Staying on Your Feet

Life doesn't always go the way we plan, but how we respond when it doesn't says everything. In this episode, host Vanessa Calloway sits down to share a first look at the stories of two families who'll be joining us in upcoming episodes. She gives us a window into where they are now, the struggles that brought them to this point, and the quiet strength it takes to keep standing when life gets hard. 

This episode is honest, reflective, and deeply human a conversation that reframes disappointment and the uncertainties of life through a different lens. Vanessa also speaks candidly about the power of community, or as some call it, "the village"  and why having the right people around you can make all the difference between falling and staying on your feet. 

Tune in for a conversation that's as inspiring as it is thought-provoking. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Welcome back to the Social Abuse Podcast. I am your host, Vanessa A. Callaway, and can you believe it? This is episode seven. And today's episode is something really, really special. And so, you know, life happens, and I was supposed to have a guest, but unfortunately, she couldn't be here. But she is giving me permission to give you a little peek inside of her story until she's able to come and share from her mouth her experience, um, her triumphs, her trials, um, her grief, um, but more importantly, how she is staying on her feet. And that is the title of this episode: Staying on Your Feet. And if you know me, if you know anything about some of the work that I've done, you know, staying on your feet holds a special place in my heart. And as the episode um progresses, it'll make sense to you, okay? And so I just want to say thank you all for continuing to show up time after time again, episode after episode. Thank you for sharing, and let's dive into it. So, who is this special person? Her name, Katina Burton. So let me back up a little bit. I know some of you reached out to me and said, You've been sharing tidbits and teasers of your work, but you haven't like dived in. And there will come a time where you'll get a full episode of my journey, um, but not today. Okay. So in 2022, I began working at the Castro encampment. So Castro Encampment expanded over a hundred um individuals, and they were living in campers, they were living in trucks, some was living, I mean in vehicles, some were living in tents. There were some kids, gratefully, it wasn't a lot of children out there. I came across Miss Katherine Allen. And Miss Katherine, so I would get to the encampment around seven-ish in the morning, and Miss Katherine would be out in her folding chair in front of her camper, and we would laugh and we would talk and she would fuss a little bit. Um, but I began to learn more about her, right? And so sometimes we would have coffee and just kind of chill and kick it, just getting to know one another. Um, and she had two grandsons um and her daughter, and I didn't meet the mom, Katina, till some months in, right? She kind of stayed on under the radar, and I just remember being accepted, and you may be like, You had an encampment. What do you mean being accepted? Well, I've learned in this work, just because your heart might be in the right place, just because you're coming in your mind with solutions, is not always received, right? Because again, we're dealing with people, and we as people, we have choices. Um, and sometimes we can choose not to accept the help that's being offered. But that wasn't the case with this family. Um, the young man, and I'll keep his name because he's a minor, um anonymous. He wasn't enrolled in school. Um, Miss could Miss Katherine had some health issues, and so I was like, Can I get him enrolled? And she was like, Absolutely. And so I remember and shout out to Richmond High School um staff, their principal, um Gonzalo, all everyone that came in to make for sure that this young man got what he needed. And so we got him enrolled in school, we got him into extra-curriculum activities, um, and just different things. And teenagers are gonna be teenagers, and so this episode isn't about him, but it's about the family as a whole. Um, and so just working with them, just talking with them, and then I had the honor of meeting Katina. And after a few conversations, Miss Katina was it was like we had been knowing each other. We would sit down and we would be where I'm at right now at COBIZ, and we would talk, and she would share part of her journey, how she got to where she was, and I felt honored. I felt honored because she didn't know me, right? She was in the middle of a traumatic situation, but she chose to trust me, she chose to let me in. Um, and so we began to work, work together, and her story. Um, again, I can't wait till she gets here. So I'm just gonna give you a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So, right. So, Katina is a hairstylist, she's an IHS worker, she's a mother, she's a grandmother, and I'm so excited that they were placed in housing in the winter, if I'm not mistaken, of 2022. Um, her, her mom, and her children. And my heart was just full. Like she was excited, they were excited, um, she did what she was supposed to, you know, just all the just different, different things, and of course, there's bumps and the rows, and the first place that we placed them in was a little too confined because it was you know more than just two of them. So we were able to, with the landlord's assistant, he had another property, and so they were able to move into a house. So they went from an up, they went from encampment to an apartment to a house, to a house, and so um the so she had two sons that were out there, one was a minor, one was an adult. The adult son ended up getting his his space, his his living situation taken care of as well. But it was mom, it was Katina, her mom, Miss Katherine, and her minor son. And it was also a place where her grandchildren could come and see grandma, where she could cook. And so watching her care for her mom was something special. Watching her love on her, making for sure she went to her appointments, making for sure when things she was questioning, she would reach out, right? Vanessa, we need some assistance. Um, and if I couldn't help, I'm reaching out. And so it was truly the old adage that we hear, it takes a village, right? And a lot of times we hear that statement um in reference to children that it takes a village to raise a child. But no, it takes a village for us to continue to thrive in this thing here we call life, right? We need healthy community, we need people with resources, we need people that understand, we need people with empathy, we need people when we're feeling hopeless, they're gonna provide hope, right? We need people that is not only going to um give us resources, but they're gonna stretch us because sometimes when you're digging yourself up and you're coming out of situations, sometimes we want to get complacent because it gets too hard and we want to throw our hands up. So you need people around that says, no, no, no, no, no, no. Give me your hand and let me pull you until you can walk alone, right? Um, until you don't need me to hold your hand anymore. I'm still here. But, right, and so and Katina allowed the people that were there to help her, and I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that there was a group of people supporting, a group of people helping. Um, and so just so I was just so happy for them, right? And this episode is dedicated to her mom, uh, Miss Katherine Allen. So July 19, 2024, Miss Katherine Allen passed away at home. And I remember the call. I was on the freeway, um, I was on 80, right before the cutting exit, and Katina called me crying, and my heart just dropped. You know, you have hope for people, you want to see them fully on the other side of whatever they may be dealing with or struggling with, and I was like, oh. Don't just push through. Sometimes we too have to sit with the tragedies and the hiccups and the hurtful things that transpire in the midst of the work, and it was that was a tough pill to swallow. And I remember sharing with a pastor friend and just the heaviness of it, right? And how I wanted to fully support the family because I was exiting out, my last day was July 31st, right? And I'm like, okay, we gotta do a service and just a turnaround or whatever. But I was like, uh, why now? Right? Like, um, and I'm not one of them people that say don't question God because I feel like he's sovereign and he's not intimidated by our questions. Um, he's a good father, and I believe that it's okay to ask the wives, the where do you want me to go? The what's next? Um, how do I handle this? Right? And so this pastor friend says, Miss V, you're looking at it all wrong. So I said, okay, I'm listening. And he says, just see, she passed in her home, not someone else's, not on the street, not in her camper, but in her home. Surrounded by family. She wasn't on a cold concrete. And as he's talking, I could see it. I could see where I met her. I could see the condition of the living situation. And then because there is an ending, right? I I saw where she was, where she was at home, in clean clothes, a clean baddie, a nice roof over her head, um, with her daughter, the best caretaker there could be, right? And so although it didn't take away the pain of she's gone, now the family, on top of already the trauma that they've experienced, have to process this grief. But then there was another oh, but we're able to offer grief counseling, right? And so tragic, yes, heartbreak, absolutely, but so grateful she got to experience living in a home again, right? Not crammed up, not on the streets, but in a home, surrounded by family. Um, and so y'all see, I ain't been reading the script. If this is just a framework, but to Katina's mom, Miss Katherine Allen, you are not forgotten. You live through things that were not necessarily your fault. You raised a daughter who has more heart than most people I have ever met in my life, and you left this world in a home with your family around you. That is not nothing, that is grace. That's grace. Um, and I'm so, so grateful for the grace that God allowed, and I'm grateful to know that she knew Jesus. I'm grateful, and so back to Miss Katina. Um, so we start having, and this was before her mom passed, we began having monthly meetings, and I knew the heart of the monthly meetings. I wasn't sure if those that we were serving understood the heart. And so, just to give you a little context, these meetings were once a month, and they provided information, um, regular day-to-day life information, how to properly um dispose sanitary napkins, how to um uh fire safety. So we had different speakers to come in, how to navigate grief. We had Latanyua Thompson come in to do a few workshops on managing grief, managing trauma. Um, we had um Deneshia Clemons from House of Loving Hands to come in and talk about domestic violence, and she was there for support and to provide resources for anyone that wanted to escape, that may be experiencing domestic violence or had experienced domestic violence and needed some tools, right? Um there it was always catered. So we had um Soulfully Dope Kitchen, we had Kristie, we had Lala, um different local businesses, and so it was a family gathering, so kind of like a family meeting, right? Um, to make for sure along the process they were getting what they needed, but there wasn't a name for it. And I'm like, we need a name, we need a name. And so talking with Katina, I said, What do you think we should name it? And when I tell you, she didn't hesitate. She was like, What about staying on your feet? And I said, Look here, you own to something, and that's what we called it staying on your feet, because the purpose of the gathering was to uh provide tools that once they received housing and um jobs and those types of things, they were they would be able to at some point to stay on their feet. What a name, right? And we talk about here on this episode the power of our words and calling a thing what it is, and so and it's not just calling a thing what it is, but understanding. Um, and because when you call it, there can be some attachment to it, right? There's relevance to it. Um, and so Katina understood something I had been trying to articulate, right? It's not about getting back on your feet like you fail and now you have to recover, it's about staying on your feet the daily unglamorous, relentless work of holding yourself up when everything around you is trying to knock you down. Because the truth of the matter is you can have a healthy community, you can have people around you, but if you aren't given the tools, that when they're not around, when you're when you find yourself by yourself, when you find yourself wanting to relapse, when you're finding yourself wanting to spiral, you can remember the tools that you've been provided with, and you can choose either to use the tools or not, right? And so, um, and because here's what we know there's different things that knock us down. You have the system, you have your choices, you have stigma, right? And so the survival math of just making it through another day without enough of anything, staying on your feet. That's what Katina named it, and that's what we're talking about today, right? Staying on your feet. So, Katina, even though you are not sitting next to me today, you all over this episode, sis. Um you have been, you've been sister and friend to so many. Um, I ran into different of people that um was at Castro that we serviced, and your dame, her name pops up. She's still doing some of their hair, she gives encouraging words, and so so when we're talking about community, and for those of you that may be new to this podcast, we talk a lot about our unhoused brothers and sisters and the misconceptions and all the things, right? And so, this is a prime example of an encampment of people that Castro was their community. If you came up in there and they didn't really know who you were, you was you was getting aside like who is this, right? So when I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the honor of being received, the honor of them accepting me, because and I said this to them when I first got there as we were getting to know each other. I know you see me as just a part of the system that is broken because you don't know me, but I will do what I can to show you that I'm not just a part of the system, that I'm here to support, that I'm here to help, that I'm here to give you resources if you're willing to give me a chance, right? And so, and they were willing to, and of course, there were some whatever, who she thinks she is, type of, you know, whatever, because you're not gonna win over everyone, and to the service providers, understand that. Um, but to the listener that's trying to understand the behind the scenes of the unhoused, the behind the scenes of a large encampment. And like I said, Castro was over a hundred residents that live there in their vehicles. Um, and so they had their connection, and actually, it was split in two the dark side and the other side. Um, and so it's kind of like why are you down here? Right, but they looked out for one another. They looked out for one another, and so places. Them in housing, them now being in housing. Katina is such an example of looking out for one another, doesn't stop because they're not in an encampment anymore, but it continues, especially when it's who you are. So when you're seeing our homeless brothers and sisters on the street and you looking like, what's your story? Right? Know that they have one. And the time right then may not be the time that they're ready to transform or receive help, but the prayer is that one day they will. And I'm so grateful for Miss Katherine Allen because she was my doorway into, she was the open door into her family. She accepted me, and the rest of her family did. And so we honor you, Miss Katherine. Um, and so another family, I won't say their name because I haven't been given permission to do so, but this was another family at Castro. Um, and this family mom, son, another son, daughter. So there was two minor children, and gratefully, they didn't have to actually stay at the encampment. They they c they couch surf, so to speak. Um, but mom and the adult son were at the encampment, and it was it was a struggle initially. Um, there was a lot of things to work through, and addiction being one of them. And so, to those of you that's doing this work, or to the listener that is trying to understand the people that's on the street that may be rude, that may be mean, that may be talking and looking at you crazy, it's not them, it's the addiction, right? And so we learn not to take things personal, however, because we're human and we have feelings, sometimes our feelings get in the way, and we take it personal. So we have to learn when to step in and when to step back, and learn that stepping back doesn't mean I've given up on you, it just means you're not ready. So I'm making myself available to when you are, right? But having that conversation and having it over and over again because if substance is involved, it doesn't always quit the first, second, or third time. So, fast forward, um, I have a nonprofit called Way 2 Love Inc., and for about three years we partnered with um two beauty salons, um Delusions and Salon Manaj on McDonald Avenue. And the owners of these salons allowed me and other stylists at spanning from Fairfield all the way back to Richmond to come and utilize their space on a Sunday so that we could love on the babies in Brooklyn, not Brookside, uh, Bay Area Rescue Mission Shelter and Grip Shelter, as well as the Castro families. And so this would be the Sunday before school got started. So school started on a Monday, the day before, most and sometimes that Tuesday. And we would have snacks and lunch and whatnot. And so this family, their daughter, I'm gonna just fast forward to the last time she came. Um, it was um the Sunday before she entered her senior year of high school, and so she wanted a little puts ass in her hair, a little layering, and so Fallon hooked her up, and she looked beautiful, but there was something about her spirit that was a little bit different at that time. She says, Um, Miss Vanessa, um, my mom, because I said, Where's your mom? And she said, Well, she's in a rehab. She was kind of silent. I said, Okay. I said, Well, what do you all need? Well, my brother's there right now. I said, Okay. And so we talked, we hugged, made for sure she had, you know, information for resources and whatnot. Let me tell you, that baby graduated, she got accepted into college. Um, at the time, of course, it was hard, so she wasn't able, she's not there now. She is doing community college, um, but her hope is to return to where she was, so that that's her dream, but finances didn't allow it. And so we're looking into ways to be able to help get her back to to accomplishing where her dreams and where she wanted those dreams to be accomplished. And I'm being careful because again, I don't want to give where she was because mom hasn't gave me the thumbs up to list their names yet. Um, and so, you know, so I would go by and wonder like, are they okay? Um, and I'm so grateful for social media. So I received a message about a week and a half ago, maybe two weeks now, from mom saying that she was home, she had been cleaned for two years. Um, they're in the same place that we placed them in a little over two years ago. Um, she's working, and when I tell you, my heart just jumped with pure joy to the point where I called someone in the city that I know I call, I can say her name, Michelle Milam, because me and Michelle, we would we would petition God. We was praying, but we wasn't only praying, we was actually doing the work and trying to provide and piece together resources for these families that we felt that God had assigned us to, right? And so I called her to share the good news because here's what you have to understand in this work, we see the grind, we see the pushback, we see the hardships, we see all of that, and sometimes the testimonies, the I'm still here, yes, thank God moments are far and few in between. And so I know Michelle is still doing the work, and I wanted her to have some encouragement, right? And so back to this lovely family. So mom, she shared and she was and she shared that her son. So another part of the story, the adult son, his son had been placed in the system, and we had been doing virtual online um meetings because it was they were out of state. Um trying to bring baby boy home. I left before it happened, and so for her to say, and he got his son, listen, oh my lord, thank you, Lord, right? She was like, and he's clean, um, he's working, and so she shared their Christmas pictures where she had her whole family with her. Let that sit in. So when she reached out, I didn't just hear someone, oh, look what's going on for me. No, what I read was joy. I felt a deep, full joy. The kind that reminds service providers of why we keep showing up even on the days where it feels like nothing is moving, nothing is changing, and the work is costing you more than what you have to give. Right? Something moved, something changed. A little boy was back with his dad, with his grandmother. A mother is clear-eyed and standing. A grandmother is watching her family find their footing. Have they arrived? Absolutely not. Will there be challenges? Absolutely, because the same family, while trying to figure out how to get the young the college student back on campus, is also struggling to keep up on rent because the program has ended, right? And we're in California and it's expensive. Um, and so the work doesn't stop, the work continues. Um continues, it continues, it continues, it continues, the work continues, and so she will need resources on how to manage money, right? How to find a job that is more suitable to manage her upkeep. You good, um, and so the work doesn't end, but it's these type of stories that help us to keep going, right? And so that staying on your feet, that is exactly precisely what those words mean. Being without housing, but the emotional and spiritual cost of being treated as invisible for years at a time. These families were not invisible, not to me, not to Deneshia Clemons, not to Latanyua Thompson, not to Michelle Milam, those ladies and those people that I mentioned at the beginning of these episodes, this episode, they were not invisible because those people provided their services, their love. They gave them tools, which is why they're still standing on their feet, which is why they're still in housing, which is why the reach out still took place, right? To let me know what is still needed, but what tools are being used that were placed and instilled in them. How about that? How about that, and so to Katina? I see you. I'm glad you're still standing. We will get you in this chair sooner or later, but for right now, keep pushing, keep loving, keep walking through, and know that I'm still holding space for you. To the family who sent the praise report, thank you. You may never know what that message meant to me. Keep going, all of you, and to you listening right now. If you are in the middle of something hard, if you are trying to figure out how to stay upright, how to continue to stay on your feet, even when everything is pushing against you, make for sure you have the right community in your proximity. Staying on your feet is not the same as having it all together. It just means you're still here, you're still standing. Thank you for being with me today. This was episode seven of social abuse. So listen, stay informed, get involved in your community, learn to ask the right questions. Remember, a light has to be shed in order for darkness to be diminished. This is Vanessa, and this has been your social abuse podcast. Until next time.