After a long, sometimes terrifying journey that seemed endless and full of setbacks, Ibelisse Jones-Lynch and Doug Lynch just got the keys to their own apartment. Through it all, their strength has been in each other.
“She’s my angel,” Doug said.
“God has blessed us in so many ways,” said Ibelisse, resting on the only piece of furniture in their one-bedroom apartment in deep southeast Portland: a blanket and foam pad on the floor of the living room.
“We are starting off with literally nothing,” Doug said. “We spent all our savings to get the bare bones necessities, toilet paper, a shower curtain, a frying pan and a pot. We are doing our best to get back to a decent life and rebuild. We are starting from square zero and doing it right this time.”
Back in San Diego, Ibelisse and Doug had everything. When they met, he was working for a company cleaning bathrooms in city parks, then he got a much better job with a buddy doing construction demolition.
“It was fun tearing buildings apart,” he said. “I drove a company truck. They paid for hotels. It was hard work, but it paid.”
Ibelisse said she’d “have everything ready for him when he got back home. Clothes laid out, shower, food.”
And then Doug got bit by a spider.
“They think it was a brown recluse or a black widow,” he said.
His hand swelled up to more than twice its size. There is still a large scar between his ring finger and his pinkie.
“It was my day off, and I picked up something to hand to her, and it squirted at her. My hand squirted at her, and she said, ‘Oh no, we’re going to the hospital,” Doug said.
“I’d never seen anything like it,” Ibelisse recalled. “It was awful. It was eating through his hand.”
Doug ended up in the hospital, hooked up to intravenous fluids and antibiotics, for more than a week. When he got out, he couldn’t work.
“I had no feeling in my hand. I’d pick up a hammer, and it would go flying right out of my hand,” he said.
After their savings were gone, they had nothing. They stayed with friends until that became impossible. And Ibelisse wanted out of San Diego.
“I didn’t want to be around any of the people he knew,” Ibelisse said. “He was a different person around them. His demeanor changed.”
“I was a gangster. That’s all I knew were gangsters,” Doug said. “My mother was a psychologist, and my father was in the Navy, but they were always gone. I was a latchkey kid living in not the greatest neighborhood. The biker down the street was my hero.”
“I put my foot down,” Ibelisse said. “I said it’s either me or your lifestyle.”
Ibelisse knew they both needed to change their lifestyles. Being without a home exacerbated their addictions and cycles of “trouble, pain and punishment,” as Doug put it.
Ibelisse grew up as an only child, moving from town to town. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, her father was a locksmith. He died when Ibelisse was 16, and that’s when she began drinking.
After Doug lost his job, they decided to go into addiction treatment and recovery together. They both benefited from the spiritual aspect of the program.
“She adopted my God as hers,” Doug said.
Meanwhile, Ibelisse knew they had to leave San Diego to live a life away from addiction and crime.
“I wanted to go to Portland,” she said. “I had lived here years ago, and I’ve always liked it here. It’s a different feeling here. I’m a happier person here. I’ve always done better here.”
They arrived in spring, and their first few months in Portland were rough. With no other options, they lived on the streets.
“I felt like a scumbag holding a sign,” Doug said.
Ibelisse had never known what it was like to be hungry and cold.
“Once I asked someone if they were attached to their leftovers. I never thought I would ask someone that in my life,” she said, beginning to cry.
Doug continued for her: “She was that hungry to ask, are you really attached to those leftovers you are carrying home? Are you really going to eat them?” They gave her the food.
“We used to take showers in Starbucks, in the bathroom,” Doug said. “Our greatest benefactors were 7-Elevens because they would let us cook in their microwaves without buying something. They’d let us bring in our food, and they’d say just don’t make a mess. I think they let us because we looked clean and respectable. We might have been homeless, but we did our best to stay clean.”
Ibelisse added, “We tried really hard not to look homeless because people treat you differently. I never realized it before. Once you get down there and you don’t have a hand up, it’s nearly impossible to get back up, and it can happen to anyone.”
A big break came for Ibelisse and Doug when they found Street Roots.
“This kid on a bike took us over there and told us to try it out,” Ibelisse said. “And he said, ‘You know what? You can live doing that. It will give you enough for what you need. Not what you want, but for your needs. And it has!”
Doug said he didn’t know “how the hell we would have survived without Street Roots.”
“Thankfully we don’t drink or get high. We are almost 18 months clean now. It really has made a huge difference,” Doug said.
“Thanks to Street Roots, we went from existing to living,” Ibelisse said.
They sell Street Roots on Sundays at the Grotto and weekday mornings at Oregon Health & Science University at Moody Avenue on South Waterfront.
Ibelisse and Doug leaned heavily on Street Roots’ Rose City Resource to find their way to services. Their copy is dog-eared and well-marked. Through the resource guide, they found numbers to call, housing lists to apply for, clothes, food and emergency shelter options.
And now they have an apartment.
“It’s possible,” Ibelisse said. “The stepping stones and tools are there. You just have to use them.”
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots