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Homeless Woman Has a Masters in Mathematics and Engineering - YouTube
Channel: Invisible People
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mona we're out here
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in a park by the airport
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and this is where you live correct tell
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me about it
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um well i came here via santa monica
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i guess is where i first was at before i
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came here um i've been here for about
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five or six months now five months um
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and it was funny because we came here we
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just knew the park was here we didn't
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know anything about it but it turned out
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the day we were
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got here we learned it was a safe zone
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just during the time of the virus
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which means you could be here at night
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without being uh persecuted
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so we decided we would stay here for a
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while
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and we've been here for about five or
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six months now
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and it is i guess a safe zone in general
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how did you end up homeless
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um well on december 4th 2017
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my house burned down is part of the
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thomas fire which at that time was the
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largest
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wildfire in california state history it
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was in ventura county
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i lived in the upper ohio on the edge of
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the forest and they saved the
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homes down in ventura the city so
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everything in the upper ohio kind of
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burned down
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and hundreds of people were homeless
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like instantly overnight
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and you also lost your job i lost my job
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that same day i worked from home
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making phone calls for an insurance
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adjuster i made 25 an hour
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uh doing phone calls about four hours a
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day setting up a schedule
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of appointments for him and then faxing
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it to him or whatever and
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uh it was great my doctor be right there
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with me when i was working i didn't have
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to drive anywhere
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and then when the fire happened i no
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longer had the home office to work at
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so i kind of told him i had something at
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my mom's house which wasn't true but i
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wanted to keep the job
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and uh i think he kind of knew that i
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couldn't be right or something because
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he
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never really i sent him that last
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invoice which was dated like the day
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before the fire and then
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i never had another project with him
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after that he never said why exactly but
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i think it had something to do with the
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lack of home office to make the phone
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calls in
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now you're a college graduate uh yeah no
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i'm a college graduate i
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have a bachelor's of science in
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mathematics
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as well as nearly a master's of science
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in mathematics
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i finished almost but all but two
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classes
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but i left there i went to berkeley to
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get my masters of science in industrial
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engineering and operations research
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and a certificate in logistics and
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so here you are
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with masters and bachelors
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and you're living in a park that's true
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um
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i mean the initial thing behind that was
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the fire but
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um then there was a housing crunch that
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goes along with having a fire and just
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all these different factors
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led into it being longer and longer of
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me being homeless it's been a while
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since i had worked
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in my field of statistics i used to work
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in electricity research doing
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building efficiency research i published
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eight journal articles
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i had stopped doing that for about 10
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years that's where my real training is
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at but um
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you said a station yeah statistician
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like uh
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statistics data analysis yeah that kind
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of thing so i worked
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mainly for the california public
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utilities commission
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the california energy commission
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southern california edison
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um we did the first study of its type in
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the world to estimate the amount of
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electricity consumed by outdoor lighting
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in california and they made title 24
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energy code modifications based on our
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study
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yeah so is anybody helping you um
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not that much i mean i think
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part of the problem is navigating the
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system and determining how to um
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get the help because i mean they come
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around here and they give us these weird
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lunches that
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some people eat i don't really like them
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i'm kind of picky eater
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but um and that but
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to actually get yourself like helped
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into a place because i don't see how you
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can really
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work like get a job and be a productive
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member of society living in the park i
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mean how do you get
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showered for the job interview and your
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suit on and
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they're on time you know it's just too
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many factors that could go wrong
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so you have to be inside i believe until
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you can really like
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work and become productive so i don't
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remember what you asked me that got me
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started
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yeah yeah because we talked about it
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earlier
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is anybody helping you um i think there
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are some services out there but
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navigating the system to find them and
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get connected with them is a whole other
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story um so nobody's really helping me
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right now i mean i get some food stamps
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and uh
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general relief from you i was gonna ask
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that how do how do you survive so you're
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getting gr
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for those who don't know that's like 200
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a month 225 maybe yeah 200 and something
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like that
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yeah and you get food stamps which
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luckily just increased about fifty
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dollars
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so that's great yeah um but i'll hear
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it's hard
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you can't to keep food you know oh yeah
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i know i weigh so much food
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just from buying it because i refuse to
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only eat non
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i mean i need things that yeah they're
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gonna go bad like cheese i survive on
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cheese so
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you know it's a lot of times i have to
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throw it away because i didn't have a
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refrigeration
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and we can't cook any hot food ever like
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that's one thing that's really lucky
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yeah
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the um when you said hard to navigate
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social services
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i mean there's people coming out here
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and
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explain the navigate part i mean because
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we talked about it a little bit earlier
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and i'm sure there's outreach that comes
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out here but they're just
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you said overloaded that's part of it is
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that there's so many people for them to
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help
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and they're probably short staffed with
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their organizations because they
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probably don't pay that much
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and so to you know they have a hundred
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people they're trying to help that one
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person doesn't
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you think slips through their mind they
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lose track of what everybody needs
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so they can't you know what i mean
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they're over worked but
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the other part of navigating the system
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is in order to get place with a voucher
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let's say a housing voucher
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you have to be referred to this ces
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system and this like scoring uh key that
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they have so a lot of people don't
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understand that or
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what that means they've never even
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filled out the survey to get the score
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so they're never going to change their
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housing situation
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and and you're talking it so it's the
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coordinated entry yeah the ceos and then
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they have
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different ways of uh thinking the survey
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that you're talking about
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is to see how vulnerable you are to see
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if you're worthy of help the worthy poor
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and unworthy well what they do
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is they um go down the list in
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descending order of scores
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so the higher your score the more
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crucial it is i guess for you to get
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inside
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right and so therefore those are the
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people they award the matches to first
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but see i understand that because i
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think we have
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a there's no favoritism that way yeah
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well i think we need
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you know people that are closer to death
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we need to help
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but also like you if you were
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in housing if they came and housed you
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in a year or so
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you you would be able to restabilize you
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would
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heal and then you would go back into
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society i mean you're a college graduate
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but
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if they wait until you're vulnerable
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that means that social services
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is going to be taking care of you for
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the rest of your life well luckily for
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me i've had some
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fairly intense not luckily for me i've
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had some fairly intense trauma
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in my past things that are like unheard
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of like almost out of this world kind of
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thing
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so i actually uh because of my mental
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health status i do rate a fairly high
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score
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and i did meet an algebra each worker
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the other day he told me he thinks he
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can raise my score two or three points
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and i'm
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getting in touch with him to make that
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happen yeah it's just so sad that they
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have to
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prioritize people like that it should be
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well you know
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here's the thing that used to happen
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before this system was in place i
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believe in the system the ces system
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actually because before that
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they would call up the local housing
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shelter of their town like santa monica
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would call up one in santa monica and
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say hey we've got 30 vouchers
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and the lady there's going to hand them
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out to the people she likes
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you know what i mean so if she doesn't
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like you you're kind of after you're
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never going to get anything happening
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whereas with the ces system it's
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objective anybody can verify your
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scoring
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as well as you know they could say this
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is the order in which we've contacted
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well
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ces is a good idea the problem one of
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the problems is
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all non-profits aren't equal right so
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they all don't get
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the um the support
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so being able to route you to the
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services that you need
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or the housing and then the other issue
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is there's lack of housing
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yeah that's i think one of the main
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issues is just the overall lack
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of actual housing units to go through
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the population cause i just read this
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interesting thing today
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that in the 2000s for every one housing
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unit that was built
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there was an increase in population in
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la of two people
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so that's half the rate now nowadays for
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every one housing unit built
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it's four new people in la or whatever
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so
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basically you're they're building about
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one fourth of the percentage
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of what they need you know what i mean
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or one per fourth of the total
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well i i don't know what the statistics
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are
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um you know that that's your expertise
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right what i do know is that los angeles
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is really good
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at building luxury housing and really
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bad
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at building low-income housing yeah
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so you're talking about trauma most
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homeless people out here
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have experienced some kind of trauma
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that's true
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um i mean just being out here you're
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exposed all the time 24 7
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and eventually you're going to come
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across something bad actually my trauma
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happened indoors
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uh right i made the wrong people pissed
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off and
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and i went through a lot i'm not gonna
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get into this particular no no i i'm not
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i'm just no i know you're not yeah yeah
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everybody has it though
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most homeless people have gone through
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it the the trauma caused them here and
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then
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being here is more true more true yeah
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some people's traumas are way more
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extreme than others i've noticed like
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some people what they call
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trauma i'm like oh my god that's a walk
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in the park yeah or whatever
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but you know it's traumatic for them
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exactly exactly
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we have to accept that that's their
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reality if you had three wishes what
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would they be
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um to be back inside in a house where i
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can shower every day
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wash my clothes comb my hair you know
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just be having good hygiene practices
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and stuff
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to be inside for that and to cook and um
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so that's one wish
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i wish i could go back to my former
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career
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of data analysts for electricity
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research because i really did love that
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job and whatever the facts are that i
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was good at it too
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i just getting back to it seems almost
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insurmountable at this time
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i'm sure it's not once you know once i'm
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inside then it's that much easier but
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at this point in time it's too much and
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the third wish would be a dog i want a
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dog i had a dog
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with a fire happened and then
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it came down to just being me and the
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dog for a long time and then the dog
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died in june 2019
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uh which was terrible so i really wish i
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had a dog
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with me right now to travel my path a
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little one
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white poodle mix or something
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great wishes well thank you very much
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for talking to me thank you for your
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time mark
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and for considering me
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[Music]
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you
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