THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2022 A9
Single mother raises 6-year-old
through homelessness in Redmond
BY BRYCE DOLE
CO Media Group
Single mother Kim Var-
ner tries to build a life for her
6-year-old daughter every day.
But raising her little bundle
of energy in their fifth-wheel
trailer while working and expe-
riencing homelessness is gru-
eling.
Varner frets over the holes
in the trailer walls and a bro-
ken-down refrigerator that, for
a short while, kept them from
having nutritious food. She
spends $30 each week at the
laundry mat, and cleans their
dishes with water she boils over
the stove. She maintains a pro-
pane heater that she knows will
be important as temperatures
drop this week, and she’s on a
two-year-long waitlist for subsi-
dized housing.
“We’re all one unforeseen
circumstance away from this,”
she said Tuesday, motioning to
her trailer while her child, Zoey
Starnes, runs around playing
with their kitten, Lizabell Dia-
mond.
A tall, brown-haired, tattooed
woman, Varner works long
hours as a supervisor at Rite Aid
in north Bend. She was once so
close to having a stable life for
Zoey, who attends Desert Sky
Montessori, a nonprofit charter
school in Bend.
For nine years, Varner rented
a Bend home before moving to
La Pine last October to live with
Zoey’s dad, who the single mom
shares custody with. He kicked
her out a month later, leav-
ing Varner homeless. Now, she
raises her daughter in a parked
trailer in Redmond.
Varner lives on the verge, try-
ing to make the most of raising
her child through homelessness.
She considers her living situ-
ation embarrassing and must
contend with the circumstances,
one that kept her 19-year-old
son from staying with her on a
recent visit, an experience she
called “ripping your heart out
hard.”
“It’s not like I’m not trying,”
Varner said. “There’s just no-
where to go.”
Varner was born in Tampa,
Florida, and raised in Bend. She
graduated from Mountain View
High School, got married and
bought a house on Cedarwood
Road in Bend. Her husband was
in the U.S. Air Force.
They rented out their home
while living on U.S. Air Force
bases in Texas and Alaska, their
newborn son in tow.
They moved back to Bend
Editor’s Note
Who are the real people
impacted by skyrocketing
housing prices, decisions
about homeless shelters
or plans to sweep informal
camps? The Spokesman
wants to offer insight by tell-
ing their stories through the
series Faces of Homeless-
ness. Every two weeks this
year, Bulletin and Spokes-
man reporters will introduce
readers to a different home-
less person. We are here to
tell their stories.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Zoey Starnes, 6, holds her kitten, Lizabell Diamond, with her mother, Kim Varner in the camp trailer where they live in Redmond.
How to help
in 2004, sold their home and
bought a new one in La Pine.
Varner struggled to hold a job
while raising her son, who has
Asperger’s syndrome, a mild
form of autism.
“I would constantly be getting
called by the school to come and
take care of him or come and
get him or come and diffuse the
situation,” she said. “It became
almost impossible to work.”
Varner eventually got di-
vorced, sold her home, moved
to Redmond and, in 2007, the
housing market crashed. She
lost her job at a pumice plant in
Chemult. Three months later,
she met another man and got
married.
“I literally jumped from one
frying pan to another,” Varner.
Varner bounced around Or-
egon before landing with her
stepfather in Warrenton in
2008. But Varner couldn’t catch
a break: Her husband began
experiencing kidney failure.
The disease had reached an ad-
vanced stage. They moved back
to Redmond so he could receive
dialysis treatment. For about
three years, Varner took care of
her husband , watching him slip
away. He died in March 2012.
“It was a hard one,” she said.
Varner moved back to Bend.
She received financial benefits
from her husband’s death that
For suggestions on how to
help the region’s residents
experiencing homelessness,
contact the Homeless Lead-
ership Coalition by email at
info@cohomeless.org.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
better for Zoey. She likes school.
She rants about the beans she
counts in math class and the
art she loves to pin up on their
trailer walls and show to visi-
tors.
Varner meets with her
daughter’s teachers, helping
them navigate Zoey’s ongoing
health problems.
her ears and made her deaf.
To communicate, Varner and
Zoey learned sign language. It
escalated into an autoimmune
disease and she struggled to
breathe as her fever surged to
104 degrees. They took frequent
trips to the hospital, where doc-
tors prescribed hard steroids
and, sometimes, didn’t under-
stand Zoey’s condition. Varner
was frustrated.
“It was horrible,” she said.
Surgeries and care eventually
helped Zoey conquer these ail-
ments and regain her hearing.
But she wouldn’t say her first
word — momma — until she
was 2.
Since then, things have been
NEEDING COMPASSION
But Varner worries about
her daughter’s experience at
school. She wonders if the kids
and families judge her daugh-
ter for their life in the trailer,
and whether she’ll be invited to
things like other students. She
wants people to understand that
the stigmas surrounding their
experience aren’t true, that be-
ing around them won’t cause
someone to catch some disease,
and that her daughter is just like
any other kid.
“We just need compassion,”
she said.
While her daughter goes to
school, Varner manages the till
at Rite Aid. She cleans up vomit
in the bathroom. She helps
Kim Varner lives in a camp trailer in Redmond.
helped her raise her son in the
house on Whisper Ridge, where
they’d remain for nine years. She
met her ex-boyfriend and even-
tually became pregnant with
Zoey.
It was quickly clear that Zoey
would be a feisty child. One
day, her cousin nudged Varner’s
pregnant belly. Zoey, apparently,
wasn’t happy.
“Zoey came uncorked,” Var-
ner said, laughing, remember-
ing how her daughter kicked
again and again. “That’s who
she is. She’s a little fighter.”
That fight would begin al-
most immediately upon Zoey’s
birth. At 6 months old, she con-
tracted a disease that affected
blind customers find what they
need. She manages the five em-
ployees below her, two of whom
have also experienced home-
lessness. She cleans herself with
baby wipes to look presentable,
and she says she’s fortunate to
have a boss who doesn’t mind if
she shows up smelling poorly or
with her hair undone.
What money she makes she
uses to give her daughter a
normal life. Their days begin
at 7 a.m. Often, she prepares
an oatmeal breakfast with
fruit for Zoey. They cook,
sleep, study and watch mov-
ies in the trailer Varner pur-
chased in February.
After breakfast, Varner drives
Zoey to school in Bend. She of-
ten jokes with Zoey about their
life, saying “It’s just an extended
camping trip,” or “It’s normal for
adults to have sleepovers.” Zoey
knows it’s more than that.
But Varner knows she’s not
alone. She has taken note of
the people who have lent her a
hand. The social worker who
brings her cases of bottled water.
The volunteers who brought her
a propane generator. The peo-
ple from the Veterans of For-
eign War Post who let her stay
in their parking lot just because
she comes from a family full
of veterans and knock on her
trailer door just to check in.
“Those are huge things,” she
said, adding that it makes her
feel that she’s “being treated like
I exist, that I’m human.”
Despite the situation, Zoey’s
toothy grin doesn’t convey worry.
She paints unicorns, watches the
movie “Spirit” and plays with the
pets. On Tuesday, while Varner
was droning on about her daugh-
ter’s health struggles, Zoey of-
fered a rebuttal.
“But I know how to fight,” she
said. “No worries.”
█
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
bdole@bendbulletin.com
Downtown Redmond gets spooky for Halloween
Nick Rosenberger/Spokesman
Downtown Redmond filled with all kinds of spooky monsters and pop-culture costumes on Oct. 31 for Halloween trick-or-treating on 6th St. or-
ganized by the Redmond Chamber of Commerce.
Worship Directory
Baptist
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Highland Baptist Church
3100 SW Highland Ave.,
Redmond
541-548-4161
Lead Pastor: Lance Logue
St Thomas
Roman Catholic Church
1720 NW 19th Street
Redmond, Oregon 97756
541-923-3390
Sunday Worship Services:
Blended – 8 & 9:30 AM
Contemporary – 11 AM
(Worship Center)
Father Todd Unger, Pastor
Nick Rosenberger/Spokesman
Participants the Redmond Chamber of Commerce’s Halloween trick-or-
treating event on Oct. 31 in Downtown Redmond dressed as characters
from Shrek while giving out candy.
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