Houselessness and mental health challenges are overlapping issues. Mental health problems can make it hard to get and retain housing. Not having housing is harmful for your mental health. In this episode we focus on the stories of two individuals, Sally Gosak and Zack McGee-Stuenkel, how they lost housing, and how they regained stability.
Houselessness and mental health challenges are overlapping issues. Mental health problems can make it hard to get and retain housing. Not having housing is harmful for your mental health. In this episode we focus on the stories of two individuals, Sally Gosak and Zack McGee-Stuenkel, how they lost housing, and how they regained stability.
Houselessness and Mental Health
[00:00:00] Anne: Welcome to Mental Health Mosaics from Out North, an arts non-profit located in Anchorage, Alaska on the unceded traditional lands of the Dena'ina People. I'm Anne Hillman.
The intersection of houselessness and mental health could fill an entire season of Mental Health Mosaics. Mental health issues, holes in social safety nets, a lack of support systems for people with mental illneesses and their families, and so many other issues can all come together and end up with people losing their homes or other safe housing.
Unfortunately we don't have the capacity to a whole season on that just yet. Until we can cover houselessness more thoroughly, we're going to introduce some of the issues around housing and mental health through the stories of two people.
Sally Gosak and Zack McGee-Stuenkel wanted to share their stories to help others understand how some people end up with out housing -- and how they become stable again.
A quick note on language in this episode --you'll hear me refer to both houselessness and homelessness. More and more people say house-less instead of home-less because they lack housing. That doesn't mean they don't have a place or a group of people that they consider to be home. In this episode I defer to the language people use to identify themselves and their situations.
Now, meet Sally Gosak -Gus-uk.
Sally is Yup'ik. She grew up in Togiak, Alaska on Bristol Bay and spent much of her time with her grandparents and her many brothers and sisters.
[00:01:40] Sally: My Yup'ik names INSERT NAMES. My grandma's INSERT NAME me was kung-fu Daya girl. And my grandpa's _______for me was INSERT NICKNAME play for me was, ______________and _________means teasing Like I said, I grew up the oldest and I grew up my grandpa's oldest granddaughter.
But then as soon as I turned of age, he started calling me stinky old woman. [Laughs.] INSERT YUP'IK WORDS means mother, INSERT YUP'IK WORD means fried meat. INSERT YUP'IK WORD I don't know what that means. Um, Kung Fu Daya girl, because I tried to teach my brother Kung Fu and I used to be able to jump as high as I was. So my grandma used to always go, um, she'd go Kung Fu are you, my kung fu daya girl? Jump like one then, like my kung fu daya girl one then , like when my girl and I used to jump, I used to jump as high as I was tall when I was about five.
And then my, um, grandpa he'd go. No, INSERT GRANDPA'S WORDS
he'd go. He'd tell me no kisses for the stinky old room and the woman, the old stinky old woman is too stinky. Who, the stinky old woman.
[00:02:59] Anne: Sally spent most of her time outdoors when she was young, picking berries and helping with fishing.
[00:03:06] Sally: I grew up, um, preparing the fish back on shore and it was a lot of fun. Um, watch my grandma and my grandpa on work. My, um, grandpa was, um, he made uluks, the, um, knives. He made berry pickers. He put the lead line and cork line on the seines.
And he was quick with it too. Um, I remember wrapping up the twine for him.My grandma, she, she did, um, a whole lot of traditional stuff. She grasped basket weave. She, um, did skin, skin sewing. Um, she did, she prepared a lot of native food.
[00:03:58] Anne: After Sally moved to Anchorage for college, she eventually started living off and on in homeless encampments. She had a son, too, who is living with her parents.
[00:04:09] Sally: She was diagnosed with schizophrenia with bipolar disorder and depression disorder.
If I'm not on my medication my mind is all over the place.
I get too happy. And then out of nowhere I'll become super sad. It's um, the crippling depression. And sometime it just would be easier just to go back out on the streets.
When I'm that depressed, it feels like I deserve it.
[00:04:33] Anne: Sally says living in camps had a complicated effect on her mental health. In some ways, she felt protected and supported by the people she was camping with.
[00:04:44] Sally: since I've been homeless, like I said, it's so much easier for me to become homeless. I could just go out and go to a certain place and I'm well taken care of. I am spoiled.
[00:05:00] Anne: I would love it if you would elaborate on that because I don't think anybody would ever associate the words homeless with spoiled.
[00:05:08] Sally: I'm able to eat. I'm able to sit someplace warm without, um, having to be told to go away as long as I want. And I'm able to, like, I just get things
a lot of the homeless men.
They, um, they see a homeless woman and they'll go out of their way to make sure that they're okay.
[00:05:37] Anne: Really?
That's not the story that's often told.
[00:05:42] Sally: Well with, um, my experiences and the people around me, a lot of the women that I've known were spoiled.
[00:05:52] Anne: But she also went through really dark and confusing periods when she wouldn't bathe and she wouldn't eat. Sally says when she's not on her medications, he schizophrenia fills her mind with voices that only she can hear. They are very real to her. During her most recent period of living in an encampent, she she was going through one of those very dark moments. That's when she first met the bear.
[00:06:21] Sally: the first day I was digging through like, um, an abandoned camp and the bear showed up. I couldn't go inside.
So the, what I had to do is I threw the tarp over my head and because I'm schizo and she, she comes up right next to the tarp. She's standing right above me. And she goes, I hear you. I smell you. I know you're there. Next time. I want to see your face. You're too close to my Cub. And so I said, okay.
And she said, I'm going to let you go to sleep. And Ifell asleep.
[00:06:55] Anne: Sally said she was terrified, but she also didn't care if they hurt her. The bear and her two cubs visited her multiple times. She said the bear told her that she was there to protect her and that she knew Sally could see her and talk to her. They had a spiritual connection and the bears could see the angels protecting Sally's camp. But Sally also knew that bears could be dangerous and followed the directions she heard from the mama bear. One day, the mama bear had her cubs introduce themselves to Sally.
[00:07:33] Sally: She tells her, um, tell him to tell him who, tell, tell me who they are. The older one would go first and he'd go, I'm the one you call ___________and then he'd run towards his mom. And then the other one would come up and she'd go. I'm the one who called __________and it just smaller.
And then she'd run off. And we'd have, we'd have, um, lunches, like I'd be sitting there watching something, um, or like in my little tent or doing something. A couple of times was after I got back from the food bank and she goes, surrender the sour milk. She says, surrender the cheese stuff surendra the egg stuff.
You need to surrender the cheese stuffed. I know I'm not supposed to be feeding the bears, but she says surrender.
[00:08:25] Anne: The encounters with the bears helped Sally decide it was time to leave the camp and try to live a normal life. More voices had joined the bears, some from her shoes.
[00:08:38] Sally: And then the shoes that I have on the, I kept hearing they're my correction shoes. These are my under arrest shoes.
She even felt like she heard the voices of the people driving past on the nearby road saying they were sick of looking after her. The voices told her it was time to surrender herself to the police for a parole violation. She decided she didn't want to live in camps anymore.
And I mean, as much fun as it is, as easy as it could be. It's it's spiritually draining
and mentally like having to figure out whether or not the bear's going to show up. I mean, I love the bear, whether or not somebody is going to, to try to show up and try to do something. And I was, I was, um, at the point in my life where I wanted it, I wanted something bad to happen.
Cause I was just tired.
[00:09:43] Anne: Sally was picked up by the police and ended up in jail.
[00:09:47] Sally: And like, I ended up getting, um, put in jail for 62 days. I was supposed to only be there for 10. If I was there for 10, then I would have been back around the streets,
they made a mistake, um, due to COVID, um, all the cases are being pushed and a whole bunch of, a lot of the, um, defense public defenders there. Um, they, a few of them there's like a lot of them that got put on leave, so all the cases were pushed. So I ended up being there for like 62 days. And if I wasn't there that long, I wouldn't have been, um, referred to new life.
[00:10:27] Anne: New Life Development is a transitional living center that offers supervision and support, including help with remembering medications and becoming and staying sober.
I would have been back out on the streets and I would have been back into my addiction and back talking towards the bears.
And now you're medicated and
[00:10:50] Sally: I don't hear those things anymore.
[00:10:52] Anne: Do you miss it?
[00:10:55] Sally: Not really. It's loud. Yeah. Hearing people that aren't there, that I want to be there. And I'm all by myself.
No,
I mean like I'm, I miss hearing my mom's voice, my dad's voice and my son's voice, but they're not there.
And because I was so lost, um, I isolated myself and they could talk to me for a while. So now that I'm medicated, I don't hear like the people talking when, when they're passing by, I don't have conversations with people silently that are in the room and I didn't even open my mouth. I don't see the little things running around the room.
Like normally there's always some kind of little small thing that follows me.
We call them MISSING YUP'IK WORD
little people? Okay.
And they're not there anymore?
No. When I was in treatment, they were all over the place. I was sitting there just watching them run around the room and they'd pull them. They'd pull my attention too. I'll see them slightly, but they, they can't pull my attention
like they used to things can, um, if I'm not on my medication, The, um, voices pull my attention and I won't be able to, um, be able to focus on what I need to be done, what needs to be done. So a lot of times when I was out in the tents, I'd forget to get food. If I was, if I was by myself, I forget to get food and I'd forget to get water for days.
Now that Sally's stable, she's started reading the Bible again, long an important and grounding practice in her life.
once God has gotten a hold of your life, a hold of your heart for even just a moment, he will never let go. Even if you try to, um, try to, um, shy away from him. He once, like I said, even my darkest times, he was there, he has never left me.
Sally has also held a job for months and was recently promoted.
I know I'm organized. I know I'm clean. I know I like to take care of myself. And I know I like to do, um, do things with my hands all the time and I can do something repetitive.
I'm making an AF um, round Afghan, doily, Afghan.
the people around, like, they're so supportive of, like being sober and doing good. And I know I could do good. And it just, I'm surrounded this time. Last time when I did went to school, when I was going to school, I was more isolated. I mean, I had my classmates, but when I went home, I was all by myself.
So now when I go home, I'm not all by myself and I'm, I've got a support system and then my family they're talking to me and they're super proud of me and I don't want to do the, um, you know, falling back down. As easy as it sounds, it's so much easier and so much better for me right now.
I am happy. I am super happy right now.
[00:14:38] Anne: Since recording this interview, Sally finished the program at New Life and is seeking long-term housing. She moved out of the transitional home and is living with her best friend in a motel. She feels like she's stable and in a good place, and mentally stronger than she's been in quite some time.
(MUSIC)
Before we continue, please be aware that the next story mentions suicide, self harm, and abuse. If any of these issues are triggering for you, consider listening with a friend or family member. ok, back to the show...
Zack McGee-Stuenkel's path in and out of houselessness was very different from Sally's. His childhood was chaotic and involved him going in and out of mental health treatment programs and the Alaska Military Youth Academy.
[00:15:29] Zack: So I was also adopted my family wasn't biological and it was still chaos at best.
Um, one of the things I grew up around was a lot of domestic violence, different types of abuse, um, neglect.
And I was also a latchkey child, which means I was left alone a lot and expected to pick up the responsibility that adults would handle.
[00:16:01] Corey: Zack's been a lot more mature for most people his age, for very long, for a long time, actually
[00:16:15] Anne: That's Corey Farrow, one of Zack's therapists at VOA-Alaska. You'll hear his voice from time to time, supporting Zack as he shares his story.
[00:16:24] Zack: I didn't get to do the childhood worry things. Um, I was expected to maintain an act like an adult as well as accomodate for everyone else's mental health needs. And I was just meant to power and push through it.
[00:16:42] Anne: Was that a spoken expectation or ?
[00:16:46] Zack: It was both spoken and expected and it was often not direct.
It was. Family members would have certain triggers that would be accommodated for, but as soon as I spoke about mine, it was ignored, pushed aside, or as told as attention-seeking,
[00:17:16] Anne: how did that affect you?
[00:17:18] Zack: Eventually? I got really quiet and I stopped socializing. I slowly fell deeper into depression. Um,
it's one of the reasons I'm a suicide survivor
and it's made it to where I feel like sometimes I'm emotionally or not emotionally I'm socially awkward because I don't have those skills that other people were taught at a younger age.
[00:17:54] Anne: Here's Corey again on Zack.
[00:17:56] Corey: But always quick to try to take care of everybody else sometimes more so than himself.
Something that we're still working on. Zach is quite often quick to help others, but then when he needs it or it needed help with us as a treatment team or whoever he waits till after the fact something will pass or whatever it may be.
And he's like, oh, by the way, kind of like in passing.
[00:18:29] Zack: Um, yes.
I think it's something I feel guilty for because I was expected to take care of myself. So I've learned to just deal with it. And if it is a big situation, I often catch myself, me and like, I'll figure it out. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll figure it out.
[00:18:52] Corey: Yeah. It's that burden piece. It doesn't want to be a burden because he said that before to all of us.
After multiple fights with his mom and periods of severe depression, Zack eventually shut down and stopped speaking. Home life was really, really rough. Soon after graduating from high school in 2016, a family friend took him to Covenant House, a youth shelter in Anchorage. It was not an easy transition.
[00:19:18] Zack: I think the biggest barrier I had to accept was in the beginning I was completely non-verbal. Um, I didn't talk, I didn't smile. And I was always tucked away in a corner back to the wall.
So there was no surprises
That was when I first left home and became houseless. My depression had gotten so bad that I could have being diagnosed as a mute. I just chose not to talk.
Zach jumped anytime someone entered the room. But he didn't think he needed to focus on mental health at first -- he just needed a job and stable housing.
I was completely ignoring the mental health side and just throwing myself into work. And I ended up working at a daycare for a little over a year as a lead toddler teacher.
And I, I, it was okay.
[00:20:31] Anne: You seem almost baffled, by this
[00:20:36] Zack: there were of course challenges, especially if you're someone with like social anxiety and you're just, you're around little people all day. And then you're around older people at the end of the day.
[00:20:47] Anne: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Corey: Also knowing Zach, it's always funny that he had that job. Just something you would never expect for him to do is work with little kids. Yup.
[00:21:01] Anne: Tell me why.
[00:21:04] Corey: Um, just his personality. He's very standoffish, especially with, with most individuals, but like slow to open up, but once you get to know him, he's a great guy.
So just take some time and. You don't really get that all the time with the little ones you have to like be on 24 7 when they're there and that's, that's not Zach at all.
[00:21:28] Anne: So did you learn from the experience, like, did it help you? Uh,
[00:21:35] Zack: no.
Like at the end of the day I was just tired and that was a challenge in itself cause I would be going back to a shelter where I'd be around 60 plus people. And then I would be in a room that had two other people for the night. So it was constantly running with social anxiety and never having any down time.
[00:22:09] Anne: How did you survive that?
[00:22:12] Zack: I don't know. Um, I think I learned, I don't want to say it's negative coping skill, but one of the things that I've learned to like blast music in headphones to block out everyone else, um, or I would find secluded areas in the mall just to hang out, um, anything just to get some downtime and relatively away from people.
[00:22:47] Anne: Zach started self-harming. He found it easier to focus on the physical pain than on the mental pain. Eventually he ended up admitted to the hospital for mental health treatment. That led to an important and positive change in Zach's life.
[00:23:03] Zack: the person who was doing my paperwork asked why it hadn't mentioned that I was trans.
I had filled it out on the paperwork on a whim. I didn't think anything would come from it. And they confronted me. They asked me what my preferred name was and it was great. Um, I was back in my room and they were doing their like checks and rounds. And I heard them refer to me as he, him and Zach for the first time.
And it's like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and it just so like, I could breathe again and I was like, okay, I can do this.
accepting that I was trans was a bigger step to accepting the other mental health issues I had to actually work on. As well as I think it started the self-acceptance and forgiveness that a lot of the stuff that I went through was out of my control.
[00:24:01] Anne: Zack connected with Choosing Our Roots, a program that supports houseless queer youth in Alaska. They helped him find housing and connected him with VOA, where he receives mental health treatment. But he doesn't just go to therapy to work on his trauma or his eating disorder. The program also teaches life skills, including balancing budgets, buying healthy foods, and other adulting skills. Corey, the therapist, explains.
[00:24:28] Corey: Because if those are in line, then he's not stressing about finances, which also then impact his mental health. So it all, it's all just really connects together. So we can't just kind of piece it off by itself.
[00:24:44] Anne: Zack agrees -- everything is tied together.
[00:24:46] Zack: the way I look at it is if you're not focusing on your mental health, you're not going to keep your housing.
[00:24:52] Anne: Focusing both on mental health and the life skills that give people the space to focus on their mental health makes it much easier to maintain secure housing for the long-term.
[00:25:05] Corey: So let's say a client has had the police called to their apartment in the past or whatever, or wherever they're living for mental health concerns, whether they're having like a psychotic break or they're having just very active, suicidal ideation, the police are the one, or they are the ones they're using to come and check that out.
Landlords don't like police to come to their apartments a lot of the time to do safety checks or really anything because it doesn't look good to other tenants there. So having that come and having that on your history or having arrest or anything like that, that all kind of plays factors into that.
The majority of individuals have mental health concerns, whether it's they have ADHD like myself, or they have depression, OCD, whatever, and they're all mental health concerns. They can work on those. I don't need extra things in place to kind of tell them that they're worthless.
[00:26:05] Zack: I agree that, um, mental health shouldn't be a barrier for trying to find a home or an apartment. I've had some issues because like I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2018 and one of the things is I have night terrors.. And one night I remember waking up, I'm pretty sure it was screamed at some point.
And I was definitely crying and my neighbor came up and very aggressively knocked on my door and told me to quiet down and then complained the following morning to the management. But because the police weren't called, there was nothing they could do.
[00:27:02] Corey: So a situation like that could eventually lead to an eviction. Yeah. And then if you have an eviction, most landlords don't want to rent to you, but if they had like maybe researched why that eviction happened and it would have been related more to towards mental health concerns and they had a better understanding of mental health, then maybe that would have been alleviated for future instances.
[00:27:22] Anne: Both Corey and Zack emphasize that if the public learns more about mental health and develops empathy for people with different life experiences, it can help prevent people from losing their housing. Zack also wants people to learn from his personal story, to understand they are not alone.
[00:27:41] Zack: So when I first became houseless, I pretty much thought it was hopeless in the beginning. It wasn't until while I was working at the daycare that another employee who is still on the younger side, but I would say in their late twenties, um, stated to me that they were once in Covenant House themselves, and that they now had a, an apartment and their own home and pets and all of that.
[00:28:21] Anne: And that person was an inspiration.
[00:28:24] Zack: Yeah. It made me realize that it is possible that you have to put in the work.
Which is, I think something else I'm working on mentally I've, don't accept all of the work that I've done. I don't, it's almost like imposter syndrome.
[00:28:43] Corey: I love it. Self-awareness is growing.
[00:28:49] Zack: Um, because logically I know I put in the work, but emotionally, I still feel like I'm, I haven't done anything. And I don't deserve to be where I'm at
[00:29:05] Corey: even a few months ago, that would not have been the case. That would not have been the answer if I'm like, but I have not done anything to deserve this, or I have whatever the answer may have been. So I love this,
[00:29:20] Anne: you know, you realize you deserve stability and you deserve housing.
[00:29:25] Zack: Yeah.
[00:29:26] Anne: When other people are feeling hopeless and like, they feel like they can't get out of it. what are your words for them?
[00:29:36] Zack: It's hard. It's really hard. Cause you just, you don't see a way out. Um, and more often than not, if you get caught up in the drama of the shelter life, you're gonna stay there. Um, you really do have to kind of focus on yourself and try not to get involved with the cliques like you can make friends. Don't let it drag you down.
[00:30:08] Anne: Corey, what do you think people should take from Zack story?
[00:30:14] Corey: That the situation that you're in right now is not forever. Zach did put in the work, Zach had the motivation and the drive to change the circumstances. It's taken some time to get where he's at and he's not done. He's continuing to grow and move forward.
But yeah, it can happen. It is difficult though. Society, culture, other people, whatever. They're going to be barriers at times, like some of our clients just have a whole lot of barriers just to being housed. Just a feeling that they're an actual human, they deserve even some of the basic necessities, but Zach has been able to do it.
I think the majority of people can get there as well. You just got to be willing to kind of get uncomfortable at times and break out of your shell.
[00:31:06] Anne: A huge thanks to Sally, Zach, and Corey for sharing their stories.
Everyone deserves safe housing -- it's a basic human right -- but as both Sally's and Zack's stories remind us, mental health problems can make us feel like we don't deserve it. Our minds can make us feel less than human. So what's the very, very least any of us can do to reduce people's barriers to housing? Educate ourselves and others about mental health issues and remind people that they deserve to be treated like full humans. We all deserve safe homes.
And then talk to your local lawmakers about funding housing first projects and mental health treatment centers and changing some policies around zoning laws and... like I said at the top of the episode, it's a big issue. These are just two stories presenting two experiences with many many lessons.
This episode was edited by Jenna Shner, produced by me, Anne Hillman, with audio mixing by Dave Waldron. Our theme music is by Aria Phillips. Mental Health Mosaics receives funding from the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism, the Alaska Mental Health Trust, and the Alaska State Council for the Arts.
If you enjoyed this episode or at least learned something from it, please take a moment to rate us on your favorite podcast app and encourage people you know to download it. The more people this story reaches, the more likely it is to continue. You can also find art, creative prompts, and other resources on our website mental-health-mosaics-dot-o-r-g. Thanks for listening!