Georgia Zillyette, 38, seen recently at the Gather Church Eat-Free Cafe in Centralia, is battling drug addiction but overcame her homelessness recently when she moved into a local apartment.
Homeless women are statistically more likely by a factor of two to four to experience trauma or violence than women who are housed. Georgia Zillyette said while living on the streets, she experienced this firsthand.
She said she was “jumped” twice and witnessed and heard stories of many other people who victimize those on the street.
“There are people who go around the street and hurt people, especially women,” Zillyette said. “It’s about drugs. That’s what the majority of people are stealing and robbing and hurting people for: drugs.”
Zillyette’s road to homelessness started with an illness that landed her in the hospital. There, she first received opioids, which eventually became an addiction for her, along with methamphetamines.
“I got caught up and cared about dope more than anything else,” she said. “I was sick. I was so sick. I didn’t have energy to do anything else. It was horrible, but if I had drugs it would be OK and my mind would be at ease.”
Before finding housing this summer, Zillyette spent years addicted and in and out of jail. She said sometimes she would sleep in tents. But sometimes when tent space wasn’t available, she would sleep in alleys, near the Centralia library, behind buildings in the city park or under viaducts just covered with blankets. She said she and friends would take turns staying awake during the night so they would be safe.
“A lot of people are waiting to get into shelters or on waiting lists for other things and what do we do when the weather gets cold and we’ve got no place to go? We huddle three or four to a tent or if we don’t have a tent, we walk the streets all night to stay warm,” she said.
Over the summer, Zillyette met a local man who said he wanted to give back and who offered her a place to live while she got clean and sober. She said she had just gotten out of jail a couple days before, so the offer was a miracle in her book.
“He just saved my life and he doesn’t even know it so I have to stay off the drugs to thank him for what he has done,” she said. “I’ve been praying for this for six years that I’d get a chance and he gave me a chance.”
Besides gratitude to her benefactor, Zillyette said her kids, ages 19, 15, 8 and 7, are also a huge motivation for her to stay clean. She said she gets visitations with her children every other weekend but it was hard to see them when she did not have a safe place to be.
“It’s horrible. It’s horrible,” she said. “Even trying to do the best I can it never gets easy to not be with my kids.”
Despite the violence and hurt she experienced on the street, Zillyette said the one thing she wishes people could understand is that most people living on the streets are good people. Like her, they have experienced a few hard knocks but most of them want to get back up, she noted.
“We’re not bad people. We’re not all out to hurt people,” she said.
