Tom Durkin | Columnist – Printed in The Union
According to the National Library of Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, the average life expectancy for a homeless woman is 52 years.
Lisa lived to 55.
Monday, March 27, she was found dead in front of her tent covered by a sleeping bag in bushes in Brunswick Basin. She had been dead for several days.
The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office Coroner Final Report of Investigation determined her death was natural. The report said she experienced “sudden cardiac death due to arteriosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease due to chronic heavy ethanolism [alcoholism] and chronic heavy methamphetamine use.”
The autopsy was grim. Toxicology showed she had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.226 and a laundry list of other prescription and street drugs in her system.
It gets worse. “There are multiple red-purple contusions up to 3 inches in greatest dimension in various stages of healing overlying the legs, thighs and abdomen. There is an irregular, red-purple, 4-inch contusions of the medial aspect of the right breast and a few red-purple contusions in various stages of healing over the upper chest and arms.”
Such injuries imply that Lisa was the victim of recent domestic violence, and this is confirmed in the 19-page coroner’s report.
Nevada County Sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Beauchamp wrote the incident report, which included interviews with Casey Davey, R.N., and social worker Celeste LaPedus of the Nevada County H.O.M.E. Team.
The Homeless Outreach and Medical Engagement Team comprises specialists from Nevada County, Hospitality House, Advocates for Mentally Ill Housing and Turning Point to work with chronically homeless people.
Based on his interview with Davey, Beauchamp wrote: “The decedent had multiple Traumatic Brain Injuries due to domestic violence. The decedent also suffered from PTSD and depression they believed was brought on by the domestic violence.”
Davey and LaPedus told Beauchamp that White was missing from her motel room when Davey went to check on her Friday, March 24.
An email and multiple calls to the H.O.M.E. Team were not returned.
In memoriam
I did not know Lisa White, but more than 10 years ago, I knew another homeless woman. I’m ashamed I don’t remember her name. I think it was Gretchen.
Back then, I was working as a staff monitor for Hospitality House, before Utah’s Place. Every afternoon at 4 p.m., guests would gather at our house on Church Street in Grass Valley. We would bus them to sleep in a different church every night.
Gretchen told me she was a tough “bull-dyke.” Her words. I agreed she could probably beat me up. (The only fights I’ve ever won are the ones I talked my way out of.)
When we first met, I yelled at her. She thought I yelled at her because she was gay. No, I yelled at her because she kept swearing in the churches.
We never became close friends, but we began to like each other a little. We were really close to getting her and her girlfriend into an apartment.
One night, Gretchen didn’t show up for the bus. The next morning, she showed up naked and dead in a park. Apparently, she had a reputation for getting high on meth and running around naked.
The authorities didn’t seem all that concerned. Just another dead homeless woman. I’ve known other homeless people who died, but I took Gretchen’s death hard. I should have followed up to find out what had happened to her, and I still regret that I didn’t.
So, when Lisa showed up dead, and I saw how deeply it affected some of her homeless friends, I filed a public records request for the sake of the memory of both Lisa and Gretchen.
No judgement
No doubt, some people will shrug off Lisa’s wretched demise with a heartless another-one-bites-the-dust attitude. She was a bad person. She got what she deserved.
Nobody deserves homelessness. Nobody deserves domestic violence.
The tempting assumption is to say their drug abuse caused their homelessness, but it could be that homelessness and violence caused their addiction.
Stating the obvious, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, said, “The stress of experiencing homelessness may exacerbate previous mental illness and encourage anxiety, fear, depression, sleeplessness and substance use.”
Of course, it does. Homelessness is physically and psychologically traumatic. The damage can be deep and permanent – and fatal.
Deputy Beauchamp examined Lisa Marie White’s motel room. “I located a letter on the bed that appeared to show remorse. I was unable to read the whole thing due to handwriting, but there was a part that stated ‘by the time you are reading this, I should be dead…’”