What Two Years of Homelessness Did to Me

Trigger Warning: The following story contains mentions of sexual assault and may be triggering to some people who are sensitive to that topic.

When it’s cold outside, it takes me back to a dark time in my life. 

It was winter 2022, and I had been feeling vaguely hopeful, but I had no idea what was in store for me. The ups and downs of the next two years would range from rock bottom to top of the world, and anticipating each development in my life proved impossible, each twist curving sharply and restructuring my unstable life. 

It was around Halloween 2022 when I couldn’t live the lie anymore. My ex-boyfriend didn’t like it, but I was undeniably ready to burst out of my shell and pull my mask off once again. Years ago, the mask came off when I began transitioning in my freshman year of high school. After feeling like a girl for as far back as I can remember, affirming my gender was a huge relief. That proved to be short-lived, though, as the transness was beaten out of me by the ruthless bullying I faced at school, combined with the tepid and hesitant tolerance of my family. 

In the present day, because I didn’t feel comfortable without my makeup, wigs, and outfits, I had started dressing up in drag increasingly often. This development made my ex very unhappy. See, he liked guys that “look young,” and I was, unfortunately, a handsome young man at the time. He was angry that I dared not be his cute little boy toy anymore. It had gotten to the point where I was trying to convince myself that I was “just a drag queen,” but I was wearing my drag looks for over 12 hours by choice. 

I was working at Sephora as a seasonal Beauty Advisor and had begun presenting femininely full-time by the time they hired me in October. After the position ended in January, tensions in the house had reached a boiling point, and my ex, under the guise of my job having ended and the consequential money issues we were about to face, kicked me out onto the street. I had no family or close friends in Colorado, and I was all alone in the cold, stuck outside with nowhere to go in Loveland. 

I managed to get a ride to Denver from a strange man on Grindr, and with nothing but a backpack and a suitcase of essentials, I began wandering the streets. I’d hop from bed to bed via Grindr hookups and avoid being outside at night at all costs. Nevertheless I’d find myself trapped outside in subzero temperatures. It took me about a month to find a case manager, and she told me about a program with tiny houses for the homeless. She signed me up for the program, which would open in about two months. Until then, I continued my streak of using men for their shelter. Sometimes that would go okay, maybe if the guy was cute at least, but most of the time, it was unsavory. 

Finally, the tiny house site opened, and I was the first to move in. This was a huge relief, and I was able to get the majority of my possessions from the shed at my ex’s house in Loveland. I spent the next eight months recovering from trauma and trying to make myself as comfortable as possible. I made friends with the other residents and tried my best to assimilate to normal society as much as possible for someone who lives in a homeless shelter. Having my own private space in a separated building was quite nice, and I grew very attached to my home.

The village, run by a nonprofit called Colorado Village Collaborative, was my savior. They were gracious enough to give us privacy, freedom, and dignity as much as possible. I was happy there, but unsatisfied with the fact that I still fell under the homeless demographic. I wished for change, something to fall into place. A job, a housing opportunity, hell, even a sugar daddy would have done the trick. The village was a little hands-off in terms of case management; they mostly just gave us free will to do whatever we wanted with our time. Whether that meant staying at home a lot, finding a job, or something in-between, we were welcome to utilize the resources as each resident saw fit. 

I collected furniture and decor, clothes and shoes, and wore a fiercely beaten face of makeup every single day. I was honestly living my best life, as much as was possible in my circumstance. However it was not a perfect living situation, as residents sometimes clashed with staff and other residents. While I never felt unsafe there, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to get in the middle of any of the petty fighting going on between a few select members of the village. 

On New Year’s Day 2023, everything changed. Pluto went into Aquarius, and I happened to meet a very handsome Aquarius man visiting Denver from California. He and I hit it off right away, and he ended up staying with me for a week until his trip was over. We became very attached to each other, and soon I got the inkling that my situation would change. Was this the opportunity I was looking for? 

To make a long fucking story short, no, it wasn’t. In some ways it was the best thing that ever happened to me, since it changed the course of my path. But at the time, I was miserable. The same spark we had in my tiny home just wasn’t the same in Santa Monica, and I grew to resent this man for his flaws. In May, we had a big fight, and he left to go hang out with his friends and blow off steam. I called my mother in tears and asked for a flight back to Denver. “Will you be able to go back to your tiny house?” she asked. I didn’t know, and fear turned my stomach on the car ride to the airport and on the flight home. 

Back at the village, they had unsurprisingly thrown out all my furniture and left behind possessions, which had been 80% of what I owned. Out of the remaining 20% of things that went with me to California, 10% of those things came back to Denver with me in my backpack. Among what was left in Santa Monica was lots of makeup, my favorite shoes, and my prized possession, my 2013 Apple iMac. Devastated by this loss and terrified of the future, I hopped the fence at the village and knocked at my best friend’s door. We hugged, cried, and caught up. I let the staff know my situation, but the village had made some changes, and the new staff did not know me. I wasn’t going to be able to get my house back, they told me. I had chosen to leave, and now I had to lie in the bed I made. 

I spent the next week wandering the streets, too exhausted and disheartened to even use Grindr. I slept on benches, sidewalks, and in parks. I got kicked out of the Union Station bus concourse during a snowstorm. I shivered nonstop from around 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. daily. The cold would cause my phone to die instantly, if it even had a charge. I endlessly searched crowds for a sign, something that could help me cut through the noise. 

My former case manager at Urban Peak didn’t have anything to offer in terms of housing opportunities, and I was at my lowest point. This is when I had the worst night of my life. At around 4 a.m., a man drove up to me in a car and asked if I was cold. Indeed, the curb was freezing my ass, and I could barely respond affirmatively as my teeth chattered violently. He took me in, and it was about 45 minutes into the drive that I started feeling uncomfortable. 

I’ll spare the gory details, but the experience I had with that man was traumatizing. After drinking a can of Coke he offered me, alarm bells rang in my head as I became more and more drowsy. When I woke up, I wished I hadn’t. The man was on my back. I tried my best to relax to reduce pain and dissociate. It didn’t work. 

The next morning I felt like I had been obliterated, but still managed to escape his house in the mountains. Outside, it was like something from The Hills Have Eyes. This was a very creepy place with strange decor like deer skulls hanging from a tree. I ran down a long gravel road up to a paved road. About a mile down that road, there was a teeny tiny little diner and a liquor store. I bought a pack of smokes, smoked, I think, four cigarettes in a row, then ordered a burger at the diner. I had no idea where I was. I don’t remember the name of the town the waitress told me we were in. She was nice enough to arrange a ride for me back to Denver where a friend picked me up and brought me to the Rose Andom Center. Little did I know, there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel, approaching steadfastly, and it was literally just around the corner. 

The next day, after texting with a case manager whose contact I was given at Rose Andom, I was placed in a new tiny house village. It was admittedly a downgrade, with more restrictive rules and a smaller house. But I was grateful for a warm bed and a roof over my head, of course. Deep down I was dismayed at my place; it felt like a cramped jail cell with its built-into-the-wall bed and desk setup. I was devastated at the loss of my previous house, my possessions, my innocence. I did my best to process these new changes and found the pill hard to swallow. 

I am a very resourceful person, however, and collecting possessions brings me great joy. I began dumpster diving and doing whatever I could to find new cool stuff to replace everything I had before. Early on in my stint at the new village, which is run by an organization called The Gathering Place, I was interviewed as part of a news story covering the village. “I think I saw you on the news last night,” read one message on Grindr. I reveled in my 15 minutes of fame. 

It took about six months until one fateful day I received the best news of my life. My case manager from the village had obtained for me a Section 8 housing voucher. This would cover the entirety of my rent bill at an apartment of my choice, given it was within the city and the budget set by Denver Housing Authority. I was blown away by this prospect. I got to work right away finding a place, and in October, four days after my birthday, I attended orientation and received my voucher. I scrambled as hard as I could to get everything set in motion, and by mid-November, I had the keys to a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Denver in my hand. 

It is still surreal, as I sit in my apartment now writing this reflection. It’s crazy to think about all

the choices I’ve made, all the people who have come in and out of my life like a revolving door, and how those things coalesced into cultivating my current situation. I still struggle to relax sometimes and am trying my best to learn how to comfort myself and work through trauma now that I have been granted the time and space to do so. I am so grateful to The Gathering Place and Denver Housing Authority, two wonderful organizations that have changed my life for the better. 

My current circumstance, I wouldn’t change for the world. I’m beginning to learn how to fall in love with my life, and soon I’ll take the bull by the horns and go back to school for journalism. Working with OUT FRONT as an intern has given me a head start in my professional development, to boot. Oh, and as of the day I wrote this piece, a replacement iMac is on its way to be delivered at my doorstep tomorrow. 

If you told me two years ago where I’d be in 2025, I would have called you crazy. But it’s all real, and it’s all upwards from here.

If you or someone you know is struggling with homelessness, there are resources you can turn to. We linked to all the organizations mentioned throughout this article. You can also reach the STAR Program, which provides mobile assistance to unhoused people, at (720) 913-STAR (7827) or Mile High United Way at 2-1-1.