An Interview with Jamie Villegas
So, Jamie, tell me about your shoe!
The shoes they’re actually genuine Michael Kors but they’ve seen hundreds of miles. They were given to me by the person who I call my TransMother. The person who helped to show me how to be the woman I am today.
They were bright and shiny with the field of the leopard print nice and pronounced but after so long… I’ve had these shoes for three years now. They have walked up and down city streets, Greenway trails, backwoods, everywhere imaginable because there for a while they were the only pair of shoes I had. I came back from Ohio with them and a backpack and a laptop and the clothes on my back and I still wear them today even though they are getting long in the tooth, but they’re still my favorite pair.
They survived homelessness!
Yes — my homeless story now spans to right after being evicted from an apartment because the landlord didn’t send my rental log for the Covid relief fund. It was a way of clearing out the apartments for renovation. I’ve lived in hotels, I’ve lived on the street and slept on benches. I was abandoned after a life-changing medical condition came up in Ohio.
I lucked out by finding the right people at the right time. I’ve lived in the park, in a tent, rooming houses, and luckily I’ve been blessed to have finally been formally housed in public housing.
Jamie, when I was homeless, I had been sober for more than 30 years. But it was so tempting to go back to drinking! What are your thoughts on this?
So for me, personally, like I was a drug addict prior to becoming homeless. I quit a couple times, and after being laid off, I did have an issue with relapse, having finally landed on the street. It was a coping mechanism. It was a way to find a place to sleep, it was a way to stay in contact with people in the encampment and in the loop, and the one I was at yeah drugs were a common thread. Everybody had their drug of choice, and for the most part, it was easy to get and the prices were probably better than you would get if you’re a normal house person just trying to get it on the black market, because we take care of our own. But that also means that we don’t necessarily know what’s best for us and that’s part of being human. We tend to cope and we take solace with our fellow man, but yeah, it was detrimental at times, and there were cases of death and sadness that comes with that.
Yes! I know what you mean. Not just when I was homeless but at all points in my life, I have felt pressured to participate with people with their drug of choice in order to gain their trust. And it has been very lonely at times.
I mean, I’ve never hidden my addiction. It’s something that is part of me. It made me a part of what I am today. I don’t believe in hiding addiction because there’s no way for us to solve addiction if we hide behind it. That’s why I feel honesty is always the best thing to do.
Jamie, I’m glad that you have a home now. I’m glad you’re my neighbor. So tell me about this coalition you’re in. The Metropolitan Nashville Continuum of Care Homelessness Planning Council.
So homeless funding works across the country. Every state is divided up into geographical districts and each runs a continuum of care program. What that is it’s money that was voted by Congress to these geographical regions to provide services to help the homeless, helping to end homelessness across the country.
Nashville and Davidson county is a unique district. We have the Continuum of Care general membership which is made up of the service providers and any community member who is interested. It’s an open group. You get voting rights after attending 50% of the meetings per year. That’s where I got my start on the council. I started in the general membership. After participating in the general membership for four months, I was nominated and subsequently elected to the council by the membership. We vote 15 members to this council; the rest of the members are appointed by the mayor’s office.
I am one of the Continuum of Care Lived Experience Representatives on the council. We are actually one of the largest boards in the county outside of the Metro Council. We have 25 members which makes it sometimes difficult for us to find a meeting place so we often meet either at the Howard office building on 2nd Ave. or Metro Council Chambers.
Jamie, what have you been doing while on the council?
So one of the main reasons why I was elected to the council as the Continuum of Care Lived Experience Representative was because I’m a person with lived experience in homelessness here in Nashville, and very recent experience at that. So what I do is I give the homeless perspective on issues coming before the council whether it be camp closures, projects that would be beneficial towards the homeless etc.
I make sure that those things are considered with the actual homeless experience in mind. Yeah, we can talk about a grand idea, but if a homeless person is not gonna relate to it, then it really isn’t of much help.
Another thing that I do on the council — and it proves that my input is definitely a valuable resource — is being appointed to the Executive Committee because of my input as a formerly homeless person. I provide a voice for the homeless community. Now, oftentimes we hear the political heads talk about things that sound good around ending homelessness, but a lot of times we don’t hear what’s going wrong with the way the homeless are being treated and the programs that are being provided for us.
I stay in touch with members of the homeless community. These people are my brothers and sisters and a lot of my blood, sweat, and tears was shared with a lot of them. I have shared experiences with and through experiencing my life with them and seeing where they’re still at and how they’re doing. I make sure that the things that need to be brought up to the councilors attention are brought to their attention so things can actually be done to change them. A lot of times if nobody had somebody like me on the council it would never be talked about. We talk a lot about successes, but we also need to be able to go back in time to look at and analyze failure.
So Jamie, what if you could find a fulcrum like a failure point that if we changed, it would be a pivot point toward getting everyone housed. What would that be?
I think right now, one of the most important things that we can do to reverse the trend of homelessness is to have people with lived experience in homelessness being part of the programs to help end it. It’s what we like to call Peer Support.
A lot of times when somebody gets out of homelessness there is often a rough transition. When you’re homeless a lot of times you have a community of people around you. Yeah you got your peers so if something goes wrong, you feel bad, need someone to talk to or if — God forbid — should you be overdosing and you need someone to administer aid there’s always somebody around in a camp situation. After being housed, when you’re indoors and you’re back in housing, things as simple as paying a light bill or going to the grocery store or just having somebody around to be social with are very difficult, and for some, perplexing. That’s where peer support comes in — we get somebody who’s been homeless before to help out. We’ve walked the walk and we can help these people out through our own experience of getting out of homelessness to maintain housing. You know it’s not hard to get out of homelessness. It is more difficult to stay out of homelessness.
I agree, Jamie, because my first three months of being here I was having a lot of trouble continuing to write and sell the paper. I was having a lot of trouble negotiating my past relationships. And also people who had been really supportive of me, suddenly felt my lack of support because I was so busy trying to do things like buy some cleaning supplies to get the floor mopped. And then there was a major bug problem, which took a huge amount of my money, time and energy and I was just exhausted all the time. The whole time I was homeless, and I never had to deal with bugs which is kind of strange. I mean I gave my cat flea medicine and that was kind of it, we just didn’t have any troubles. And now it’s just the transition of what should my priorities be … what are my responsibilities? Where do I spend my tiny bits of money? Where do I refrain from spending money? What kind of extra work should I be applying for? And the neglected dental, doctor and mental health is huge to try and catch up with. Anything else you want to say Jamie?
I am very thankful for my experience with homelessness. It’s something I honestly would never regret or try to change my experience. It taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about myself. It taught me a lot about how to be resourceful and make use of what you have around you and to be thankful that you have it. It makes me appreciate humanity more.
I mean being a person moving into an encampment (and it’s a pretty exclusive club for the most part, you don’t just walk into an encampment and plop yourself down — you get invited into one), I was blessed to be invited to Brookmeade Park and I could’ve had a really rough time. I feared that I was gonna get hassled for being trans, not respected for my gender, and none of that happened. I mean I may have been misgendered a couple of times, but once I told them about myself that cleared up. I had respect from everybody in that camp, and not very many people can say that. They saw me as somebody who knows who they are and who’s also fair and respectable.
I’m one of the many faces of homelessness. It is not lazy bums, trying to get a free ride. I’m a college educated individual who has a lot of trauma to deal with and yes, I am currently a recovering addict, but I have never allowed happenstance to change who I am and I feel that having been homeless has really enhanced my personality and my way of thinking to a point where I can get back to doing what I love to do, which is helping other people.
Thank you so much for this extremely helpful interview Jamie. How can people get involved with the Continuum of Care Homelessness Planning Council?
So anybody who’s interested in ending homelessness here in Nashville are invited to join our Continuum of Care general membership which can be members of the general public and service providers. If they wish to provide outreach services and talk about general homelessness policy they can go to the continuum of care website.
I would also encourage them to attend the meetings which are held monthly at the Nashville rescue mission.
I would like to see more people with lived homeless experience in the general membership. We only have six formerly homeless people on the Homelessness Planning Council. So many people with lived homeless experience have been through so many traumas, and they don’t feel they have a voice. Here, you have a voice. We are a group that is independent from the Metro Government, so we can speak our mind freely.