Lewis County resident Lucky St. Clair, 51, left, enjoys a chat in early November with friend James Lovelady and others during breakfast at the Lewis County Gospel Mission in Chehalis.
Q: What is your monthly income
A: It would have to be a pretty good month to make $500. I sometimes work on people’s farms. I clean out a couple stalls and I get paid per day of work. I like getting paid cash. I’m not interested in everything I make going to the government.
Q: Where are you living now?
A: I’d been sleeping out there in the Hawthorns out behind the park and ride and then Burlington Northern gave me my eviction notice. I don’t know how they even noticed me. I have a sleeping bag. I had a little shelter I’d made out of three different kinds of tarps and it was good and windproof and waterproof and it had a little stove. It was actually working really good. They left a sign that said I had 72 hours to get out and so I just left. They left my stuff there and I had to move it. I kept a pretty low profile, I can’t understand what made them want to come out there in the first place.
I’m in a new place now. I’m still camping on property where I’m technically not supposed to be. I’ve got a place where I can dry out. I almost broke down (and) cried the other day because it was raining. It was overwhelming. I have a new shelter I put up and I started putting it up and then it started raining and I got in a hurry to get it finished and it started to get dark and I reached down and picked something up that had a nail sticking out of it and it got me right in the finger. I’ve got a dry place I can stand up in now. Before I had to hunker down in the dark. I’ve got my stove there, too. I’d like to build a chimney out of bricks. That would work nice.
Q: What led to your homelessness?
A: I’ve been homeless since I was 43. I had a job and got laid off and ran out (of) unemployment, that took like two years and then I came here. I hit a guy in Longview and so I went to Portland and I thought I was OK and I got pulled over for something and then come to find out there was a warrant out for me in Washington so they stuck me in prison. I’ve been homeless before. I lived in Portland, doing the homeless thing, when I was 30.
I used to be a logger. I started out logging and then I started going up to Alaska, Windy Bay. It just got so it was a problem, I was a pot smoker and they wanted to have UAs and I laughed and said ‘no’. I figured I’ve earned my safety card or whatever and I’ll decide. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s taking the easy way out or if it’s harder.
Q: What is an experience you have had homeless that most people would not think of?
A: I’ve had my knee replaced and I did that when I was homeless. Because I was honest with them and told them the last time I used meth, they would not put me in a place to rehab and so they sent me out to recover on the street. It went OK, I just hung out at the bus stop. I was worried about it. The first day all my friends came and they would smile and talk to me.
Q: Where would you like to be?
A: I’m getting older and I can’t see a way out of this. For people like me, they put in housing and they just ram people together. One house I was in they charged $400 per person to basically rent a garage and the walls are so thin you can hear the guy next door puking and the guy next door with his girlfriend. That’s not the answer, I’m pretty sure.
It’d be nice to have something that’s mine. It’s so expensive, you just can’t get an affordable single place. There used to be places you could rent a little room for $80 a week, they don’t have that anymore. A warm 10x10 place, that’s all I want. It shouldn’t be so hard to come by.
