they carry

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the

Things

they carry Photos by Sean Cayton

Things

1) “Flashlight — “You’ve got to have a flashlight.” 2) Toothbrush. 3) “Medicine.” Daniel’s pills are presorted and sealed into packaging that looks like a flimsy ice tray. Presumably, this is to make it easier for him to remember his pills. “What I do now is every day I take a punch of the meds.” 4) Scarf and wool jacket. The scarf isn’t just for his neck, “The face gets cold,” he explains.

C

hristmas is just weeks away when I meet Daniel Vasquez. The curiously long Indian summer of 2016 is decidedly gone and the ground is frozen hard. I stop Daniel because he is walking out of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado’s Marian House Soup Kitchen, and because he is carrying bags. At first, I am a little startled when he turns to look at me. Daniel is built solid and square as a brick house. Scars trace his shaved head, and his eyes have a tendency to wander in an unsettling manner. But when he speaks, his voice is gentle. I ask him if he will talk to me for a story, and allow a photographer to take pictures of him and his belongings. He agrees, though the actual process of our conversation is more laborious than is ordinary. Daniel will begin to dig into a story, and then his eyes will take on a look of confusion, and he’ll say, “I forgot what we were talking about.” He tells me it’s because of a head injury; because it left him with a traumatic brain injury. Asked to show

Daniel Vasquez, 28 me his most precious things, for instance, he recalls some things and seems to struggle to remember others. “You can’t carry nothing on you, everyone steals from you,” he says eventually. “You don’t need nothing more than the basics.” Still, when part of our staff — myself, Matthew Schniper, Alissa Smith, Nat Stein and Pam Zubeck — each talked to homeless locals on that frigid December day at the Marian House (where their staff graciously hosted us), we found that each person chose to carry items for different reasons. The belongings were sentimental, or sparked joy, or were useful. We had come to gather the personal stories of a group of our neighbors who will struggle the most through this winter, but we wanted to do it in a unique way: by asking them what their most valued possessions are. The concept is loosely borrowed from Tim O’Brien’s semi-autobiographical 1990 short stories, The Things They Carried, which explored the lives of Vietnam War soldiers, partially through what they chose to bring with them. It also took inspiration

from Peter Menzel’s photo books, especially Material World, which shows the belongings of families around the world. The point here is that our things say something about who we are — especially when we are able to keep very little. After interviewing Daniel, I help him lay out his belongings to be photographed. “Why are you guys doing this?” he asks me. “Well, I kind of think that people sometimes think of homeless people like stereotypes and they don’t think of them being real people,” I tell him haltingly. “So, we kind of wanted to tell that story of how homeless people are each individuals, and sometimes when we think of what’s precious to us, or what we carry with us ... it’s a very human thing.” Daniel’s eyes widen, and he looks completely clearheaded for a moment. “Yeah,” he replies. “We are human, just like you guys are.”

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— J. Adrian Stanley

Homeless since 2009

What was your life like before you became homeless? Daniel says he worked at “the Gazette newspaper in the assembly line,” back when the daily was still printed locally. He says he lived with his girlfriend and two young children who are now 6 and 8. How did you become homeless? He says he got the boot when his relationship ended. He began living on the streets. Daniel struggles to tell his story because of memory issues, but he says he’s been in and out of jail since then for graffiti, and also in and out of hospitals and assisted living programs because he suffered a traumatic brain injury. At one point, he says, while sleeping outside, “I got hit in the head with a bat in 2010.” Later, he says the injury occurred “last June,” when he was sleeping in Dorchester Park and someone hit him in the head with brass knuckles. (Whatever the case, large scars that cross his head speak to a serious head injury.) Daniel says that he was

enrolled in assisted living in Denver, but he left the housing program behind because he had no way to commute to Colorado Springs. “I wanted to see my kids and so I forced myself to be homeless so I could see my kids,” he says. “I get to see my kids like an hour a week at the uh, at the library, so that’s cool the library provides that.” Where do you live? Daniel’s lived “everywhere” but “mostly outside.” These days, he usually sleeps outside near Fillmore Street. He lives by himself, and says it’s scary after what happened. “[The beating] gave me schizophrenia,” he says. “So all of us homeless ... We all have mental health issues.” What do you hope to do now? He hopes simply for “stability.” “I got short-term memory loss so I can’t take care of myself,” he says. “And people take care of me here and there, but I’m walking around and I can’t remember stuff

because I got TBI.” Daniel is hoping to get SSI (Supplemental Security Income). Asked if he’s received any help applying, he says, “They tried to put me in a TBI program to help me learn how to live. I forgot what we we’re talking about.” What items do you own? He carries two bags of things. He says he has a sign as well, which he uses to panhandle, but says, “No one ever gives me anything.” Inside the bags, Daniel has basics, including a few food items for dinner. They include a package of stale-looking pastries in cellophane. Asked if he has a photo of his kids, he says he does, but then can’t remember where he left it. Asked if he has enough warm stuff, he says, “Not really. Enough to live. Sometimes it feels like your brain’s freezing.” Daniel says he went to a shelter recently but it was full. He may have been confused — shelters have had room most nights since the late November opening of a new shelter.

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Things

1) Chess set: This is the only personal item Donald wishes to share. “My dad used to play,” he says fondly, “and I played him every day while he was living. I never did beat him, but I did draw him once.” Donald says his nickname used to be “have chess will travel” because he took it everywhere and challenged everyone he met. He now plays folks at Penrose Library and the park. “It helps to keep my mind focused.”

Stacey Barnett, 40

Homeless since December 2015

What was your life like before you became homeless? “I lived in a three-bedroom house on a horse ranch,” she says, in Bakersfield, California. Stacey had been married eight years. Her husband’s dad was a local rancher. She was a certified nursing assistant, working in home health care, since age 18, she says. How did you become homeless? “My ex-husband tried killing me ... he strangled me ... the cops came out and said I wasn’t the victim, that he was. I didn’t hit him or anything, but I had marks on my neck ... I first became homeless in December, then stayed in a motel for four months, then was on the streets or in shelters.”

Where do you live? “We’re staying at the [Salvation Army’s shelter],” she says. She met her fiancée Randy — who says he’s a former MMA fighter, as well as missionary, “spreading the word of god” — in July, in Bakersfield. He’d been to Colorado Springs before, and said the shelters here were “a little bit better” than California’s. They arrived here on November 3. They sleep in separate dorms, but spend time together in between chores and outside the shelter. What do you hope to do now? Randy draws Social Security. Stacey says she’s waiting for state assistance money as well as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), as she suffers from “depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD from what happened to me, and I have multiple

personalities, to a point, not different names, but I act different in certain areas.” Randy says he’d like to work with selling Obama Phones [the program which provides lowincome, struggling people with free cell phones]. The two are currently saving money, with the shelter’s guidance, and hope to afford an apartment or rental house soon, and a car, “to get on our feet.” (Randy wished not to be photographed.) What items do you own? Stacey leaves her clothes at the shelter. She’s also left behind a special teddy bear given to her by Randy, as well as a blanket given to her by an older woman at RJ Montgomery, who she’s adopted as a mother figure. She points to a necklace she’s wearing, of a silver heart, that’s also very precious to her, as it’s also a gift from Randy.

Donald Carrothers, 57 Homeless for three years

What was your life like before you became homeless? “The last good job I had was selling high-end furniture on commission ... then the bottom dropped out in ‘08 and suddenly no one wanted to buy jack.”

Things

1) Hat and gloves. 2) Important documents, like SSI forms and identification. “I never know who I’m going to run into and if I’ll need my paperwork, so I carry it with me,” Stacey says. 3) Cell phones. 4) Headphones. “I listen to music from my phone.”

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How did you become homeless? His situation, Donald says, has its roots in family tragedy. Many years ago, his father killed himself, and his mother had medical debts to pay. After her sixth trip to the hospital, Donald couldn’t pay the bills no matter how hard he worked. Amish Showcase, the furniture store where he made a living, closed down, and a series of other jobs didn’t pan out. His car got totaled while he was delivering pizzas, he had to sign over his house, and he got admitted to Cedar Springs for suicide watch because his apartment’s social director thought he was depressed. He knows people view homelessness as a result of crime or hard drugs, but he says he’s never been to prison or been an addict. “I’m here because I tried to save my mother’s life,” he says, “That’s it.”

Where do you live? When he can’t get into the shelter, whose lottery system he says forces more people onto the streets, he’s lucky enough to have a friend to stay with. But he doesn’t know how long that situation will last. “[My friend] said he might be moving soon. I think he might be trying to get rid of me.” Donald’s seen what happens during winter months and he says he’s more nervous for others than for himself. Some people make hard choices when the weather turns. “If the shelter turns you away, what are your options? You either break the law so you go to jail for the night, or you freeze to death. Which would you choose?” What do you hope to do now? After three years fending for himself, he is finally going to apply for government assistance in the form of SSI (Supplemental Security Income), thanks to the urging of his girlfriend.

“I never wanted to admit I was handicapped,” he says with tears in his eyes. But now, Donald says, it’s time for him to acknowledge he needs some help. He suffers from debilitating pain, and worries that his disability may be mental as well as physical. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in three years. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth.” What items do you own? The first place he went for help was the Salvation Army shelter. When they turned him away that night, he ended up sleeping on the patio of Acacia Park Apartments, “where I used to play chess.” When he realized he’d left his backpack at the center and went back to get it, he says he found that staff had kept the bag but thrown out its contents, including photos of his mom and dad. He’s had a hard time keeping anything meaningful since then. “I own some blankets, which I keep at my friend’s house,” he says. “And a chess set. I take it with me everywhere.”

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Things

1) Pages of poetry, stuffed into a large, worn plastic envelope. 2) A weathered copy of his 66-page, 2011 poetry book, I Forgot My Pants. In the “about the author” listing on Amazon.com, it reads: “Born to an uneducated, poor family. Before and after school working in the fields doing irrigation work. Married three times, divorce the first time, death the second and blessed enough to meet the woman of my dreams the third time around. [Since divorced.] Working in various jobs as I traveled through adulthood, and finding little satisfaction through the process. Although I dabbled in poetry in my twenties, it was not at that time anything I considered a career. Now in my late fifties I have discovered that poetry was what I should have devoted more time with and finding it worthy of sharing with other people.”

Don Batey, 65

Homeless since 2013, off and on What was your life like before you became homeless? Don spent 22 years in the Army, first for six years as a key-punch operator — “the predecessor to the computer,” he says — then as a cook and reservist. He never saw any combat. He was born in Missouri, raised around Fresno, California, and settled in San José after the military. He moved to the Springs in 1999 with his second wife, who later passed away. “I married and divorced again,” he says. How did you become homeless? Don was living in an apartment and says he was having trouble with the management. “So I decided to do an experiment, and move out into the street and leave the money that would have paid rent in the bank, and then ultimately I could get a better place,” he says. “It didn’t turn out so well. Not that I’m an alcoholic, but I do like to drink. And eating at sports bars gets expensive. So that money mysteriously disappeared during the month — I spent it.”

Where do you live? “I’m living on the streets now. It’s like a storage bin situation — not in a complex, it’s by itself,” he says. He wishes not to be specific about a location. What do you hope to do now? “I was playing with the idea of going to Nashville prior to my last girlfriend,” he says. “Now I’m thinking more of Austin, where she’s from. I’m not sure if it’ll be with her or by myself. Probably around mid-January.” Don continues to draw Social Security and veterans’ benefits, and says he’s working on a process of budgeting it. What items do you own? Don says he carries his poetry that he’s been writing since his 20s. “If that disappeared it would bother me,” he says. “If my sleeping bag disappeared it’d bother me. Everything else, I tell people if all that walked away, I’d be fine.” Though he locks the sleeping bag up in his bin, he also tends to carry a cell phone.

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Things

1) Spare clothing. 2) A pair of shoes. 3) Toothpaste and a toothbrush. 4) A backpack. All items were just obtained at Marian House.

Adam Hooper, 40

Homeless two weeks, this time around What was your life like before you became homeless? Adam seems scattered when talking about his past, moving between mourning the loss of his wealth and the loss of his family. For a while, he says he was living with his wife of 22 years and his daughter, now 17. But now his wife has a new man living with her and he’s trying to pick himself back up. He says he has a degree in computer science and that, at one point, he made $40 per hour and owned a house, two cars and a boat. How did you become homeless? A while back, Adam says he went to jail for 15 months due to check fraud, then sometime afterward he went back for not paying child support for his 14-year-old son. At one point, though he wasn’t clear exactly when, he was

attacked on the grounds of his apartment building, which he says left him in a coma for a few months. From there, everything went belly-up. It’s been a hard road, but in spite of his depression he’s reached a kind of peace with it. “I’ve had everything and I’ve had nothing,” he says. “I’m the same guy regardless.” Where do you live? Adam’s been staying at the warming shelter and making his way financially with the help of some creative cardboard signs — which he says are always true. “I never lie,” he says. “I had one sign: ‘Wife’s living with another man.’ I made $82 that day.” Another sign of his said flatout that he’d just gotten out of jail. People tend to respond to honesty, he’s noticed.

What do you hope to do now? There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. On Jan. 2, Adam is planning to move to Dallas to live with his sister. He hopes it will be a chance for a fresh start, especially if an expected inheritance comes through. His grandmother recently died and — though a different sister is contesting his claim — he says he’s set to inherit half a million dollars. What items do you own? “I learned a long time ago that if you care about something, you’re going to lose it,” he says. So he owns practically nothing, and what he does own are practical basics. He carries all his possessions with him.

Glyness Williams, 45

Homeless on and off for 10 years What was your life like before you became homeless? “I was married and had three kids. I worked mostly customer service and cleaning. I was getting ready to buy a house.” How did you become homeless? “I was sexually molested and abused when I was younger. I got taken away from my mom when I was a baby. I took drugs [crack cocaine] to solve the pain and I couldn’t pay the rent.” Glyness became homeless in Florida. She’s also lived in Missouri and arrived in Colorado Springs on Dec. 1. She left her kids with their fathers, she says, who are good providers.

Where do you live? At a campsite, just off Nevada Avenue, near downtown, close to Fountain Creek. She lives with her boyfriend, who is also homeless, whom she met a year ago. What do you hope to do now? “Right now, I’m just content,” she says. “I want to see the world. I’ve been stuck in Florida. Everything was Florida, Florida, Florida. I want to go places and see other things.” What items do you own? “The only thing I have that is valuable is a Noah’s Ark [figurine] I bought at a Christmas store. I take it everywhere I go, because the Bible and God mean so much to me.”

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Things

1) Pink scarf and gloves. “The pink messes people up,” Adam says with a laugh. He started wearing pink a while back, when he was trying to get back to Colorado to see his son. He told a man he’d do anything to get up here. The man said he’d give him $350 if he wore a pair of tight women’s pants and a pink shirt for a week — everywhere he went — without explaining it to anyone. He did, and that’s how he got “a free trip to Colorado, man.” 2) Snacks, phone, medicine, gloves, razor, toothbrush. The contents of Adam’s bag speak to simplicity. He’s purged a lot of sentimentality. “I’m going to work on Adam,” he says, tapping his forehead. “I take great pride in that now.”

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Things

1) “I found those [pair of eyeglasses with one lens] in a dumpster and I tried them and they worked for me.” 2) Hand-written cardboard sign that says, “Hungry Anything Helps.” “I started feeling guilty, so I stop [panhandling] at $10 or $15,” Wayne says. “I don’t want to be greedy.” 3) Pair of socks. 4) Cassette recorder with an earpiece. “Music is what’s saving me,” he says.

Things

1) Two water bottles. “The most important, because you can’t go getting dehydrated out here.” 2) An inhaler and a pack of cigarettes. “Essential,” he says, of the latter. 3) Two flashlights. “In case one conks, you know,” though he’s got spare batteries too. 4) A small first aid kit lets him take care of the minor stuff on his own. 5) Sewing kit for field repairs like a fraying red shoelace he fixed last week, but has yet to put back on his shoe. 6) Hand sanitizer and lotion for cleanliness and comfort. “You can tell who lives out here,” he says with a laugh, “from their fingernails.” 7) Set of dice and homemade Yahtzee board (a marked-up piece of well-used paper). 8) Walkman with headphones. “It cost $40 so you know it sounds good,” he says. Preferred music? “Classic rock. All the classics.” 9) Q-tips. “For when I need ‘em, you know, gotta keep those ears clean.”

Charles, aka “Rodney Dangerfield”, 57 Homeless on-and-off for 15 years

Wayne Turner, 49

Homeless three different times, most recently since April 2013 What was your life like before you became homeless? Wayne says he served six years on a murder conviction in Texas, of which he says he was innocent, and later was sentenced to four years in prison in Oklahoma for possession of a half-ounce of marijuana and a pot pipe. “I did three of four years, had no write-ups,” he says. “I figured the next thing would be 10 years [in prison] so I said, ‘I’m going to Colorado where I can meditate legally.’ I came for the meditation abilities. I left all my family to come here to do it legally, to use medication [marijuana].”

How did you become homeless? Wayne says he chose to be homeless after being discharged from prison in Oklahoma and moving to Denver. He then migrated to Nederland and later to Boulder, where he had an operation on his neck. After the surgery, he came to Colorado Springs in February 2015. “I healed up climbing mountains, packing my backpacks

What was your life like before you became homeless? Rodney says he has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and did a year-and-a-half of military service, but he struggles with mental health and addiction. “A doctor told me my mind doesn’t work in complete thoughts,” he says. “I don’t know what that means. But I do jump around a lot.” His jumping around has made it tough to hold down a job and consistently make rent. But even on one of the coldest days of the year to date, Rodney says he’s not worried. “I don’t mind being homeless, I really don’t.”

and pulling my tent,” he says. Where do you live? “At a campsite near Eighth Street and Cimarron. I have my tent. We’re like a family around here [homeless people]. We try to help each other.” What do you hope to do now? “It’s not too bad here in the Springs,” Wayne says. “People are wonderful. There’s good people.” He says he might work construction as a day laborer and would like to access services, such as food stamps, but he’s overcome with anxiety inside buildings where he has to go to apply. “It feels like they’re sucking the air out of my lungs.” What items do you own? “A few pictures of my family. ID. Jewelry. The Boulder flood took everything I had.”

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How did you become homeless? Rodney says he first moved here in 1984 with his wife. While living in a house on the Westside, they had three sons together. “They’re doing great, so I must’ve done something right,” he says. Asked about his wife, he tears up. She died in 1997 after drinking from Fountain Creek, he says. “I hate that river. That river took my wife.” Her passing also meant the loss of their car, which her father owned, so finding work became even tougher. He says he also stopped getting SSI benefits around the same time, so he arranged a day-by-day deal with his landlord that he was unable to fulfill. Where do you live? Rodney was staying down by Dorchester Park this fall, mostly keeping to himself to stay out of trouble, before getting into the new men’s shelter at Springs Rescue Mis-

sion when it opened last month. Even though he flies solo, Rodney seems far from alone, saying hello to other Marian House clients left and right. What do you hope to do now? “Today I’m going to ESM because it’s my day to do laundry,” Rodney says. “I don’t have much clothes, so it’s not too big a deal, but still. Laundry day!” In the long run, getting off the streets is no urgent priority. He lost an appeal seeking to reinstate his SSI benefits and his duration in the military doesn’t qualify him for benefits. “It’s all a mess, such a mess,” Rodney says of trying to navigate the bureaucracy of service providers. He’s on a transitional housing list, but skeptical it’ll pan out. “If they tell me I can’t bring a beer into my own apartment, I’ll say ‘kiss my ass’ [and] stay on the streets.” What items do you own? “My life is in my backpack. It’s all the things I need every day. About 25 pounds and I try to keep it that way.” His backpack is a black and bulky school bag with several internal compartments organized according to a system he can’t quite explain. Today, he’s got two plastic shopping bags full of the laundry. Typically, he’d stash that either at camp or at the Mission. What he doesn’t reveal, but alludes to, is his preferred mode of self-protection, a hefty blade. “Some guys tried to jump me by the creek a while back, and they regretted it.”

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