street roots
13
June 21, 2013
Takin’ Jenzi Home
By Henry Danger
We’re movin’ Jenzi
She’s gettin’ run out her place
movin’ Jenzi
She’s got to find another space
movin’ Jenzi
Can she crash upon your couch?
movin’ Jenzi
In the basement of your house?
movin’ Jenzi
Got to get a new spot soon
And we’re takin’ Jenzi home
Though we don’t know where she’s goin’
It’s the seventh time this year
We all love Jenzi dear
We’re movin’ Jenzi
She could sleep out in the shed
movin’ Jenzi
A sheet of cardboard for her bed
movin’ Jenzi
And we’re movin all her stuff
movin’ Jenzi
When is too much never enough?
So we’re takin’ Jenzi home
Though she don’t know where she’s goin’
It’s the seventh time this year
Gotta get her outta here
We’re movin’ Jenzi
Gotta get her out tonight
movin’ Jenzi
Gotta be gone by first light
movin’ Jenzi
The sweeps are cornin’ through at dawn
movin’ Jenzi
By then she’s got to be long gone
Sheri Hobbs
BY KENDALL
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heri began living on the streets
when she was 12. She was
running away from an unsafe
home where addiction led to abuse.
streets were a safer place to be. In the
streets she was taken in by other
houseless people who made a home for
her and protected her.
“My street family believed in me.
They saw strength in me and goodness.
I never got abused in the streets. It was
street elders who taught me values: You
never take from people with less than
you, make sure nobody in the group
goes hungry. When I was 12 I met my
boyfriend, and I stayed with him till I
was 1 9 .1 still love him. He’s my
childhood sweetheart, my first child’s
father. He has seven more years to
serve in jail, and I’m married to
someone else now. My husband lives in
California, and I hope one day I can get
my kids back and go live with him, but
my first love will always be my first
love.”
Sheri became a meth addict on the
streets and was ridden by that addiction
for some years. She used dirty needles,
she was careless, she spent six years in
jail, and she says with some wonder,
“It’s only thanks to the grace of the
Creator that I don’t have AIDS or
Hepatitis C.”
She’s 34 now and has four children,
but only the baby, born while she was in
a treatment center, lives with her. The
other three are in foster care. Sheri and
the baby live in housing for women who
have been through drug treatment and
are clean and sober. She works at City
Team Ministries in Women’s Services.
“I work there several days a week. At
the City Team center women can get
showers, a sandwich, some clothes, and
a little kindness. I like to be there for
them.”
S
See we’re takin’ Jenzi home
Though she don’t see where she’s goin’
It’s the seventh time this year
We all love Jenzi dear
We all love our Jenzi dear
Come on home now, Jenzi dear
COMMUNITY SJQR&
PH O TO BY KEN D A LL
Street Biography
“What I want for the future is to
continue working with my people. I’d
like to get a paid job in a nonprofit. I
don’t ever want to forget where I came
The
from. I’ve been clean for two years, and
my street family is still my main
support. If I go without, they get on
me, they’re like, ‘Why? why? Just tell us
if you need something, we’ll get it for
you!’ They keep people who are on
drugs away from me because
sometimes I’m tempted to take care of
them, but that’s when I have to back
off. We have to decide to take care of
ourselves first, and then if we’re
working on that, we can accept support,
but not caretaking.
“What would I like to change? I’d like
to see more compassion. I’d like people
not to judge us. I’d like them to know
that every one of us has a story, and it’s
probably not the story they think it is.
If people have compassion, maybe they
can volunteer in programs for
houseless people, or maybe they can
give money, if they have it, to
organizations that help us. They can
donate to Outside In, Sisters of the
Road, Yellow Brick Road. Without these
organizations we’d have no health care
and we’d be hungry, and when we’re
sick and hungry, we can’t make good
decisions. But money is not the main
thing. The main thing is not to judge
us, and to have compassion.”
Kendall is a
photographer, writer,
listener, and retired
college professor. Her
work includes “Singing
Away the Hunger, ” by
Mpho Nthunya, and
many stories o f people
on the margins of
society who prevail.
Juicers
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