Phyllis and Taz

Leaning against the bed that takes up most of her almost 400 square foot apartment, Phyllis can’t resist handing over another rawhide chew to her emotional support dog Taz. Taz was born at 17th and Imperial in San Diego’s East Village - a network of tent camps visible from Blanck’s apartment window. Also visible is the Coronado Bridge and beyond. And that’s where Blanck is setting her sights: beyond the streets.

But as the four year anniversary of being “inside” approaches, Blanck confesses that she still feels suspended in limbo.

“I’m having a rough time, to tell you the truth,” she said. “There’s no sense of community. I am not part of the homeless community, and I don’t feel part of the housed community either.”


It’s a feeling many people have when they get inside after years of conditioning themselves to survive living in their vehicle or on the street. “People are shell shocked when they get inside,” she said. “They either die or they go back out. I’ve seen it over and over again. I try to tell them, ‘You can leave, have a private space where you can close the door. You can always go back outside when you want.’ But they’re just broken.”

On the street your sense of structure is “blown to bits,” she said. Any routine, or framework of normalcy, like having a toothbrush, is superseded by the needs of daily survival. When they get housing, it takes a long time for those structures to makes sense again. Blanck said she thought it would come back faster, but after four years inside she still feels like she’s reeling. “The PTSD doesn’t start until you are inside. Then you let your defenses down a tiny bit at a time. I couldn’t get the panic attacks to go away,” she said.

One reason why those defenses are so deeply entrenched in the psyche of Blanck and other folks experiencing homelessness is the way they are regularly treated by housed people. “Housed people treat you so badly,” she said. “Especially the guys in Hillcrest. They were so mean and vile.” She told the story of one condo dweller living near the Ralph’s market on University Avenue who stood over her for 45 minutes where she was sitting quietly with her previous dog Blue. He yelled at her and calling her names, saying he had called the police and she needed to wait for them to come and arrest her for sitting on the sidewalk. She has trouble retelling the worst of what he said: “I bet you let that dog of yours lick your p****y.” When she was over the shock enough to finally respond she told him, “Wow. You have a dark, ugly heart.”

A constant parade of dehumanizing comments starts to tear down even the strongest of souls. And most people on the street are already feeling less than their best selves, she added. “I don’t care how good your self-esteem is. If you get treated like a piece of shit every day you’re going to get knocked down. And eventually you won’t be able to get up.” The final straw for Blanck was when the city took her car, telling her it was illegal to be living in a vehicle. “This was before there were safe lots,” she added.

After the sour economy in 2008 took her dental hygiene job, and her slumlord forced her out of her home when she complained about the conditions, her car was her only remaining safe space. “The city took my freedom, my opportunities” when they towed her car away. “The city made me homeless,” she said.

Blanck spent the next 12 and a half years on the street dreaming of what it would be like to have housing again. “I wanted a balcony,” she said, a place where she could grow as many plants as possible. “Gardening is my church,” she smiled, between bites of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She toasted the bread for the sandwich in an air fryer, watching the bread bounce around till it was golden brown. California Dreamin’ sung by the Mamas and the Papas played softly in the background on her wall-mounted television.

While the appliances are wonderful, the number one thing that Blanck looked forward to when she got into housing was having a pitcher of ice cold water in the fridge.

Blanck had tried to get into housing the entire 12 years she was homeless, but she was just not crazy enough or addicted enough to fit into the existing shelter or rehab programs that offered housing. So she finally admitted herself. She called a clinic in Lemon Grove, said she was coming over and was going to camp out on their lawn and drink until they admitted her. They let her in that night. But the clinic was chaos. She slept with a towel full of ice on her head to ease the headache from the noise of the other women staying there. “They have a street mentality,” Blanck said. “Their children were better behaved than these women were.” She left after two weeks.

She said she had a housing navigator from hell, whom she had connected with through the Friend to Friend program. The navigator strung her along for seven years, saying she just needed one more piece of information, or one more form to fill out — all things Blanck had filled out several times already. So she flagged down the San Diego Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) one day in 2018 and asked for help. Since it was approaching summer time, there was a bed available at PATH. She was there for six months until she was relocated to a small, 187 square foot apartment in a former Quality Inn. She was happy to be off the street. At PATH, she took advantage of the classes offered, and still talks about the motivational courses, listening to other speakers like Brené Brown. She recently completed an online Tony Robbins “Unleash the Power Within” course in early March 2023.

The Quality Inn location was managed through a complex partnership between PATH, the San Diego Housing Commission and St. Paul’s Place. It was tiny, but she was grateful. However, Blanck said, not much thought went into configuring the apartments. “They don’t design these places properly. There’s no cabinetry, no storage.” And she had Taz. Then there was her claustrophobia from all the times an abusive husband would shove her into a closet.

Fortunately, when the Quality Inn was being remodeled and all residents were put up in an Extended Stay with lots of room and a full kitchen, her one month there coincided with the pandemic and all residents were on lock down for seven months. Blanck went back to get some belongings at her apartment and saw the black mold in her bathroom that the remodel revealed. She filed papers complaining about the mold and leaky plumbing with two different city organizations as well as the Housing Commission. The next time she went back, the door was locked. The remodel did not replace the plumbing. Many of the problems, therefore, returned. Eventually, raw sewage from another floor backed up in her shower. A woman in another apartment had the ceiling come down on her.

Blanck went into high gear finding a new place to live. She was finally moved into her current apartment in a newly constructed building almost two years ago on Memorial Day weekend. There had only been one tenant living in the apartment before her - he was murdered in the apartment, a fact the neighbors revealed to her, not the management, as is required by law. She says she is not bothered by the story, though she occasionally feels like there’s a shadow passing through.

Though the space is tight she has quickly personalized it. Baskets of produce hang from a shower rod on hooks in the kitchen. Above that, a photo of Elvis sits on a shelf next to half of an old movie projector. Crystals, flowers, inspirational messages and a shiny pink piggy bank adorn the other random surfaces around the room. To use the bathroom, one must first wheel out the electric bicycle stored there.

Blanck is inherently creative and industrious. She has worked at different jobs since she was in her early teenage years, mostly in health care, including a stint in a veterinary hospital. So even though she technical has all she needs with her small apartment and permanent sustainable housing status, she wants to do something to help others still out on the streets. She learned about the Lived Experience Advisors group, which writes letters counseling local officials about policy and service programs that need adjustment in order to actually do what they are intended to do. They speak at City Council meetings and assist individuals on where and how to access services. Blanck also wants to find a creative outlet, maybe jewelry-making or learning to sketch.

She also misses being a part of a community. Even while she was homeless Blanck maintained contact with friends back home in Cincinnati. Once she was inside, she began opening up to them on Facebook about her experiences - the abusive husband, the job loss, the homelessness. They stuck by her, and want her to come home. One offered her a job. “I need to stay in touch with them to stay grounded, to not lose who I was - the neighborhood, the Catholic upbringing, the good education,” she said. “Even when I was on the street I never stole, I never sold my body for drugs or money or showers. I’m still that solid, good person. My friends were my family. I need that in my life.

“If I can end up homeless anybody can,” she added. “As dysfunctional as our family was, we never went without anything we needed. At Christmas everyone got a present. My dad worked his ass off wallpapering and painting houses to raise six kids, while my mom was a stay-at-home mom. But all that lead paint, and he smoked. He died young at 56.”

Blanck has considered moving back “home” but out in the California sunshine she doesn’t suffer depression like she did through the long winter months in Ohio. She doesn’t need her medication. Taz seems to know the depth of his responsibility in managing her emotional health. And the building she lives in is better constructed than the last one, with soundproof walls and windows that actually open. But there are still issues. One tenant on her floor intentionally set fire to his apartment. He did it twice before management got rid of him. “There should be special housing with supervision for these people,” she said. “Some people are allowed to live in their own garbage. This building didn’t used to have roaches.”

As she looks out the window towards the Coronado Bridge, she fantasizes a balcony where she can have an expansive garden. Taz winds around her ankles, urging her to grab the leash and walk around the block. She enters a clean elevator, out into a secure lobby, then out onto the street where people swig from a brown paper bag a few feet away from the door. Halfway down the block, Taz sniffs at a man sleeping standing up, slumped over the handlebars of his red shopping cart. Blanck seems oblivious to all this as she rounds the block, talking about whether she should take up jewelry-making and what movie to watch on Netflix that night. She has moved on beyond the street.