Chapter 1: Tulicia

[BLANK_AUDIO] See the tits straight ahead? >> Yeah. >> It's everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, we go go straight. That car right there, homeless. >> Most of my interviews with Tilly Shelley took place in a car. Come to think of it, most of my interviews with homeless people in general took place in cars. Cars are good as studios. They're quiet, they don't have an echo. They are less good as homes, but many, many people in Oakland are using them that way. >> You all right? >> Mm-hm. >> They're fair right there. Tilly Shelley is pointing out all the people sleeping in cars on just a few blocks in the East Oakland. Sometimes you really can't tell when a car has a person living in it, but often there are signs. Blink, it's covering windows, suitcases, strap, to roofs. >> Them cars right there. There's cars right here. I know these people right here. I know them people right there. >> All homeless? >> All homeless in their cars. >> Oakland recorded 727 people sleeping in cars in 2019. Although that's widely considered to be an undercount, especially because folks in vehicles tend to be less visible than say people in tents. Tilly's just good at spotting these cars, because she knows this neighborhood. But there's another reason too. Sometimes she and her 11 year old son, Jordan, also sleep in the car. >> So you see what's up? >> Yeah, I put my seat back so I would just have to record it right here. >> We got all the covers. Then I wrapped my feet double. So my feet won't be cold because in the middle of night my feet be real cold. >> Tilly's was in the driver's seat and her son, Jordan, is in shotgun. She has a round face and a wide smile with a little gap between her front teeth. She wears a beanie to keep her head warm, and to cover the short hair she hasn't had the money to get done the way she likes it with extensions. >> Yeah. >> You know what to go about. >> What do you think about daddy? >> We need a house. >> We need a house. >> A house. >> A core. >> We need a house. A core. We need a house. A wheel. >> Jordan has his mom's same round face plus a round belly to match. He's gentle and shy. He likes video games and math. And Tilly just says she's thankful he isn't trying to act all grown like some kids his age. By the way, Jordan has a disability that affects his speech and language. >> We use. >> Okay. >> Some good drive. >> We could drive and pull over and go to sleep. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> That's what you want. That's what you're just taking about. >> You good? >> A nice one. >> A nice one too. >> You know, mommy like to drive. >> By 2019, Tilly and Jordan had been homeless for five years. Sometimes they stayed with family or friends and sometimes they ended up in the car. For five years, they'd mostly just struggled through homelessness on their own. But then something changed and they finally started trying to get some help. This is according to need chapter one. [ Music ] >> I want to zero in on the time when Tilly just started asking for help so that we can see what that looks like and start to see who the system works for and who it fails. But first, I want to go back. Should I get in with you? >> Should we get in your car? >> You want to get in my car? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Tilly just told me about her life and a series of interviews we did in the car. She had never had it easy. >> The stuff that I went to when I was little, it taught me my survival skills. >> Tilly's family was poor growing up. Both of her parents struggled with addiction and she had her first kid at 16. >> I didn't get a chance to enjoy my teenage years because I was a mom. >> There were so many obstacles and so much instability in Tilly's life. But somehow by the time she was in her 30s, she'd managed to get her GED, her forklifting license, and a good union job with benefits at Berkeley Farms Milk Plant. But then things started to unravel. It felt like there was one family crisis after another. >> I just went through a lot emotionally and then my mom, she was sick and using drugs and in and out of hospital and it just got to the point where I was just I was tired. >> Katie. >> Tilly just started missing work at the plant. Eventually she lost her job and shortly thereafter her apartment. In 2014 she became homeless. For a while she and Jordan found places to crash and she worked temp jobs on and off. But they could only stay in one place for so long. >> You know some people live different from how you used to live in. Some people are dirty, some people are clean. Some people get high and you don't get high. Somebody be like, you come over here for a few days, you get them some money, you eat and stuff. And then after that they act funny or feel like they want their space and put you out. >> They'd stay somewhere for a few months or a few weeks and then it would be time to move on. Years passed like this. Eventually the instability started to wear on Tilly's mental health. >> Because being homeless mentally is trouble. Especially when your child acts you. When you pick them up from school. Mom, where are we going to go? Mom, where are we going to eat? >> Tilly's felt like she was treading water just barely staying afloat. Or maybe she wasn't staying afloat at all, but was actually slowly drowning. She desperately needed a life raft. But there was no one stable enough in her life to grab onto. Everyone around her was also struggling. >> I was to the point where I was really trying to figure out where could I place and put my son that I can't provide for him the way I want to. Like let a family member have him for a while. You know where he could eat, sleep, bathe, be clean, smoke-free environment, you know, stuff like that. And I could picture or figure out one person. >> In 2018, after four years of bouncing around from place to place, Tilly's just suffered a psychotic break. For a couple of months she had delusions that she was famous and wealthy. And she got aggressive when people tried to convince her otherwise. >> When I start doing stuff, I don't usually do. That's when I knew I need a help. >> During this time while she was driving by herself, Tilly's crashed her car on purpose into a wall. She didn't want to die. It was more like a cry for help. >> And I said to myself, if I hit that pole, I'm gonna die. If I hit that brick wall, I can survive, but I'm gonna be. So I said, let the pole and I just turn the wheel. >> After the crash, Tilly went to a regular hospital and then a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with PTSD among other things. And then like she's always done, she clawed her way back to some fragile semblance of sanity. And that brings us to 2019. When Tilly's son, Jordan, still homeless, had exhausted every last family or friend connection. There was nowhere left to go except for the car. The car is sacred. Tilly's show wears her keys on a lanyard around her neck. If it wasn't for the car, she tells me they'd be living under a bridge. >> I just put my seat back, put my little thing to cover up the front window. We'll have our snacks and whatever else we eat, our cover. And we'll just go to sleep. >> My legs are killing me. >> You're lick. >> No? >> What? >> Just like killing me. >> Is there a way you lay in? Oh, it's tight. >> Are we getting a vaccine? >> Maybe I get bad dreams. >> If I go ahead, I'll bad dreams. >> That's how the summer rolled forward. Stiff necks and backs, sleeping in the car, washing their faces at McDonald's. But then, when the school year starts, something kind of incredible happens. Tilly's show finally gets a life raft. Her name is Trish Anderson. >> Bless you, girl. Keep it up. >> Okay. >> You too, bye-bye. >> You want to do one now? Okay. Did you know because I did not know that every school district in the US has a person whose job is to help homeless families? Trish Anderson is that person in Oakland. Her title, the McKinney Ventolierzon, comes from the federal legislation that established the position. Trisha's office is in a little portable building behind an elementary school. She has about a dozen bracelets on each dress, a clank on the table and she talks. And she lets me interview her between emails and phone calls. Hi Leslie, this is Trisha. Hi, so Leslie, I have a situation. I have a mom and a daughter, they're not in a card, they have no place to go, so mom moved here for me. Over the course of the 2017-2018 school year, public school data shows that some 1 and a half million students experienced homelessness across the country. These students tend to move with their parents from one part of town to another to another. And a big part of the McKinney Ventolierzon's job is helping homeless parents enroll and re-enroll their kids in school. Trisha does a lot of that, but she can also help with things like bus passes and uniform. Sometimes they don't want one when I off, I don't need transportation, I need a house, and I mean that's real. Trisha can't offer housing per se, although she can help parents fill out applications for apartments or search for affordable places on the internet. When a family and her program finally finds housing or shelter, they get a little construction paper house to put on the wall. So this one, someone went from car to shelter, so she decorated hers. Any movement we acknowledge. Trisha has a big, warm personality, but there's also something guarded underneath. When I ask her if she ever takes work home, she says she tries not to. She has her own problems at home. She's a caregiver for her son who skits a front-end, and for her elderly mother who needs a lot of help with day-to-day tasks. But every now and again, someone slips past her force field. Tullisha was like that. Trisha remembers seeing Tullisha at the beginning of the school year, and she came to pick up a bus pass for Jordan. She was slid down in the chair, had on a hat, looked very tired. So I said, "Come here every day. Come here every day, have oatmeal, hang out, volunteer, help me with my closet." I was like, "Okay." That's what I said, too. I was like, "Okay, actually I start going every day, every day. I have oatmeal, eat, get on a computer, look for resources." And while Tullisha was there, Trisha encouraged her to do something else too. Something she hadn't tried in a while. Call 211 and ask for help. 211 is a kind of hotline for homeless people who are looking for help with things like shelter or housing in Elimita County. Thank you so much for holding. How can I assist you today? Yes, me and my 11-year-old son is homeless. And where have you and your son been sleeping? Where did you stay at or sleep last night? In my car that don't run. Okay. So tomorrow you can go at 1 p.m. at the Henry Robinson Multiservice Center to do an assessment for the CES program. When the operator says the CES program, she's using an acronym for the coordinated entry system. You're going to understand a lot more about this system by the end of this series. But for now, I'll just say that most communities in the US have a system like this. And one thing it does is create a big master list of homeless people that all the nonprofits in a particular community are working off of. This helps to ensure that two different organizations aren't trying to assist the same person without knowing it. Anyway, the operator is telling Tilly Shows she needs to get into this system in order to get help with housing. And that unfortunately, there are no shelters to stay in in the meantime. There was no mom with child available right now. But I'm just trying to find something before it rains. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. No good. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for calling. Bye-bye. The next day, Tilly Shows took the bus to the nonprofit in downtown Oakland that the operator had told her about. While she waited, she eyed the other people who were also there. Everyone homeless. Everyone in need. Eventually, it was Tilly Shows turn. She answered some questions with a social worker named Yolanda. What is your monthly income, Yolanda asked her? $836, Tilly Shows answered. Tilly Shows didn't have a job at the time, but she got some money from the state because of Jordan's disability. Does anyone in your household suffer from depression? Yes. In the past 30 days, have you had to do things that felt unsafe to survive? Yes. How often? Daily. There were more questions, and Yolanda entered Tilly Shows answers into a computer while they talked. The fact that they wanted to know so much about her seemed like a good sign to Tilly Shows. She felt hopeful, even though they were still sleeping in the car. It's so much. What? So, what's your favorite food? Spaghetti's chicken and garlic bread with some salad, fish. French fries and salad, tea balls, steak, potatoes. A roast, a likes of keening. What's your favorite dessert? You like banana pudding? Chocolate cake. Asking cake? Cove cake is Sunday. Sunday. Oh, another has some Sunday. Well, Tilly Shows waited to hear back, but whether she was going to get home with housing or shelter, she kept going to see Trish. It's interesting with Tilly Shows because you try to have boundaries. And there's always one or two or a few. And I have a few where the boundary is like, it's really hard to keep that boundary because there's something else they need or they draw it on you. And she demanded it. And it happened. It just happened that way. And not everybody does that. It wasn't that long before Tilly Shows started calling Trish big mama and telling her she loved her. The two of them recounted this to me in Trish's office. Like people don't come in and say, I love you. You know what I'm saying? And then I found myself standing back because she needed it. So that was the demand. She wasn't going to accept anything less. I started saying it because I want her to know, you know, I really do love her. You're getting emotional. Of course I'm always getting emotional. I'm the emotional creature. I know this side of Tilly Shatou. I've tried to keep a journalistic boundary with her, but she texts me out of the blue like, hey Katie, what are you doing? Or she'd say, I'm sad. And I'd find myself giving her a pep talk. Another case in point. For some reason, at this very moment in Trish's office, she was squeezed onto the same chair as me. I'm just squeezed on the chair with you. I don't know. There's this whole other chair. Sorry. See? See you. I just saw the man. You can't keep a mouth. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. You're so hardy. With Trisha's support in a place to be every day, Tilly Shat was finally in an emotional state where she felt like she could work again. And Trisha encouraged her to apply to a temp agency. She did, and she got a temporary position in washing dishes for Cirque du Soleil. In the evenings of Tilly Shatou had enough money, she'd buy herself in Jordan something to eat for dinner. And Jordan would spread his homework out on the table at KFC or McDonald's. Sometimes she'd even have enough money to do something fun, like a movie. They were still sleeping in the car, but it felt like maybe things were turning around. I need a county to help my heck and I help you. A couple weeks after that first call, Tilly Shatou tried to win one again. Good morning. How are you doing? Good. If you guys have any rooms for rent on your listing or any traditional housing, we can. Okay, just give me a second, please. So hang on. Okay. And are you by yourself? I have an 11-year-old son with a disability. Okay. The operator asked Tilly Shatou if she'd already done an assessment for the coordinated entry system. She said she had. Rather than referring people into that system, where maybe hopefully they'll get assistance with housing, 211 also maintains their own database of subsidized housing options that you don't have to be homeless to get into, just poor. But all of those options have waiting lists. The waiting list is from one to five years. That's the problem. They can also give you a list of apartments on the private market that aren't subsidized, but where the landlords might be willing to work with tenants that have less than sparkling rental histories. But there doesn't seem to be much of anything that would be affordable for Tilly Shat. Okay. There is one. Is this a room for rent in Auckland? The price is 600 per person. So you have to be 1200. You can tell the operator thinks 1200 for a room is an absolute garbage option. To my child. I mean, for my own room, no, I try to figure it out. It is a little bit expensive, but all we need is our own room that's here. Tolisha told me later she didn't end up pursuing that room. It was too expensive. Before they hang up, Tolisha asks again about shelter. The operator tells her that the only thing available is for victims of domestic violence. And then asks her, "And a tone that can only be described as hopeful if she happens to be one." "Yeah, first of all, are you a victim of domestic violence?" "In my past, but not recently, I think." "Yeah, first of all, there is nothing available right now." Tolisha told me she tells all of her homeless parents to call 211. But for most of them, it doesn't lead to housing. Which she doesn't think it's 211's fault, but it's still frustrating. Every time you call, you're getting the same interview over and over and over again. And it's like, they're collecting all this data, but there's no movement. What's a case that's really stuck with you, you know, without naming names, but like. The mom who says, "If I don't find housing this year, I'm going to kill myself." And my kids will be better off without me, because at least they'll go in the foster care and now get housed into the. I had two attempted suicide slides last year. No, this year, I never saw that before. So the mental health has really been on the decline for these families. The story's Trish hears all day from these parents are hard. She tells me while she bangs out a few emails, how she manages to hold so many sad stories. Well, my faith is what makes me have more. The most capacity to do the work. I'm not. I'm just a person, so I don't know what it feels like to have faith drive you like that. Hmm. Well, it's just a place to put it all so you don't care anymore. All the things you can't solve, all the things you can't carry, because you got to carry something else. It's a place like, you know, you're purse, you put all your things you need for the day and the purse are bagged. It's kind of like that. And so you're able to carry more. Still, Trish says the purse is filling up. And she's not sure how much more it, or she can carry. Yeah, you can't do this forever. I've done it for a long time already. Part of what's hard for Trish is that she doesn't feel like she has as much power as she is to, to make a difference in people's lives. A couple of years ago, Trish could help the family she worked with get into shelters. If she had a family walking at 4 p.m., who had nowhere to sleep that night, she'd start making calls. But then the county shifted to a system where everyone has to go through 2-1-1. And now she can't do that anymore. It's hard to notice someone's on the street, you can't make a phone call and get them into a shelter. You know, in this position, you have to be careful that you don't become a complainer. Because you're having families interact with a system that you don't think is it works or it has challenges and the families already feel in that. So you walk a fine line in your frustration. Yeah, so I was calling to see if you guys have any shelter. This call was the last time Tileisha tried 2-1-1. It's about 3 weeks from her first call, and she sounds tired. The operator tells her that the only shelters available are for single adults, not for a woman with a child. You know, yeah, good kid. He just got a 3.0 on his report card, you know. Oh, he's running away. He's running away. He's running away. He's doing really good and stuff. I don't want to stop all that stuff that he's got going on. Just jumping in here to say that Tileisha is right to be worried about Jordan falling behind academically. Data from public schools in 2017-2018 showed that only 29% of homeless students were proficient in reading, and they were similarly behind in math. But it isn't just poverty that makes them slip. It's instability. Homeless kids' test scores are below even other low-income students who are staply housed. Before they get off the phone, the operator suggests Tileisha get into the coordinated entry system, not seeming to realize that she was already in the system. She'd been in it for weeks now. She hadn't gotten any help. Like, nobody never called me back and checked on me. Like, I've been going to do this now for so long. Why do you think that is? There's so many people all over that experience. The same thing as me. Everybody just never got to me on the list. I just feel like somebody, they forgot about me. They forgot about me and my son. In other words, for Tileisha, the fact that help never came wasn't personal and it totally was personal. A couple months after those 2-1-1 calls, Tileisha still hadn't gotten any help with housing from the system. She had a new job in Napa Auto Parts, where she made about $500 a week, but she hadn't been able to save much yet. She had found a spot where she and Jordan could stay inside with some regularity. Not their own place, but somewhere to crash at least. It didn't feel like home though, even though she had a roof over her head. She still felt homeless. There's nothing else for me to do with, keep trying. Yeah. You know? I think about Jordan more than I think about myself. Every night, I just keep listening to that song. I just keep holding on. Everything gonna be alright just hold on. I'm holding right now though, like right right now. Thanks for talking to me. I always appreciate it. Yep, I feel better too. Oh good. I feel like I wore you out, but I don't know. I was already wore out before you that evening. Alright, well I hope you get some good sleep tonight. No, I'm so too. The place where Tleesha and Jordan were staying was a one bedroom basement apartment, where a bunch of other people also lived. One guy slept on the couch, another person slept in a recliner. Tleesha and Jordan slept on a barramatras. Sometimes there were tensions in the house though. People mad at each other over bills or food or what to watch on TV. And then Tleesha and Jordan would end up back in the one place they'd always been able to count on. The car. That's his doors. Is he a star? Yeah. Why don't you look at him and count him and make a wish? Well, how do you choose doors? It's a big door, a little door. Small door. I made a door. Yeah, many door. Ah, more? Yeah. That was so safe, but it does. You feel sorry for the dinosaurs? Yeah, let's speak. A lot of them. All the dinosaurs go. The two daughters decide the key facts. I think it's something that goes. Some of them not gone? Yeah. Well, they're in the cage, hibernating. Maybe, yeah. I wanted to understand why Tleesha had never gotten any help with housing. Who was this system helping if not her? One thing I did know was that when homeless people wanted help, they were almost always advised to call 2-1-1. That seemed to be the starting place for everyone. If I wanted to understand how this all worked, maybe I should pay them a visit. That's next time, on according to need. When we come back from the break, a preview. (upbeat music) - Next time, on according to need. - My name is Haram, calling from Alameda County to one of one just checking in shelter space. Okay, thank you very much. - One by seven. - I don't have anything available. - And she's like, so, "Huh, what are I gonna do? "It's nothing, it's nowhere." She's like, "Me and my child are really about "to be on the streets tonight." - Good morning, thank you for calling Alameda County to one one out of Alpios. - I'm homeless at Alameda County with a two year old son, but I'm willing to move anywhere that I can get help. I would react and I would do y'all know, anybody to give a wash and a tree. I'm 93 years old. - No one here, no one here. - Yeah, I'm stuck. - You need to get over to EOCP by 6 p.m. - Hey, I'm coming out. I'm coming out right here. - Kami, wanna hurry. - She wants to say she's literally homeless, but I think she's actually been staying at a front house, where she's gonna end up saying that. - People are really good frustrated when you tell them they're not literally homeless. I'm sleeping in my effing car and I just got let in last night. Why some homeless people never even make it into the system and what it's like to answer their calls? That's coming up on "According to Need." "According to Need was produced by me, Katie Mingle, with associate producer Abby Madan and managing editor Whitney Henry Lester. Roman Morris was the executive producer. In valuable editing from Lisa Pollock, Emmett Fitzgerald, Delaney Hall, Christopher Johnson and Joe Rosenberg. Kevin Ramsey was our sound engineer, fact checking by Amy Gaines. Beautiful music by the beautiful Sean Raell, branding and design by muchmore.io. Kurt Colstead was our digital director. Additional support from Sofia Klatsker, Vivian Leigh and Chris Baroube. Special thanks to all the people who spoke to me for this series, as well as Marisol Medina-Karena, Allison DeYoung and Chelsea Miller. "According to Need" is a project of 99% invisible, which is distributed by PRX. Radio Tapio. From PRX. Radio Tapio. From PRX.