How I Survived Not Having a Home and Sleeping in my Car in my 60’s
First of all, I don’t know who needs to read this but am hoping it will encourage folks who are feeling alone, afraid and need a friend.
In the late 1980’s, I “lived on faith” with an international interfaith interdenominational intercessory prayer ministry. I traveled around the world for three years from Florida a week after my dad passed. First place I went to was England. Then Germany briefly. And Israel was my real test of being obedient to that small still voice and I thought I failed a few times.
After being in Israel for a month, I went back to England and Germany and onward to Athens, Greece, where we held three Prayer and Praise workshops. Many of the OIM (Obedience Intercessory Ministry) members who were traveling were American and Jewish or German people from Frankfurt, Munich and other places. And there were a couple of French and English people plus Christian and Catholic Americans.
Travels with OIM, Israel
For about a year, I lived in Frankfurt, then Griesheim, Darmstadt, Weisbaden and Mainz in Germany. I decided to work for the Stars and Stripes newspaper at one point to have a steady income. I also visited Dachau and wrote about that (see below Just Someone Who Cares).
We spent a weekend in Venlo, Holland on the border. Afterwards, I went back to Munich and found out we were all going back to America, finally. Yippeee.
We all met in Las Vegas and had three months of horrible meetings. Surviving those meetings, we each received traveling assignments. My group was to go to Bangladesh, Bangkok, Thailand and India. I was not thrilled. Many people want to go to India, that was not my dream place to visit. But I spent a few weeks in Arizona and learned more about India and what it was going to be about for me. A spiritual connection and new experiences of various cultures and religions.
I spent about a month in Thailand waiting for my traveling companions, a German brother and sister to join me. And after they came with the woman’s two year blonde haired child in tow, we flew to Bangladesh. We stayed in a Buddhist monastery there. One day at the market, a man tried to sell me a live chicken. We met orphans and people living in extreme poverty. They were inspiring.
And then we traveled by bus to Calcutta, India. Our “home” became Madras, the place where we received mail, faxes and funds to travel. I became the go between person when another German man joined us. Personally, I visited eight states in India. For awhile, I traveled with the woman and her child. And when she left to go back to Germany and raise funds for us to go home, we had a challenging week waiting for the funds. Then he could not get his visa at the Embassy so we decided to visit Vancouver, Canada. While, I was there, he still could not get a visa, so I returned without him to the States.
After, I came back to Los Angeles, I was without funds and no home. People in the ministry had scattered all over the place. And I HAD to get a job quickly. I did but it would take a few weeks for it to start. In the meanwhile, I stayed in a Catholic run shelter for people without homes in downtown Los Angeles. It was quite different than the homeless shelters that are available to people now. We were all females, had a curfew, everyone had their own small room and we shared a kitchen, bathroom and living room. We were free to come and go all day and return before curfew.
Finally, my job started for a nonprofit AIDS organization. I moved out of the shelter and lived with an older Russian lady in West Hollywood for a few years. Then I was invited to move to Las Vegas and work. While there, I volunteered at a St. John’s dePaul homeless shelter for men for two years. Once a month, I would visit the shelter and share some experiences and a prayer and meditation with the 150-300 men gathered at a meeting. It was a blessing for them and for me.
This is just to give you some background of my not having a home before I left my home in my 60’s to give a little more in depth and accurately then the article I co-wrote for Vox media in 2016. While I traveled with OIM, even when I traveled alone, I had a group I belonged to and I prayed a lot. When situations were dicey, I counted on God Goddess All That Is for support, guidance and direction. And miracles often happened.
When I first started traveling with the ministry, I did not believe that I would be able to survive without a regular steady income. That I’d end up sleeping on a foreign beach somewhere. That never happened to me. It was challenging and exhilarating to discover that I was home wherever I traveled, even if it did not always feel like it.
In 2007, when I first met Cici in Las Vegas, we traveled together for a few years all over California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada seeking a home. I wrote Have Dog Blog Will Travel when we lived together in Gardnerville for a couple of years. And then for about 12 years. During that time, although we mostly did not have a home, we were invited to stay at 85+ inns, B&B’s, hotels and lodges. And Cici received a lot of goodies from dog food companies and other related pet companies who wanted some publicity for their products.
I had not had a home in my 30’s while traveling with the ministry at times and prayed for people without homes in my 40’s and 50’s. Then in my 60’s, I moved out of where I had been living in Seaside with my dog Cici and stayed in motels at first. I had my meager Social Security income to live on. And it didn’t stretch very far. But I had friends and a doggie mama and papa network who prayed for me and a few who sent me funds on occasion.
Sit Lies, letter to the editor I wrote
After a few months, I found out that I had breast cancer and had to have surgery. The local newspaper wrote about me and my predicament.
Monterey Herald article about me
And enough money was raised and connections made thanks to BADRAP, a pit bull rescue, so again my dog and I had a home. And when that one did not work out, we moved back to Carson City, Nevada and found another home with three neurotic Jack Russell Terriers. That lasted a few months and then I decided to get a camper to live in. Unfortunately, I chose a pop-up camper that was extremely difficult for me to navigate.
At the end of December 2015, I lost the most important person in my life. After a few harrowing experiences when my Jeep died in Paso Robles and other experiences, a generous and kind couple invited me to live in an older camper near Blythe, California. It was during the few months I lived there in a place I called Shady Hollow, that I wrote the article for Vox media. I reconnected with a dear friend in Germany and another in Los Angeles. Things seemed to be progressing for the better. I sold the camper and got a van.
After I left Shady Hollow and the article went viral, I received a job offer. It was amazing, a decent income and remote work as a Communications Manager for an international anti-trafficking organization, Liberty Asia and Freedom Collaborative. I had a great boss and a wonderful supervisor. The work was very important to me too.
And I thought I would finally be able to find a home but still found it difficult to come up with first and last and security deposit for me and one for the dog. Mostly, my dog and I lived in motels and hotels. And for three months, I had vertigo and then was dizzy. The doctors did not know what was wrong with me. I stayed in hospitals and rife with abuse and neglect nursing homes.
My health had deteriorated from all of the stress of not having a home, poor nutrition, sleep deprivation and I had never been adequately able to recover from my breast cancer operation in 2015.
I worked from 2016-18 and then another bombshell hit. My boss had lost a very big funder and had to immediately let most of the staff go including me. That was devastating news. And he kept me afloat for a few months knowing the dire situation I was in. He had me work on various projects and paid me to do them so I was able to keep a motel/hotel roof over my head.
Eventually, that ended and I was on my own again, sort of. My dear friends helped me out whenever they could do so and now what? I was in and out of the hospital and had to have another breast cancer surgery. People prayed for me and offered me kindness and occasionally food, shelter, warm clothes, sleeping bags and/or funds to go on and live another day.
My Cici girl would constantly bring me to meet new people who wanted to help feed her and walk her. One time, I was walking out of Target and I thought wouldn’t it be great if someone just came along and gave me $100. It was a silly thought, right. Well, instantly, this man approached Cici and I and asked me what I wanted. I was very surprised. I wondered how pathetic I looked for him to ask that. And I didn’t know what to say to him.
Finally, I said I need a new purse. He said, stay here, I will be back in a few minutes. I did not know what to think. Would he actually come back? I walked Cici and after about 15-20 minutes, the man came back with a huge bag filled with goodies. A very large handbag for me, treats and food for Cici, vitamins and snacks for me plus he handed me $80 cash. I was stunned and extremely touched. I wanted to cry at how easily and abundantly my thought prayer had been answered.
My attitude had been altered from all of the time without a home. I often felt discouraged and did not want to ask anyone for assistance. And whenever people offered such generous gifts, my mind and heart were very grateful and comforted.
In September 2019, it was time to let my Cici dog go over the rainbow. She had not been doing well since she turned 13. And was diagnosed with heart failure and an aggressive cancer.
Article in the Cedar Street Times, that I wrote about me and Cici and seniors needing a home in 2019
Homeless in Paradise
I was truly without my best friend and traveling companion. And was distraught beyond belief. She made me laugh every day, saved my life and kept me going. Without her, I did not think that I was going to survive. She was a constant source of inspiration and people loved her.
Most of November and December of 2019, I was very sick in the hospital with bacterial pneumonia and blood clots on my lungs. But a wonderful lady who worked for a nonprofit Whole Person Care program encouraged me and told me that I would soon be getting a home of my own. It is an apartment in a newly built senior complex. She helped me move in and it came furnished. Thankfully I was able to move in before the insanity of COVID hit.
All in all for about ten years of my life, I have been without a roof over my head and survived magically and miraculously at times. Other times, desperately and dealing with harrowing experiences. But I always prayed and counted on angels and divine guidance since a lot of time I just had no idea what to do, where to go and how to find whatever I needed.
I have been here in my apartment now for two years. It was quite a journey, always an adventure, and now I am still recovering my health. I have had a succession of caregivers. And I have had visiting nurses once a week, for Palliative care at first and now have been on hospice care since the doctors do not know why I am still alive. But my life is not up to them.
The past two chaotic years of COVID mania have not always been easy. A constant roller coaster ride of madness and uncertainty. And, I am very blessed to be living in my apartment and not also dealing with not having a home of my own as too many people still are doing.
For the holidays and upcoming new year, I do hope that people will stop bickering, come together and support one another through the experience we are all having. Laugh, cry and share stories with one another as well as be creative, innovative and start new businesses, invent new ways of living life that is more inclusive and beneficial and productive for everybody.
It would be great if you would subscribe to my newsletter and support my work.
And if you can, please donate to the following organizations that have helped me and Cici over the years and who also help others.