Robin, 65, has a sociable demeanor that belies a lifetime of physical and mental abuse by the individuals most people are taught to rely on - her mother, and members of law enforcement.

“My mom was mean. She was a Brooklyn Italian. She had the accent to prove it,” she said. Consequently, Robin never had a sense of self-worth. Throughout her teenage years, while her brother was doing heavier drugs while she was smoking Thai stick, drinking, and having crushes on different girls. She ended up sleeping on the street four different times. Beginning at the age of 15 she bought and sold cars being sold at police auctions. She would live in some, clean them up, and resell them, saving up to purchase nicer cars to sleep in. That didn’t always work out when the police would tow or confiscate a vehicle that had acquired too many parking tickets. At one point she was molested by a cop who threatened her life when she tried to turn him in. She was vindicated six years later when that cop was prosecuted.

Despite the lack of resources for unhoused individuals in East County, she never strayed too far from her mother’s home, hoping that at some point their relationship would approach “normal.” During COVID, for instance, she was living in her car in El Cajon, struggling to access the disappearing resources like water, food, and public bathrooms. “I was like, pooping in a bag. There was nothing for us. Nothing.”

Robin would see younger women appear on the street, especially runaways, being sweet-talked by guys who wanted a blow job. These men would get the women hooked on drugs and then control them by becoming their supplier. “You’d hear people screaming and yelling on the street sometimes - day or night. That was usually some woman suffering from PTSD. They were trapped,” she said.

Robin never finished high school; she only completed the ninth grade. “I don’t know how to read or write. I don’t know a verb from a noun,” she said. But her strong personality allowed her to convince people she had considerable schooling and skills. For example, her brother started shooting drugs at age 14 and kept getting into trouble to the point he was a two-striker. Nevertheless he was their mother’s golden child. Robin wanted to do her part to protect him from getting a third strike. She decided she needed to understand the parole system. So she got to know a woman who created educational programs within the parole system. Robin ended up becoming the primary coach in a program that trained people in the carceral system trying to earn their GED. She worked at that job until the funding ran out. The confidence she built by managing that program triggered something in herself. She understood she had the wherewithal to stand up for herself and for others.

Her hope that some day her mother would be a real mom was finally realized when her mother had a falling out with the relatives that were living with her. She asked Robin to come stay with her because she didn’t trust anyone else. That brief taste of connection was short-lived, however. Her mother, suffering from dementia due to Alzheimer’s, had mood swings. One day, about two weeks after she had moved in, she started choking Robin, and Robin had a tough time getting her to let go. Her mother died soon thereafter, in 2018. A gaggle of greedy relatives forced Robin out of the house again, and she was homeless for the next seven years. Because she has two fractures in her back, sleeping in a car or on the street was especially painful and added to her depression. She found her way into various local shelters and temporary housing but they all presented problems. When she was at PATH, a man came into her shower. At other shelters, there was bad lighting and some areas are too secluded so women, especially new intakes, are vulnerable, she said. “ You’ve got tweakers up all night running the show, there’s drugs moving in and out. It affects you. I’ve had breakdowns.”

She feels that the system needs an overhaul if it is to ever be successful at reducing homelessness. “Trust is impossible because case workers will ghost you. The Housing Commission keeps the money that went to your rent. You’re a number. The landlords are afraid of the young punk junkies in the building. The young kids are all out doing drugs and people like me are the target. Everyone I’ve met has been robbed. They even stole my wallet from right off my handlebars when I was trying to unlock the gate to the apartment complex here. They need help, they need a hand.”

The constant vulnerability and victimization takes its toll. “I’ve been crying a lot lately because you get exposed to so much. You don’t make real friends. You meet people whose whole persona is ‘do you got…’ something, whatever they are looking for - cigarettes, money,” she said. “Especially the women. They see us as vulnerable. We’re targets.” She knows the housed population is tired of hearing about homelessness. “I spent Christmas on the beach in PB in a tent. I understand how people look at us. Trump is putting us in concentration camps in Utah and making them work. It’s psycho.”

The apartment she currently is supposed to be living in recently had an electrical fire in the closet. She wasn’t home when fire fighters sprayed the studio apartment with retardant. Her belongings were piled into the center of the room and covered with a plastic tarp. “An inspector from the Housing Commission came and declared it uninhabitable,” she said. The smell of slightly astringent fire retardant still hangs heavy in the air. A cot is shoved into the corner near the window that looks onto the passageway outside her door. She is highly sensitive to smells. Of the fire retardant, she said, “My skin is burning. It’s depleting my body. I can feel it.” She is also allergic to pesticides, so when management sprayed to rid the building of roaches, she was taken to the emergency room because she couldn’t breathe. “People don’t think of these things. We’re all different,” she said. “I’m losing my mind here, I can’t stay in this room, but they are trying to evict me and it’s not my fault.”

Still Robin has a positive outlook on life. She believes in people. On her way to a church feed Sunday, a man in a wheelchair cheered her up with a brief conversation and it had a lasting impact the rest of that day. She shared that she has a grand vision for developing an app that will link to an interactive map explaining what natural resources went into making any item, and where on the planet those resources were harvested. When I pointed out that developing that app might be a bit expensive, she replied, “Money is no object when you have none. I’m learning to separate myself from my circumstances.”