Kelly Utter

Photo of Kelly Utter

I’m a personal navigator at Movement 5280. We’re here to walk alongside people in need.

We have a food bank, clothing bank, hot meals, peer coaching, mental health services – we even bring in dentists and a mobile DMV clerk.

I used to look at homeless people and think, “get a job!” I was very judgmental. People don’t know what it’s like. Guys come in here beaten and robbed. They’re trying to survive.

I’m a recovering addict myself, and I figured I could stand to help others more. A girl here told me one time, “you don’t know what it’s like to struggle.” I shared my story, and we clicked. I tell people, “You can recover. I’m proof.”

Accessing help can be a lot harder than people think. We’re often talking about people with serious mental illness. Brain trauma. Severe autism. They struggle with daily living. Often their families are gone, or dead. In this society, if you can’t take care of yourself, you may not make it. Once you fall, climbing can be extremely hard.

We have one friend, Ken, he was entitled to Social Security – he had $15,000 waiting on him, but we just couldn’t access it. To activate his card, they wanted his birth certificate. You think he can just send that in? He’s sleeping on the street! He needed someone to help him. It still took months and months, and I don’t know how many hours on the phone, just waiting on hold. His card kept getting locked.

The people you see sleeping on the street along Broadway, those are my friends. They need someone to help them. Their phones get lost or stolen or broken. We have friends who need to get to doctors, court dates, or case management meetings, and they’re trying to do it without phones or cars. Each time they miss one, it can be a big setback.

Getting help also requires providing all kinds of complicated information. Birth certificates. Income verification. You can lose your food stamps or your spot in a housing program if you don’t file paperwork on time, but many of these are people who often don’t even receive their mail.

Apartments are so expensive. They want you to make three times the rent, pass a background check and credit check, and pay the first and last month’s rent and a security deposit. That’s thousands of dollars right there. Public housing waiting lists are literally years long, and often closed to new applicants.

There are people who become overwhelmed by what it would take to move into housing. They get used to the streets. They’re too damaged to handle paperwork and rent and bank accounts and all the things you have to juggle to be considered a success in our society.

So many of the people who come in here, they just want a shower. They want wear clean clothes, eat a good meal, and feel like a human being again. It’s hard to “just get a job” if you can’t clean up first or even show up fed.

The people coming in here, I tell them: “I love you.” Who else will say it to them? They need to know they matter. Someone to tell them they’re a child of God. They need to have faith someone cares if they live or die.

It’s rewarding and exhausting. One of the younger guys here I was working with, Bobby, he didn’t have a phone and he wanted to get into rehab. He was running into all these dead ends – places were full, or he couldn’t pass the background check.

I told him to stay over at the duck pond so I could find him. We were supposed to meet on a Monday – I finally found a place that would take him. I went to find him, and instead I saw crime scene tape. They wouldn’t tell me who got killed, but I couldn’t find Bobby anywhere. I heard that night it was him.

I was in denial. Then guilt. I’m the one who told him to stay over there. Maybe he’d still be alive if I hadn’t said that. Bobby was like my son.

After Bobby, we had another friend here who froze under a bridge. Another of an overdose. Another died of an infection. In the 21st century! So many funerals. Just death, death, death. My heart has been broken so many times.

The sadness is unbearable, but the joy is incredible. We got our friend Ken an apartment, after 20 years on the streets, and now when I see snow falling and I know he’s safe and warm indoors, I just say thank you to God.

We can always use more help. And more funds. People complain a lot – they don’t want to see the homeless. They want them moved somewhere else. Okay, where should they go?

If you want to help, bring your family and volunteer. See what it’s like for those who don’t have a place to live. If you complain, go volunteer. Find out what’s going on and help us fix it.