that regard.
And I asked, can we please have a station encampment.
And in the city, we've written to salvation army
which is, which is nice.
There was afterwards,
They had given us the trains, which was great.
And we're near food and our workers can come here
and help us find your housing, and so forth.
So those types of things have been beneficial afterwards.
Yeah, um, there was one, couple of of things
I had mentioned, which was over the holiday season,
which was very heartbreaking.
It was not okay, which was after Christmas.
We had a major cleanup, day after Christmas.
- Day after Christmas, they came through
and totally disrupted everybody's lives.
- Yeah, December 26, it was really bad, really, really bad.
It was heart breaking.
- And you told me they did it on Thanksgiving too.
- And then it was in a previous time it was Thanksgiving.
- So, what happens
when the what happens when the city comes to sweep?
- Well, they used to give us,
when we were staying in the in the field area,
in the Philly area
we had two weeks notice, you know
they gave us two weeks, which is nice.
It was nice enough time to to gather our things
and to move along in the times they need to like, clean.
Then from, what I had, I had done work elsewhere.
It was just working fully at my website for two years.
So I wasn't in this area for two years.
I just came back, about a year ago
and now it's turned out to have a two day notice.
So then we have 48 hours.
And then at one point it was 72.
So I went from two weeks to 72 hours, to 48 hours.
And it's, it's so taxing on the body physically.
We have, you know, little calories to burn, you know
so there's a lot, there's fatigue
and all the things that go along with being, you know
hungry and starving and more famine,
God willing, that doesn't happen.
So, your body's already hurt because of that.
Cause it's not funny. It hurts, you know?
And so the timeframe that they're giving now
to move your things along...
- So what do you have to do?
You have to take all your stuff
and move that or do they take your stuff or what?
- You're asked to remove everything off the,
off the property and then do a complete comprehensive clean
of which means wipe everything clean.
Now, at one point in time
as a, sort of recent, they were doing voluntary cleanups
which were, you just do a spot clean.
So you would, they were
you could leave your areas nice,
However it is, you can take out the trash that you
wanted to be thrown away and they would.
It's cheaper that way for the County too.
- Yeah. And more respectful.
- Um, yeah.
- Humans make trash and it has to be removed.
Housed people get to pay for trash pickup.
You guys don't have that luxury.
- Yeah.
In our little corner of the world over here
we're working really, really hard on keeping
as I call it, voluntary cleanup.
So we were cleaning all, between our places,
there should be no litter on the road.
Of course, we have nice neighbors over here that they
they run their business and they're very sweet and kind.
And so we make sure there was no debris on the road
and nails and things like that that would hurt the tires.
Of course, those, those things would go, without saying
of course, but we really made it a point to make sure
that this happens.
Make sure it's kept nice for them.
Cause they're so nice to us. So, they're very sweet.
- How does this feel, how does it feel
that every couple of weeks
they come in and disrupt your life?
- It's, you know, it raises your blood pressure.
It's very unsettling.
At some, sometimes one point that's really difficult is,
you know they'll post within 48 hours.
And which is just of a good thing and a bad thing.
It's sorta bittersweet,
but, and they'll for whatever reason,
they may not come by
but we've moved everything out of the way.
And then they've not swept the area.
It's just, it's just physically tough. It's tough.
- Now, do workers come? Do they offer you housing?
Do they offer you support?
- Yeah, we had, we do have some like on Tuesdays
where the workers that come
from the organization that help us with our,
with housing, you know, that were the volunteer or
or employees under, under the umbrella of HUD or FEMA.
It's HUD, I believe.
And they're supposed to help, you know, help us.
And they do come by and do, and they are helpful
- But you've been here eight years.
- I've been, yeah, I've been here eight years.
- So why haven't they been able to help you get out of here?
- I had one unfortunately, I had one worker that, you know,
I was, I had worked with and I hadn't heard really,
hadn't heard from the person in three and a half years.
You know, and I would contact, and contact, and contact.
- Yeah, they change people all the time.
- No, it was the same person, but for whatever reason
I found out later through others here
I went to another organization
and put my name on some list
that I didn't know anything about,
and those people probably were in contact
Because it was some environmental group thing.
I don't know what that meant.
I never had the clarification of it
but I was never told those types of things.
You know, it was just out here for some reason.
but no I've asked for, you know, for many
many years, you know, waiting for my apartment voucher
through Section Eight and then nothing ever happened.
- How do you survive out here?
- Well, the encampment has helped to some degree.
There's a person to bring food and they've been very helpful
and clothing and so forth.
- So you're surviving off just neighbors dropping off food.
- Yeah. And there are churches that bring food
for, through their tithing and so forth.
So it's very, that's a very nice thing.
It's very sweet
- But that's no way for people to live.
- No. It's not.
- And this is your home behind you underneath the blue tarp.
- Yes. So, but, and they've been very, very gracious
and kind.
- But that's no way for anybody to live.
- No, I've never been complacent with living this way.
I've been a homeowner, I've been to college.
I don't, it's not something it's not my way of life.
You know,
- You're sober?
- Always, always, I've never done drugs.
I don't drink.
And I have a clean record, you know, obviously.
So I've been a home owner and so forth,
I help with the neighborhood watch, you know
I was in for neighborhood watch.
So I do that.
I do help out that way.
And if it matters, I'm also an on-call volunteer artist
for the neighborhood city council.
So, yeah, I help with electrical panels that are painted
There's about 15 of them.
- Oh, wow.
So, I assisted on one of them.
- Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
- Yeah, yeah a gal had a...
- That's really neat and give you purpose.
- It was beautiful, it was a beautiful fun couple days
helped me out with the city as well.
I'd definitely do it again.
- Does the art help you,
help you get through the horrors of homelessness?
- Of course.
Yeah. Definitely helps.
It gives me, I mean
it always has been a direction in my life.
It's been very very strong ever since, you know,
elementary school.
So it's been a very strong purpose and goal of mine.
I hope, I'm really hoping someday that
I can be shown, I've done gallery shows before,
juried shows, rather. (indistinct)
You know, a couple of things.
I had one piece of work rather large, was a mural.
It was invited to be displayed at an elementary school many
many years ago in New York.
So, very sweet, it was a big honor. So, very precious.
- My heart breaks for you.
My heartbreaks for everybody here.
Everybody that's sleeping outside.
Because you shouldn't be here.
- No, we shouldn't be.
- People think most homeless people are on drugs.
And those that have fallen, like yourself
because of the economic disparity that there's plenty
of support for.
- Yeah. I, I advocate very strongly to anyone that comes
by here to get off drugs, you know, I've never been on them.
I've never had any problems.
- Yeah.
Because public believes that there's plenty of support
for people like you, that, you know
you should be able to get your life back
because there's so much help.
But the truth is you've been here eight years
because there isn't help.
- Well, I understand.
Yeah, there, there hasn't been the help as
of more recently, there's been more of a, because as funding
or for whatever purpose, reason, as far as I know has always
been there, perhaps it wasn't allocated properly.
I don't know, but I, yeah,
I have been homeless for eight years.
However, the, the housing that's been there, like I said
you know, I was working with someone for three
and a half years.
I hadn't heard from a person and I'm thinking the whole time
that something had been done or was being done
with getting my information on Section Eight
to have that happen.
I had information on, found out about through there's
an additional palette that has another prefabricated
housing the city has been putting up.
And this was about a year ago.
I had also written to the district office about that too.
And then at that time an approved person can stay
in the palette home for a year, you know
if they needed to, to get their life in order
and get more housing.
Now you have three months.
So you have three months to work with someone now
to get your permanent housing.
So, the window is getting shorter, and shorter,
and shorter, you know? So...
- 90 day programs are just not enough time.
- I don't think it is.
- There's actually 30 day programs
that I have never been able to understand.
And in places like Alaska, even.
- Yeah, well I had a friend of mine
who is quite wrapping the role
and he went to, he did go to one of the, the shelters.
He went to the other shelters in San Pedro
and he (inaudible) guy.
He's also been not, not homeless too.
And he worked for three months
and now he's ended up being homeless again.
So, and he doesn't want to go back.
- What's the point? Going to a shelter just to be...
- You know, why was it
why do we only have that duration of time?
You know?
I mean, as far as, you know,
there, there should be a set up housing.
So, and we have more persons that are now being evicted
because of, I mean, there's, I know there's
there's, I know that there's the hold on rent for persons.
Persons are renting apartments and so forth, you know
but you know, there was, I just heard of another family
of five that were just evicted, you know?
And where are they?
And you know, so now you have the like Redondo beach
has had 15 places.
It was small, Redondo beach is small, which is fine.
But they only had 15 pallet homes that were set up
for example.
- And those pallette homes are so tiny.
- They're small, but they serve a good purpose.
They have a, you know, they have heating.
- For, they do it for a short period of time
but there's no, here in Los Angeles anyways,
they're not moving people from them.
I mean, people are going to be
in them for years and they're
they're going to house two people in each one of those.
- Well, I'm not saying the purpose is not to have people
live in them, but, but you have, you know, it's
like you're making the, the, the housing fit the person
but it's the person that has to fit the housing.
It's the other way around.
- Right.
- You know, you've got this domicile
and you have to, for a penny, domicile, but it's the person
- It's an important point.
- It's the person that has the, the anomalies that happened
in their life, where they can't get the resources they need.
And then you sort of pigeonhole them into
into this little square peg.
And if they don't fit, then they're asked out again
that's not, that's not how it's supposed to work. So...
- How do we help you?
How does somebody help you?
How do we end homelessness?
- I think the workers need to be more diligent.
I mean, I mean
I know they're there you say that there's housing out there
but you know why was my friend not able to get the help?
There was workers onsite
- There isn't housing out there, that's the problem.
- There's workers onsite trying to help him find a place.
And he had no help, you know?
So why was that?
And knowing, I know it's only one case
but I don't have more analysis for this person
but I'm telling you it was, it was hurtful.
So it was one in living, breathing, good being
he has no roof over his head for no reason.
And he did what was asked of him.
He got off the street.
So why was he not helped?
You know, it doesn't make any sense.
I've been at like, I mean
I've been in customer service and sales 25 years.
Okay. I can walk into a situation,
help any customer I need to.
If you take these persons that are homeless
and treat them as they really are
If you're going to take the viewpoint
of your, this is your person that you help, your customer
in that regard, you help the person.
Otherwise you get fired.
If I didn't do my job, you know.
- Right. They don't treat you as consumers.
- That's not what I mean.
- Yeah, but I mean, they don't- go ahead.
- And I mean, these are beautiful,
these are living, breathing people, right?
They have families and then they do have families
and some of them are grandparents and parents
and for whatever reason, it's unbeknownst
to us as to why they're here.
And they're not with them, none of our business.
You know, really, but it is our business
to help them make sure that they don't get hurt.
- Right.
- You know, and that they're helping them
get the help they need.
This country was founded on immigrants and immigration
you know, there's, there's laws like Georgian Law
as far as I know, as far as dealing with, you know,
available, where we,
it's just geared towards helping someone
who just is less fortunate.
- We have to help our neighbors.
- Yeah, love thy neighbor.
- So if you had three wishes, what would they be?
- (laughs) That's a tough one.
I guess my gallery showing.
You know, obviously to have a gallery show
for my artwork again.
And obviously not be homeless and see my family.
- Great wishes.
- Thank you.
- Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- Thank you. Not even gonna joke, family always comes first.
So, yeah I love my family. So yeah. Thank you.
And thank you for your help today.
I hope this helps other people.
(relaxing music with chimes)