CommentsFIRST PERSON--I first met Danielle by her tent in the spring of 2018 on Fairfax Avenue during my daily walks. She lived with a male partner who was often sitting with her in their tent. Sometimes she sat near Fairfax Avenue panhandling.
In the winter, as I walked by her tent, I saw her head peeking out of her tent -- she was very ill. I asked her if she needed some groceries as I was going to the 99-cent store nearby, and she gave me a short list. At the 99-cent store, I bought her a bag of groceries and also gave her a bag of oranges from my trees which was full of oranges. She thanked me. The next three weeks I picked a bag of oranges every few days and gave it to her or left it in front of her tent. Finally, the orange tree had been picked clean. About the same time, Danielle regained her health.
In the spring, Danielle told me she was born in Aurora, Missouri, which was a town of a couple thousand back then. She grew up all over Arkansas. She eventually came to Los Angeles because her mother had come here when she was a teenager pregnant with Danielle; she then returned to Arkansas. Growing up in Arkansas she heard her mother talk about California and watched television programs whenever she could especially about California, movie stars, etc. She said, “I just always fantasized and dreamed about it: it’s a place I always wanted to be.”
When Danielle was three years old, her mother gave her up and “never had anything to do with me…. I was already living with someone else because she couldn’t do it,” she said. She’d never called her birth mother “mom;” she calls her “Karen” because she “did give birth to me, but she’s not my mom. A mother is someone who raises her kids, puts them through school and sticks to her commitments. You brought them into this world, and you’re supposed to supply everything that they need. In my opinion I’m grateful for her to bringing me into this world and giving me life. But I don’t look at her as a mother.” Karen was killed in a murder/suicide when Danielle was eighteen.
As a child in Arkansas she “was living with appointed guardians.” According to Danielle, “I would live with [them] -- it was like a tennis match. Back and forth … I’d go live here. I’d [go] to live there. I was just bounced around and so were my sisters — they were my half-sisters. They’re not full-blooded.” At one point her dad kidnapped her and her two half-sisters. She said her kidnapping “made the major news. They had an all-points bulletin. It was a big ordeal. It went nationwide. It was me and my two half-sisters when I was six or seven. …. We were on the run for about three weeks.”
Danielle told how “most of my education came from home schooling. I only spent about four years in actual public school.” She came out to Los Angeles when she was seventeen.
In Los Angeles she went to a vocational training college doing “a 2-year program right here on Alvarado here in Los Angeles. I went for computer animation, to be an administrative assistant with office duties. I did a 5-point presentation: Microsoft, Excel, PowerPoint. I did a 9-point presentation. I was in Cap and Gown. You can pull my pictures up online. I belonged to a fraternity. I did complete it [the course] but I just didn’t get hired for a job. I went to the job fair the next day after graduation. We were supposed to be guaranteed [a job] but I didn’t get one. They said nobody would leave without a job. It is what it is.”
After Danielle didn’t get a job in the job fair, she became self-employed “with a computer system with a web cam. I started doing web cam work and started making really really good money. I got my rent paid. I stayed in a shared living house. On Minlow Street right off of Vermont near Olympic. I was there a little for over two years. I got a letter saying that I hadn’t paid my rent in a couple months.
I said, “That’s incorrect. I’ve given my rent to the manger as well as everybody else.”
He said, “That’s why I’m calling because I don’t have anybody’s rent money.”
Danielle said that she redid a contract with him and got most of it paid off. “I think the facilitator over all that really just wanted the whole house cleaned up. Wanted to get a new group in there. I just got booted to the street. I didn’t have anywhere to go. It was really that simple. They came up and said had I had to go.” She was booted to the street in 2009: “I was out on my behind, and all my stuff was in the basement. My life where I was making money, and everything was fine. I was in shared housing. Moment later I’m not because I was working that morning but that afternoon I was sitting on the sidewalk.”
Danielle continued her web cam work “from motel to hotel as long as I could. Which didn’t last long. And then I was right back out there in it. It’s been like that ever since.” She said, “I have been living on the streets off and on since then. I’ve had brief moments where I had opportunities to go through a program or stay with a friend or I’d meet someone I’d liked. It would be 3-4 months or maybe 6 months. I’d get a job during that and have a chance to learn something, but for whatever reason it didn’t work out and you move on.”
Over the years she has “worked for McDonalds and for Taco Bell in Valencia. I also worked for Vons. I became part of the credit union. I’ve been self-employed.” Her longest job was working for I Friends for 25-26 years, which is a webcam company. She described her job, “You model online. You talk dirty. You sell calendars. You sell videos of yourself. It’s all about advertising. It’s all about production and how you perceive yourself. Either you’ll sell or you’re not.”
At times when employed she rented an apartment: “I had a townhouse in Torrance. I had Sugar Daddies I guess you would call it. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”
After losing her housing about six years ago, Danielle was living with a homeless male partner in Silverlake, but he “didn’t want to be there anymore so he came up here [Fairfax Avenue]. I stayed back for two days, and then I came up here to [Fairfax Avenue] looking for him. I just ended up staying. I’ve been here for about six years.” She recalls how they got married in a civil ceremony “in a public place, but we didn’t go to church or anything like that. What’s what called: a partnership.” They’ve together almost nine years.
Danielle describes how at first, her partner was sleeping across the street at the Bank of America: “He was really stuck to that bank for some odd reason. It took a lot to get him away from that bank because he was really glued to it. It really was putting a major strain on our relationship and with my friends. I have a different caliber of friends than he did.” Then they had a tent given to them, so over “the last couple of years, we’ve started getting tents. We’ve only had about six or seven tents. Some of them have been bought. Some of them we’ve bought. Some of them are hand-me-downs.”
Danielle describes how the people in the Fairfax neighborhood have “done a lot for me. They’ve fed me. They’ve clothed me. They’ve went out of their pocket and bought me brand new stuff. Things got stolen. It’s kind of different when you are living out there. People get jealous for whatever reason. But they have really extended their hand. And I mean REALLY. And not just them but the teenagers from the high school. They’ve done a lot too. The teenagers come over there -- I was shocked when for the first time a teenager came over and handed me two-three bucks. They have even, well I’m not going to say. I LOVE a lot of them [people] in the neighborhood.”
During this time Danielle has still tried to make money: “I’ve always been trying to do something -- clean up lots, sweep their parking lots. They pay your $10-$20. I’m always telling everybody I’ll do whatever -- if you need me to sweep, paint, mow the lawn, cook, scrub, clean buildings -- I’ll do whatever. I’m game for whatever.”
In 2018, she was getting Medical and General Relief through “my government allowance, which is not much but $400 something a month.” She also got food from Cal Fresh. She says, “My money takes care of not just me but of two other people. My money doesn’t go very far, but I don’t mind.” She adds, “I’m not sure how the Medical/Medicaid really works. I know if I go to the hospital that’s the first thing, they ask me. I was just recently in the hospital when I got bitten. Medical paid for it. They also found an organization to go along with that to pay for my hospital stay. I know that my medical insurance is supposed to pay for everything: medication, teeth, and all these things.”
Danielle said she was told to go the UCLA dental clinic, which she had gone to when just out of college. After I described how good my experience at the UCLA dental clinic was, Danielle told me about other programs for the homeless she’s learned about that are “tied into sobriety... and also shelters.” She went on to stay, “I’m not knocking the shelters. There are a lot of fantastic programs within the shelters. It’s the clients that are in it. It’s not the staff. It’s not the people working there.”
She described her experience at a shelter called, “Fred Thompson’s at Polk and Post in San Francisco. It was tied in with the Tom Wyddell Clinic. I got a six-month bed, and I was there for three months. Then I left. It’s not like I haven’t been there, but there are a lot of things that go along with that are not spoke about. It’s not the staff. They’re doing their job. It’s not the facility. The programs work. They DO work. They’re designed to keep you doing the right thing -- moving ahead, moving forward. The programs that they laid out for me -- you’re not going to fail. You show up. You do what you’re supposed to do. You’re not going to fail. You have a roof over your head and a place to eat. A chance to save your money. And get your money back. A lot of things are provided for you, and there’s no reason for you no reason that you shouldn’t be able to save your money. When you leave that program that they have laid out for you, you walk away with $5000-$10,000. That’s for you and your apartment to help furnish it and keep on going.”
After I asked her if she wanted to get an apartment now, Danielle said, “I would love it.”
“Have you signed up for an apartment?”
“I have mentioned it,” Danielle replied. “My partner got arrested, so he’s in jail.” But she hasn’t actually signed up to get an apartment.
“You can sign up to get a low-cost apartment. It takes a couple years,” I said.
“That’s what they say. I need a job (laughs). That’s what I need. Dang. If I had a job, in a couple months I’d be in place.”
“What kind of job could you get now?”
“I don’t honestly know to be honest with you. All jobs in places train you for the position first off. They train you for the position. It ain’t this: They can spell this like if you’re overeducated or you’re undereducated. Bullshit! That’s flat out bullshit. Because they train everybody for the position. I don’t care if you’re educated of undereducated -- most the time it can be anyone. If you’re attractive, it’s [easier].
“How has the police treated you on the streets? Have you lost a lot of things in sweeps?”
“Of course, I’ve lost a lot of things,” Danielle said. “But these are choices that I’ve made. I can get off the street at any given point. Like you said there’s places to go; there are shelters. I don’t point the finger at any other person but myself. I’m not handicapped. I’m not being held hostage. I’m here, yes, for whatever reason. The alcohol is a little better today than another day. Whatever. I’m a little too magnetized to the scenery. It’s still decisions.”
I asked her, “What would you tell the City of Los Angeles to do help the homeless?”
“They do a lot of fantastic stuff. They have the food line… I think they moved up towards Fountain and LaBrea -- somewhere around there. I’m not too sure. I haven’t been there in a long time. I haven’t needed to go there. The neighborhood and people around me take pretty good care of me pretty well. Besides I have got some other things going on. I have assistance from the government, and I hustle.”
She repeated that the government is helping her a lot know but she “wouldn’t mind having more income on my end. But I have to do some things in order to get that income. But it’s there. That’s just me being lazy. So I can’t say nothing in regards to that because they really do a lot.”
If Danielle had three wishes, she would want to “win the lottery. And take a deep breath and kick back. And really jumping [sic] into life and enjoy it.”
(Julia Stein is a poet, novelist, and literary critic now living in Los Angeles. She has published five books of poetry: Under the Ladder to Heaven, Desert Soldiers, Shulamith, and Walker Woman, and What Were They Like? Stein is also co-author of the book "Shooting Women: Behind the Camera.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
