CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Jerry Pace was noticeably hunched over as he spoke about his experience living on the streets. His back was bothering him, most likely from years of sleeping in the back seat of his car or in cramped tents.
When the 57-year-old spoke, at the YAIpaks Outreach warehouse in downtown Clarksville on a spring Friday, he seemed to end every sentence with a sigh. He sounded worn out, but he was wearing newer, name-brand clothes. His hands were calloused, and freshly trimmed strands of hair stood out around his camouflage baseball cap.
YAIPaks’ Sherry Nicholson said Pace has a reputation of being a “straight-shooter,” and telling it like it is. His voice cracked at times while he explained how years of untreated substance abuse led to a traumatic divorce that left him homeless.
Pace once had a good job, a wife, kids and a home. He had worked in automotive detailing, until he lost his certification and couldn’t afford to re-up his licensing.
Nicholson offered Pace some ibuprofen for his back pain mid-speech.
“I do a lot of walking,” Pace explained, before taking the pill without water.
Pace is one of the estimated 220 people living in Clarksville without a home, but he’s a prime example of how homelessness is often the result of a cycle amplified by mental health issues, criminal history, a broken support system and substance abuse.
What may seem like a simple solution – such as getting a job or staying with family – is rarely that clear-cut for people like Pace, who has struggled in that cycle for much of the past 10 years.
Pace was able to get help through the YAIPaks Outreach organization. On this spring day, Pace was something he hadn’t been in a while: hopeful. He’d just ended a call with an intake nurse from a rehabilitation facility. In two days, he’d have a bed waiting for him.
“I’ve got to fix myself first before I can go through anything,” Pace said.
No job, no home, no home, no job
Homelessness often goes hand-in-hand with mental illness. This was the case for Sherly “Ms. Sheryl” Farmer, who died in February after being hit by a car while wheeling her grocery cart across Madison Street.
Her death generated a slew of questions about homelessness in Clarksville. Who are the people we allow to live on the streets, and what can be done to help them?
There are many reasons that cause one to lose housing. Every situation is different, but there are some commonalities that lead to a cycle of instability.
“When you’re homeless and you’re out there on the streets, it’s hard to get a place to stay, and it gets harder to get a job because you have nowhere to shower,” Pace said of his experience.
This cyclical effect is something Stephanie Cooper sees a lot. She is a program manager and community support specialist at Centerstone’s Nashville location, working primarily with clients who are experiencing homelessness and struggling with mental illnesses like substance use disorder, depression or other psychiatric conditions.
But even if a person finds a way to recover and get into treatment, their history gets in the way. Cooper mentioned that this cycle trickles down in ways that most don’t realize.
“People don’t want to hire somebody that has a history of DUIs or a possession charge. So then, they don’t have employment. Or, if they do get employment, it’s a minimum wage job that they have to work an insane amount of hours just to make ends meet,” Cooper said.
The stigma of homelessness
Especially for folks who have struggled with substance abuse or another mental illness, the stigma can be just as damaging to their prospects of recovery or obtaining housing and employment.
And for many of her clients, Cooper said the stigma of their struggles “follows them around forever.”
“There’s this stigma that they’re less-than, or they’re not capable of other things. Especially in the United States, we criminalize substance use so much that instead of getting the proper treatment, we incarcerate them,” Cooper said.
This is true of Pace’s experience, too. He told Clarksville Now he has been arrested more times than he can count for criminal trespassing and public intoxication, which has made his journey to recovery all the more difficult.
“Once you have that history, it can be hard to get employment. It can be hard to get an apartment because they do background checks,” Cooper said.
Cooper added that when another trauma-induced mental illness is present alongside substance abuse, the substance itself is often used to self-medicate, or “correct,” that perceived abnormality. This often manifests when the trauma is triggered, Cooper said.
Pace is no stranger to this either. His 57th birthday was on April 4, and up until the week prior, his sister was supposed to travel to Clarksville to celebrate with him. Plans changed last minute due to a death in the family, and that upset Pace. He began drinking again.
He was arrested for public intoxication, simple possession and criminal trespass again. He was jailed for a week.
“It don’t do nothing but make me feel worse,” Pace said.
Substance abuse and mental illness usually come in a pair, Cooper said.
“I think all substance abuse truly is a co-occurring disorder in some aspects. I do think all substance abuse has some sort of mental health issue behind it. I think the two go hand-in-hand, and I think the trauma is what plays into that mental health,” Cooper said.
Until the trauma is addressed, it’s Cooper’s experience that people will remain in that cycle of use and instability. This has been Pace’s experience too.
Addressing trauma
For Pace, a traumatic divorce was the catalyst for his homelessness, and that only worsened his substance abuse. He was married for 17 1/2 years.
“She just got tired of my drinking, and I ended up out on the street. It broke my heart. Then her and my stepdaughter moved in together, and my stepdaughter would invite me over there on weekends. So I’d go over there and stay, but I’d be back out on the street Monday through Friday,” Pace said.
“It put a lot of pressure on me, when we got divorced. I didn’t want a divorce, but like God says, if you love somebody, you’ve got to let them go.”
Soon, Pace’s ex-wife moved and he was left with nowhere to stay. He slept in the back seat of his car, and the substance abuse got worse as he used it as a coping mechanism.
“The breakup of a relationship like that, it just kills people. Like I didn’t care. And now I’m going to try rehab again, and I’m hoping it works. If it don’t work, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Pace said.
Many of us take for granted having family or friends we can turn to. That’s often not the case for people who become homeless.
“Not only have they experienced this trauma, they don’t have a support system. They don’t have that person they can lean on, that family member or whatever it is they need,” Cooper said.
Pace was lucky to find YAIPaks, where volunteers were able to connect him with a facility that would get him the help he needed. They also listened to him, and they provided that support that Cooper said was essential to recovery.
“If people want to straighten up, they’ve got to be able to talk about it, and let people know how they feel. If you don’t, you’re not doing anything but bottling it up and keeping that cork on. So talk about it, and get it out of the way. That way you feel better,” Pace said.
Part 1 in a series, “Homeless in Clarksville.”