Transforming Lived Experience into Art: Renee Westbrook on Homelessness, Healing, and “Shelter”

Content warning: This interview references sexual assault and other potentially triggering experiences.

You’re living in a house, everything is fine. Then the next night you’re out on Olympic and Bundy with a suitcase, a backpack and a purse. That’s it.

It’s something impossible for most people to understand. If you’ve never been unhoused, the feeling of having a roof over your head one night and being out on the street the next is incomprehensible. I can’t blame anyone for not getting it. I couldn’t process it myself, even after it happened to me.

That’s actually the reason why I developed my own one woman show, Shelter, which I wrote, produced and performed in Fringe Festivals, all while I was experiencing homelessness.

Shelter is a play that roughly captures the experience of my first night on the street through my self styled character Davina Grey. While I am a journalist, screenwriter and essayist, Davina’s a down on her luck writer who tried to do everything right but gets thrown out on her butt by headwinds she couldn’t predict. Sure, I use creative license. It’s not word for word or act for act, but that’s me in there.

One thing you should know is that when you’re experiencing homelessness

One thing you should know is that when you’re unhoused, you see things that no human beings should ever see. We see the worst in people when we’re out there, and that messes up our head, and that was something I tried to capture in Shelter.

“I also got into grad school while experiencing homelessness, so don’t let your circumstances stop you from chasing your goals and dreams.”

It’s for the same reason I was slow in reaching out to the folks at St. Joseph Center after I first heard about them, because of bad experiences I had in other places, with other organizations. I’d been let down so many times that I was used to being treated like a number, like I had done something wrong.

But the Bread & Roses Café changed that

But the Bread & Roses Café changed that. If you don’t know, Bread & Roses is a little café and restaurant, whatever you want to call it, but it’s a St. Joseph Center operation. They have a real established chef from the restaurant world, Chef James, and they execute three tasty and hot meal services a day and it’s almost always something different. Anybody struggling with hunger or financial issues is welcome, and you actually sit down and get served.

“Let me tell you, when I was on my last legs, when I had no money, when I had no food stamps, it was Bread & Roses. It saved me.”

In spite of my original misgivings, I was like, ok, they get some points. So I kept showing up.

After a bad day in 2024, worse than normal

But after a bad day in 2024, worse than normal, I knew I needed more. I was riding the bus, I got knocked out and robbed by a couple of no gooders, working in tandem. One distracted me and the other hit me on the head with a heavy metal object and pillaged my things. This is a regular thing that homeless women go through, especially on the buses. Now I had a concussion. I didn’t let it stop me from performing the following month, but I said I just can’t be riding these buses anymore. I just can’t do it. You have no idea how many times I’ve been robbed, hit over the head, stalked.

I still had trust issues, but with the way Bread & Roses Café treated me, I finally decided to pick up the phone and call SJC services. Even though my experience at the cafe was just a quick sit down meal, after riding the buses and just hoping and praying that I don’t get raped and assaulted, it meant so much to just sit there and be served. It made me feel like I really do matter. That was the big thing.

And then, when I met Dr. Smith, St. Joseph Center CEO, what was he doing there? Pouring coffee for homeless people. Wow.

Since I asked for help that day, things have turned around. I’ve been able to apply and get my retirement, Supplemental Security Income, and I have secured a motel voucher that’s placed me in interim housing. So now I have a leg up and I’m just so excited, even at the ripe age 65, for what’s next.

Even with Social Security, it took a minute for the realization to set in that, hey, I’m 65 years old, I paid my dues, I’m entitled to this money.

Making sense of things, after the fact

How did I begin to get to a place where I realized what I actually deserved? I think it’s helpful to bring the conversation back to Shelter. If you put me on the spot and ask me to explain that bewildering feeling of suddenly finding yourself unhoused, in just a couple of words, it’s absolute terror. Terror to the tenth power. I get emotional just thinking about it.

“If you put me on the spot and ask me to explain that bewildering feeling of suddenly finding yourself unhoused, in just a couple of words, it’s absolute terror. Terror to the 10th power.”

While I initially picked up the pen for myself, because a friend and colleague told me it’d help me heal, I’m happy it gives those on the outside a view into understanding just what it feels like to have the rug pulled out from under you. It was only when I first started writing it down that a lot of dots started connecting.

I saw that there were things in my past that happened that made homelessness almost inescapable. Some people don’t make it through the first week. Fortunately, I just happen to come from a long line of stubborn women, and I wasn’t gonna let it beat me. That was my attitude.

The after effects of trauma that continue to shape our lives

One particularly harrowing memory was back in 76, when I was in high school. I was the only girl long jumper on our high school track team and I qualified for the California State Meet. One of my male teammates failed to qualify. That night he forced his way into my room and sexually assaulted me.

My world got smaller and smaller after that. Because I never dealt with it, at least not until it happened again years later when I got stalked in graduate school. It wasn’t the last time I’d have to endure such experiences.

There’s an article I read in which Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Vives talks about how women become unhoused. Domestic violence, sexual assault, and rape are at the top of the list. And, if you don’t get help, homelessness is coming.

What “shelter” means to me now

So what does Shelter mean to me now, all this time later? That’s a big theme of the play. I go back to one of the other play’s characters, Laz-R-Us, a play off of Lazarus and Toys R Us, a boy who crosses paths with Davina after running away from home after his mother nearly beat him to death. He tells Davina that shelter is something that lives on the inside.

That’s where I’m at. It’s not the roof for me. It’s not the money. It’s not the person who helps me. It’s knowing that I’m gonna be okay. That God loves me. That’s what shelter is for me.

“It’s not the roof for me. It’s not the money. It’s not the person who helps me. It’s knowing that I’m gonna be okay. That God loves me. That’s what shelter is for me.”

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length, clarity, and narrative flow.