On May 31^st I officially became homeless.

Where did I sleep on my first night of official homelessness? I slept in my box truck parked directly in front of the Wilma, a very appropriate location considering it was my documentary about the Wilma’s owner, Nick Checota, and his plan to use Tax Increment Financing money that really triggered the tentacles of our local cabal to come slithering for me.

Before the documentary, I was a valued member of the Homeless Industrial Complex (HIC), though I obviously didn’t use that term at the time. Instead I said things like HOUSING FIRST and HARM REDUCTION, believing our local leaders were genuine in their stated goals to find solutions. What an idiot I was.

Around the same time I decided to leave the Non-Profit Sector, an act of violence inside the Poverello Center (allegedly just between two men) led me to a startling realization: the Sheriff’s Office has the power to remove someone from life support in a private hospital room BEFORE notifying family. 

How can that be? 

It wasn’t like Sean Stevenson, the man in the coma, didn’t have family to contact. He did, but they found out about the fate of their unconscious family member AFTER the plug had been pulled. Even worse, the other man allegedly involved in the altercation, Johnny Lee Perry, was shot in the back and killed over a year later after a pathetic thirty minute attempt by the Sheriff’s Office to get him to stop swinging a machete around in the Deep Creek area of Missoula. 

I say pathetic because I watched the whole thing play out during the Coroner’s Inquest review of this “Officer-Involved Death”, and what I saw resembled nothing like the deescalation techniques I’ve seen effectively deployed in the field by city police who have been through Crisis Intervention Training.

It might be hard to believe now, but I once played an important role for this Missoula community during my time leading the Homeless Outreach Teams. I gave presentations, helped with hospital discharges, responded to nuisance issues regarding chronically homeless individuals, and organized clean-ups of the Reserve Street area. I even helped the Sheriff’s Office identify a killer!

Those days are far behind me, so let’s get up to speed and discuss what kind of homeless I’ll be, beginning with why I chose the word HOMEless instead of the new, preferred term, which is HOUSEless (or the even newer term unveiled by our Mayor this week, which is Urban CRISIS Camping).

When I left the quietly dysfunctional stability of my former domestic life in April of 2022, I spent my first few months living in my art studio, which is one reason I lost my lease there. That space wasn’t much bigger than the box truck I’m using for shelter now, so it feels like I have a house on wheels. It’s the idea of an actual HOME that I no longer feel I have.

Other factors leading to my homelessness worth noting include the fact that I DO have a paying job at a local catering establishment, and I do NOT have a mental health diagnosis, despite what local influencers are saying publicly about me now. I will also NOT be entering the Homeless Industrial Complex through the Coordinated Entry System because I’m not planning on entering the trap of subsidized housing vouchers and other various mechanisms of control that come along with the “help” offered.

Some of the things I do share with those who need social services are addiction issues and a terrible relationship to money. While my alcohol dependency has been in check for almost 4 years, my relationship to money is much more rocky when I consider how I spent the majority of the past year in a mad pursuit of answers (and rare books) that took me around the country and quickly evaporated my divorce settlement. 

I could find scapegoats to stand-in for my own poor choices, and I do sometimes feel pretty upset that extenuating circumstances were a big part of feeling the need to be ANYWHERE but here, in Missoula, but we always have a choice, and the ones I’ve made have led me to a place I never expected to be, but isn’t that life?

When things started getting serious for me, I was asked by Sean’s sister, who has become a very good friend over the last four years, if I regretted my choice to find answers for their family regarding what REALLY happened to Sean inside the men’s dorm of the Poverello Center. My answer was quick, and remains the same as I write this in my truck watching the rain come: NO!

I used to have a respected position in this Missoula community describing what the various sub-populations of “the homeless” were like, and the different approaches needed to address the unique challenges they presented. I wonder, what would THAT Travis think of me now? Amused, I hope. But also a little worried that the “crazy” stories I’m telling might be true.

Thanks for reading!