Jenn Whitney

stories: looking for a way home

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Looking for a Way Home

At 22, Michele Silvey has already lived an exceptionally precarious life. She says her mother was a mentally retarded alcoholic and drug addict who suffered from epilepsy. She was in and out of foster care from the age of 5, and was molested by her stepfather from age 10. She has been in 16 different psychiatric wards, taken 32 different medications, lived in four different group homes and, at one point, was transferred to a juvenile boot camp for being uncontrollable. While she managed to steer clear of drugs, she did spend time in jail and juvenile homes for assault and theft. "I never had somewhere to feel comfortable and was always on the run," Michele says. "I never had the structured family - the actual love, care, and devotion that I’m trying to give my children."

Like many foster children in Missouri, Michele fell through the cracks in the system when she turned 17, and was discharged from Chillicothe Women’s Prison. She would not be eligible for social services, including government health care and food stamps until she turned 18. Lana Jacobs, of the Catholic Worker House, has met many young people like Michele. She says that without life skills, they are vulnerable to being exploited or becoming exploiters themselves. "It's a vicious cycle,"Jacobs says. "How do kids that have no family and no support system deal with that?"

Michele first met Charlie when they were both children in the foster care system. He had already dropped out of school when they reunited in Columbia and established a relationship. They were married at the Boone County Courthouse on July 25, 2003. Charlie was 17; Michele was barely 18.

Colleen Coble, executive director of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence, says relationships are complicated in extremely vulnerable situations. "If you find someone to be with," Coble says, "you don’t let them go. Every bad thing is relative to what you know as being even worse. It’s rational in that sense."

Not long after they were married, Michele learned she was pregnant.

Ka’Mel was born August 11, 2004. She had severe neurological problems, including epilepsy marked by intense grand mal seizures. Doctors said she probably wouldn’t live past the age of two. Ka’Mel is now three, with the brain development level of a one-year-old. She has trouble communicating, displays behavioral problems and requires frequent hospitalization.

The Silveys had their second child, Derek, April 7, 2006. The family’s life was relatively stable until last spring, when the roof of the mobile home they had been living in for more than two years collapsed after a severe storm.

Kimberly Houberg, a resource parent specialist for Lutheran Children and Family Services, met the Silveys shortly before they became homeless. Houberg is one of four social workers at LCFS working with mothers age 22 and younger. Each caseworker handles about 30 cases at a time. Michele has also sought and received help from almost every other social service agency in town, as well as churches and individuals. Michele and her children receive health care through the Medicaid program, which covers prenatal care and regular checkups. Michele also receives $342 a month through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which has a five year lifetime cap. "Columbia has a great deal of agencies that can help, but there is such a high need, and we can’t meet every need every time," Houberg says.

The most difficult challenge for the Silveys has been finding safe, clean, affordable housing. Because Ka’Mel’s epilepsy is so severe and Michele suffers from seizures as well, even temporary housing is difficult to secure: most shelters are reluctant to take in people with serious medical problems.

Meanwhile, The Columbia Housing Authority has a long waiting list, and although Michele applied for a subsidized apartment in May, she was told in September that she’ll have to wait another nine months. Liz Hager-Mace, regional director of Missouri Department of Mental Health Services, says the CHA has followed federal guidelines and done away with policies that once gave preference to people in emergency situations. “Even if you are homeless, you go on the list behind others who aren’t,” Hager-Mace said.

Jacobs estimates that there are 800 to 1,000 people in the Columbia area who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, but the number is difficult to measure. In the case of the Silveys, Jacobs says, so many factors have converged – Ka’Mel’s health needs, the couple’s lack of credit and job skills, and Charlie’s criminal record-- that finding a stable home at this point is an almost insurmountable task.

"Chronic homelessness is a story with no beginning, middle, and end, "Coble says, "just chapter after chapter of instability."

For now, Michele and the children are off the street, staying with Charlie’s sister. Michele has already begun working at Labor Ready and is scheduled to begin a vocational rehabilitation program in January. Charlie, who is on probation and prohibited by court order from visiting his sister’s home, continues to have trouble holding a job. Michele is on the waiting list for public housing.

It is clear to everyone who has met and tried to help Michele and Charlie that they love their children and want them to have a stable life. The question is whether love will be enough to break the cycle. "Children grow up in the Third World all the time with nothing, but if they know love, they’re gonna be okay," Jacobs says. "Do her children know love? Yes they do. Do they live a precarious life? Yes they do. Does that make them different than 90% of the children in the rest of the world, no it doesn’t."

September 6, 2007-- Because they have two children, and another on the way, Michele and Charlie Silvey try to get off the streets and into a motel as often as they can. "Before we were homeless," Michele says, "we had this nice little trailer on a piece of land, pictures everywhere, dishes, clean…. It wasn’t beautiful but it was our home. We didn't have to worry about where we were going to sleep." Charlie recently lost another job at Jiffy Lube after he burned himself and lost his temper, so t he couple took to panhandling on Ninth St., usually late when the bars are busy. On a good night, they can collect $100 or more, but because they pay up front for as many nights in the motel as they can, the money goes quickly. "Michele and I met fourteen years ago when she was getting off a Greyhound bus, and we’ve been together off and on ever since," Charlie says. "She’s stood by my side since day one. I've done her wrong so many times but she's still there for me."
   
July 10, 2007-- A fundamental part of Michele and Charlie's everyday life is the Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen run by the Interfaith Day Center. Michele receives $518 per month in food stamps from the state. The script usually runs out by the middle of the month, so they eat lunch at the Salvation Army's Harbor House and dinner at Loaves and Fishes often. Kim Houberg, a case worker for LCFS explains, "They are really good parents, they've just had some difficulties that have left them kind of in some binds, and that's why our agency became involved."
  
July 10, 2007-- "People are only going to be able to help for so long,”"Houberg says. At the Sacred Heart Parish Center downtown, a sign posted on the door says the church will have no funds to offer until September. "I go around to local churches and agencies," MIchele says, "and sometimes I have to lie about being a single parent to get help. They won’t help us if they know I'm married."
     
  
July 10, 2007-- To keep the kids out of the summer heat, the Silveys go to University Hospital, where they often spent afternoons at the Ronald McDonald House. Houberg meets them there to discuss their progress on negotiating a lease on a mobile home. She plans to get the couple about $640 toward a down payment through a LCFS program for families in dire situations. The Silveys are without a car since Charlie sold the starter for their Chevy Blazer in order to feed the kids. "You wanna be able to go in there and just do everything for them, but you just can't," Houberg says. "Its so hard…. If your basic needs aren't met then you can't do this, this, and this…"
  
July 12, 2007-- The Travelodge on Vandiver and Rangeline is one of many motels the Silveys have called home. "I'm the only woman that I know that's married on the street," Michele says. "We're the youngest couple out there." In August Michele and Charlie were banned from the Quality Inn after someone called in a police report, complaining that they were "scam artists who get churches to pay for them and were panhandling other hotel guests." Charlie says he grew up in a single-parent household without much structure. He says he has a lot of "mental problems," including manic-depression and attention-deficit hyperactive disorder. Charlie spent 49 days in jail in 2006 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor harassment of his wife, who had filed a restraining order against him. Charlie was "cheating and drinking all the time," Michele says, "and I thought he wasn't fit to be around the kids."
   
July 13, 2007-- At seven months pregnant, Michele interviewed for a job as a cashier at Wal-Mart. While she is inside, Charlie lets the kids out of the stroller to play. Michele says that, despite his temper, Charlie has never harmed his children. "I don’t think he comprehends that the actions that he does effects them," she says. "He doesn't intentionally want to hurt them, but he does end up hurting them."
     
  
July 24, 2007-- Broke and on the street, Michele decided to send her two children, Ka'Mel, now 3, and Derek, 1, to St. Louis to live with relatives. She became depressed and after suffering several seizures caused by the heat, Michele lost feeling in her legs and ended up at the hospital. "She's now having a third child,” Jacobs says. "She can't imagine herself outside of her relationship. Most women on the streets can’t."
   
September 6, 2007-- Charlie often panhandles with a sign that reads, "Anger relief. Will take verbal abuse for spare change." Michele calls her husband a "21-year-old foolish male." He wears her down mentally and emotionally with his needs. "They tell me its like I'm taking of three children at a time,”"she says. "I'm the main caregiver in the family. They tell me to leave him because I take on the responsibility as his wife to take care of my husband as well as the kids."
   
September 6, 2007-- Homeless friends Jim Bohnenkamp, Kathy Matson, and Charlie watch as Michele breathes through an early contraction. As her due date approaches, Michele has been in and out of the hospital with severe back and stomach pain. Meanwhile, she is becoming more worried than usual because they still have no place to live. She fears someone will "hotline" her newborn baby, drawing the attention of the state Department of Social Services.
     
  
September 19, 2007-- Later while in labor Michele asks Charlie and his mom, Ann, her birth coach, "When they take babies, do they usually let the parents hold them first?"Michele's baby boy, Charles Daniel Silvey, Jr., was born at 4:45 a.m. By then, Michele had arranged to take her newborn to Charlie's sister's house in a Columbia trailer court. A restraining order prohibits Charlie from visiting there due to some trouble with the police, so he will be separated from Michele and the baby until they find a home. A DSS worker spoke with Michele and was comfortable that when the baby left the hospital, he would be safe and sheltered.
  
September 19, 2007-- A few hours after the birth, the Silveys learned that LCFS was no longer able to help them. Houberg said the Silveys' case was closed because of "conflicting stories, an inability to find consistency." The agency gave Michele and Charlie information about where they could get a crib and a car seat. "It comes down to the fact that our agency is a voluntary program," Houberg said. "I feel terrible about it, but its just the way it has to happen."
   
September 24, 2007-- Charlie, Michele, Ann and the newborn went to St. Louis to pick up Ka'Mel and Derek a few days after the birth. Back in Columbia, the Silveys still visit Loaves and Fishes almost every day. Although Michele and her children have a safe, temporary home, the family must again contend with the needs of Ka'Mel, who has epilepsy and serious developmental disabilities. Jacobs calls Michele a survivor, although that presents problems of its own. "In many ways that's the problem of why she can’t think past today; she's still in survivor mode," Jacobs says. "But she's a kid. Eventually she may learn that, but some people do, some people don't."