Category: blogging

This is a representation of her story before she passed away. Teri lived in a Colorado Coalition for the Homeless building called CCA aka YMCA at the “top of the 16th street mall”. Her boyfriend lived there too but in a separate apartment. She was so talented and vibrant. She also was a Core Reach Artist and Redline Contemporary Art Center. The picture here is from our ACLU exhibition.

Prior to this living arrangements she live on the streets and found creative ways to make due until she was housed. She was survived by (I may not remember everyone) her mother, brother, daughter, and grandchildren. Of course, her family at Redline and her boyfriend also grieves of her abscense.

I can not fully tell her story but I will do my best at attempting it.

She complained about her living arrangements frequently but I remember one workshop we had attended where she had a breakdown. She was at the wits end. We all comforted her at the end of the workshop but she was still really frustrated. She told me about not being able to keep any electronics in her apartment because it was always stollen. So she keeps everything on paper and she was tech savvy. The main reason she couldn’t keep electronics (phones, laptops, etc) is that she had no lock on her apartment door.

Ok, this upset me because there is apartment managers present weekly, case managers on site throughout the week, and other staff members (maintenance, cleaning person, etc) present weekly if not daily. I told her to go to her residence council or ask for manager’s upper levels. She said tried everything to get a lock on her door.

So about 4 weeks after the workshop, I heard that she was dead. No one will give a full story but here is the pieces that I heard:

Her boyfriend and her were sleep in her apartment. Someone came in, knocked him out and killed her. WOW! Remember there was no lock on her door, as the art shows. It wasn’t breaking and entering. I felt so disgusted with the organization for not replacing her lock regardless of whatever excuse they may use. So I waited until my heart could not lash out at them or the staff that I listed above. I am still disappointed on how this happened.

This is just my account of this story. I did get permission from her daughter to write about it. I want to ask everyone to not judge the company but look think of ways to prevent future things like this from happening to any human being. Donations of door locks, volunteer you carpentry skills, or just go sit with someone to help them through a crisis.