Jeanine and Bunny

Jeanine, 59, grew up in Toledo, Ohio. Her mother died when Jeanine was young, and her father was in prison, so she and her brothers were in an orphanage till she was 13 when her father got out of prison. They forced her and her brothers to go live with him, she said. Then he kissed her too long on the mouth one night as she was going to bed, so she ran away the next day. “My brothers weren’t so lucky,” she said. “They didn’t get away and he abused them.” She lived with many different people, trying to stay away from her father, including being kidnapped into prostitution, and one foster family that she credits with supporting her emotionally, allowing her to develop a strong enough character to withstand all the trauma in her life.

She lives in a truck with a camper shell that’s gone through several color schemes. Solar panels fuel her t.v. and lights. She has enough money from SSI to keep herself and her dog Bunny fed, and always has a meal or a sandwich available when someone hungry comes knocking on her camper. “I don’t care if they sell drugs or what they did the night before. If they’re hungry, they’re a human being, I’m going to feed them. We’ve all got stories,” she said. “I love everybody. We’re all God’s children.”

She spent many years as a tweaker herself, she admitted, doing crack, selling her t.v. for drugs. She would deep dive into crack, then break away for a while, then rebound, then fall back in again. “I realized when I was looking for it (crack) on the floor and under doors, it was bad,” she said. Now her only habit is cigarettes, which she rolls herself because tobacco is cheaper than ready made cigarettes. She doesn’t even drink coffee, she said, but has a sweet tooth.

When she first came to San Diego she worked ten years in the restaurant industry downtown at the Jewel Box, a restaurant that doesn’t exist any more. She worked as a bike messenger delivering meals, then as a cook on the night shift. She’s proud of her work history, despite only having an eighth grade education, she’s managed to survive and feel comfortable about her life.

Jeanine would like to see the city put portable showers out on the street for the homeless. “They need showers out here! There’s a car wash, a dog wash… no wash for people. I’d pay $10 right now for a shower!”

She uses Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family back east, when she has a computer. But someone recently stole her Facebook account and used it to drain her remaining $95 from her bank account, so she’s not in a hurry to start it up again.

Jeanine said she still feels 14, despite the decades of experiences since her days of youth. “When you have a trauma happen to you at age 14, you never grow past that age, they say,” she said. She recounted some of those events, naming names and years like it was yesterday: running away from her abusive father, being kidnapped by friends of her aunt, into prostitution. She escaped, jumped over a fence and ran onto a freeway embankment where a Christian couple pulled over and gave her a ride to safety. Living with a foster family who took her in even though she was white and they were black. At age 19, her boyfriend started forcing her to turn tricks, becoming a second pimp. He was killed by another man, and despite being threatened, she testified against the killer in court and the perpetrator went to prison.

In 1986 Jeanine broke both feet jumping out a window because the house where she was sleeping caught fire when her boyfriend’s brother fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand. Her next boyfriend talked her into moving to Atlanta, and they did so by seeking assistance and shelter at churches along the way between Toledo and Atlanta. He had become overly possessive, never letting her out of his sight, which scared her. When they got to Atlanta, she began working at Haagen-dasz ice cream. “That was in the day when you could buy a bus ticket for $59 on Greyhound and go anywhere in the U.S.,” she said. “I worked till I made $59 and caught the next bus out of Atlanta. Just so happened it was going to Hollywood.”

After doing odd jobs in Hollywood for a couple of years, she made her way to San Diego where she cleaned rooms a the Sara Francis Hotel downtown before becoming a bike messenger and cook. She has no plans to ever leave San Diego, no plans for any relationships, keeps a machete handy for protection, and cheerfully greets visitors, so long as they knock first.