A Sudden Fall

Armenia was born January 19, 1959. She had been employed—gainfully employed. A clerical job, I think, and it supported her and her family. She had a daughter who had children, but to my knowledge, there was never a man in the picture.

She was at a party one evening and probably drank more than she should have, and she fell off a fourth-story balcony. She sustained a pretty severe head injury, resulting in seizures. She was hospitalized for quite a while… And because of that she lost her job, lost her housing, and, of course, when I met her was on the street. She stayed with family for as long as you can do that. Then you get to where that doesn’t last anymore, and she started spiraling into drug addiction and alcohol…

When I first met Armenia, she did not trust me at all. I replaced a provider who had been here 4 or 5 years, and she was definitely attached. She didn’t take to me very well at first, and she was very cautious. I think that comes from how she was treated and what she dealt with during her homeless time. When she was homeless in Mobile on the street, there was no women’s shelter. None.

She slept out every night. And she had to figure out places to sleep, and sometimes women do things they have to do to get a bed for the night… It made her a very cynical person. Once she became clean and sober, she became more trusting. But [before then] she could come to our office, and we’d let her clean up and bathe, and so she became much more cordial and trusting of me and my staff.

Finding Sobriety and a Chance to Live

Getting clean and sober is what saved her life, literally. And that’s why she wanted to give back, because she felt like that was part of her sobriety. She went to meetings, and in the evening she’d find some corner to sleep in. [She didn’t get housed for nearly 10 years.] That’s a long time to be on the street, as a woman. You can see why she was just a little bit resentful.

She would get clean and sober and then she would relapse—all of the things that you hear. And a lot of it had to do because it was such an impossible lifestyle. The only way you could bear it was to stay high. She just got sick and tired of being sick and tired… With her seizures, she fell all the time. The alcohol intensified the seizures.

She just knew if she was going to live, she had to stop.

She cleaned herself up on the street, and she managed to stay sober on the street for four or five years… She was incredibly happy, and she began volunteering in all sorts of ways to try to help homeless people because she felt the need to pay back. She would get up and bathe in McDonald’s and then go do her charitable work for the shelters or wherever that she was needed. We used to be located next to the Catholic Social Services, and she would go there and help them in the thrift store.

She just… [overcome with emotion] I can hardly tell the story. But she was just one that stood out, because she gave so much.

Because of the fall, she had terrible teeth and we got her dentures, and she just looked amazing and was just doing very well. I think [my favorite memory of her is] probably when she came in to show me her new teeth. I had never seen her smile, because she couldn’t smile because the teeth were so messed up.

“The main thing we can do [to end homeless deaths] is provide adequate housing, as well as access to recovery programs and women’s shelters. I couldn’t believe there were no women’s shelters in Mobile. In Birmingham, we had several. Even today, the primary local recovery centers are male. It’s only been eight years since we even had a women’s shelter.

Before that women’s shelter opened there was not a week that went by that I did not have to take care of a woman who had been beaten, raped, or both. Since the shelter has opened, it’s gone down drastically. I rarely see a woman who’s homeless that has been abused unless they became homeless as a direct result. That’s just how important a shelter is. When you’re sleeping out, you’re open to all kinds of trauma.

For one thing, women have periods, and that’s a terrible situation when you’re homeless. There’s nowhere to go—what if you don’t have the products you need? People don’t think about that. It’s a pain anyhow, and it’s really a pain if you’re homeless. Women are more vulnerable. If they have to find a place to stay, they have to use what skills they have in order to find it… I don’t think men have to do that nearly as much as women do. That puts you in an extremely self-deprecating situation if you have to do that to survive.” – Sharon Brammer

“She Would Not Sleep in the Bed”

At this time, there was no such thing as Housing First, or any housing for homeless women. And so she was probably one of the first in Mobile to get housing through Housing First. She didn’t get housed until probably 2009.

She reconciled with her family. That was wonderful… It took her a while to win their confidence, because [you have to] remember she would get clean for a while and then relapse. They didn’t just welcome her with open arms. She had to prove herself. And I think that’s part of the reason she did the volunteer work like she did, was so they knew she was committed to staying sober… she had some grandchildren and was able to be there for them. They didn’t know her any other way except clean and sober.

The first month that [Armenia] was in her housing she would not sleep in the bed.

She hadn’t slept in a bed in so many years that she just slept on the floor next to it. She said the bed was so high because she’d slept on the floor for so long. And she finally got used to it… She kept an immaculate, clean apartment.

She was so proud of it.

And we don’t know why, but she’d been in housing about eight months and she just passed away from natural causes. She was in fairly good health, and we had her seizures under control. I had been her primary provider, and she didn’t have high cholesterol, she didn’t have high blood pressure. She did have her seizures, but they were well controlled and so I think maybe she had a heart attack. There was no autopsy; they just said it was natural causes.

And it was so sad that she’d worked so hard, but she died happy. She died in housing. She wasn’t on the street.

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