Giving thanks in South Provo: an interview with Food & Care Coalition client, Leandra

“Everything you need to know to live on the street you learn in kindergarten. You learn your manners; your “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome.” You learn ABCs, 1-2-3s, and look both ways before you cross the street. Don’t get in the van because there’s never candy, there’s never a lost puppy. You learn caring, sharing, and politeness If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. That’s pretty much it.”

Leandra King has lived on the street in Provo for the past four months, faced with significant health challenges: PTSD, a personality disorder, atrial fibulations; intestinal bacteria that causes reflux, nausea and constant abdominal pain; premature menopause; schizophrenia; ADHD. The medications to treat these issues are incompatible. She is the mother of four kids—ages 24, 19, 17, and 12—and a 2 ½-year-old grandson. She’s been through rehab, and while she admits that she still drinks, she’s off drugs. Wasatch Behavioral Health is handling the case to get her off the street.

Leandra’s story is fraught with hardship, but she stays positive. “I’m trying to bring the good souls together on the street.”

It’s not uncommon for the homeless to experience violence, and Leandra is no exception. Provo Police Department looks out for her, she says.

“As long as they see you’re doing good, and because I’m not smoking a crack pipe or doing drugs, they make sure I’m okay. A guy knocked me out last week. I ran away and hid on a ledge under the bridge. At night the cops came to check on me. They said, “Leandra, you’re trespassing. But if it takes 5 or 6 hours to clear out, we understand. But technically it’s trespassing, so be sure you don’t come back.””

At night she sleeps in inconspicuous spots on the street, or under a tree at the Provo City Temple, where she says she isn’t hassled. “I have this amazing body blanket and another blanket that I wrap around me. I double up my clothes, and I have a sleeping bag. And today this nice lady gave me a jacket.”

On the day prior to Thanksgiving she reached out to her family living in Highland. “I called my family today, but they shut me down. My mom said people wouldn’t appreciate me being there.”

To explain why her family chooses to turn her away she says, “I have a story. I’ve lived twelve lives. There’s so many things I’ve seen and done, both good and bad.”

When she was eleven, Leandra’s father, who was a first counselor in the family’s LDS ward bishopric, came out as an atheist and left the church.

“I started drinking then. I was a daddy’s girl, and he left us.”

Leandra has five sisters and a brother. She quickly became responsible for her younger siblings. “I raised my youngest sister because my mom got remarried to this guy, and they were fighting all the time. She called me mom. I dropped out of eighth grade. [My mom and step-dad] had me stay home from school to watch he instead of getting a babysitter. They were always fighting, and the cops were always at our house. My sister would sleep with me in my home because she was so scared.”

At fourteen, Leandra’s twenty-year-old boyfriend moved in with the family. A year later she was raped by another man, and at sixteen she found herself pregnant.

“My boyfriend left me when I found out. He said I was pregnant by the guy who raped me, even though the dates didn’t match up. I had my daughter and then he came back. We got married when I was seventeen, and I moved out of my mom’s house. My ex-husband ended up sleeping with my sister, and me and my daughter moved out of his place. I raised her alone for five years. I always worked. I worked with elderly people as a group manager at a group home. I was a personal trainer and a nutritionist.”

She and her daughter moved from place to place until Leandra became pregnant again with her second child, a son. At that point she and her children moved in with her sister. She continued to have problems with abusive men. One of them worked for a drug cartel, she says.

“I isolated myself, stayed with my mom for a while, and just shut myself away in my room.”

She met the next guy in Harriman. 

“He immediately started pimping me out. He ended up being a gunslinger, making guns and selling them out to gangs.. I was there for a week, and then I took a job cleaning houses. This guy found out, thought I’d crossed him. He put a hit out on me, tried to tell me he owned me.”

She fled to St. George, but the gang followed her every move. “My family was scared because they were after me, and they’d killed two of my friends. They followed me. They knew every move I was making. I came back here and went to rehab.”

After that Leandra’s luck seemed to change.

”Four and a half years ago I started working out at the gym, and became a competitor in fitness modeling. I got sponsors and took second place at nationals. My main sponsorship was in Florida, so I left my kids here to finish school, and I moved there. I met a man and became jealous of all of the media attention I was getting and started threatening me. At the time I had a townhome in Vineyard. I was working for Nudge, making $1500 a day as a trainer, and competing as a fitness model. I had the world. I was going to move my kids to Florida, and then this guy became abusive. I woke up with broken bones and head trauma in a hospital ICU back here in Utah. I had to learn to walk again.”

Time and again, she found herself knocked down. “I don’t understand why I’m out here. I feel like my siblings are all so accomplished. I was established for a while. I thought I had it all, but now it’s like I’m the lowlife. After the abuse, I couldn’t take care of my kids. I lost everything. My family is mad at me living on the street. I’m always the problem child. I express opinions and they tell me I need therapy. They say, “Go talk to your therapist about it, we don’t need to hear it.” I have borderline personality disorder and PTSD due to severe trauma. I’ve been in therapy since I was 15-years-old. My sisters have problems too, but I guess I stand out—the squeaky wheel. I don’t get them.”

Today, Leandra is celebrating Thanksgiving with her street family at Food & Care Coality, where offers comfort, and her own belongings to those who don’t have as much as she does,

“Being out here makes me so much more grateful for life. I’m trying to just be a strong person, and show empathy. I’d do anything for anybody out here. There was this lady; I had a pair of socks, and she was cold, so I took off my socks and gave them to her because she needs it more than I do. I could probably go home anytime if I played the part, you know? And that poor girl probably couldn’t. I feel like I have to save people. My therapist here tells me, “Leanra, you have to save yourself first.” But I feel like I’m strong enough that I can do this for other people. It’s my calling. Every day I help out over at Community Action volunteer work. It’s good karma. I love helping people like that. It feels good.”

Even in the midst of her struggle she reflects on what she does have.

“I’m grateful for a lot. I’m grateful for my kids. I’m grateful for the love out here among the street people. I think a lot of us out here on the street are choice spirits. People who aren’t on the street forget to stop and smell the roses. You know what I mean? They don’t take time to look up at the sky at the beautiful clouds, the trees; they don’t appreciate that anymore. We don’t need that. There are some really, really good people who live out here, and I love being with them. I enjoy it. I’m grateful for the Coalition, my street family, and I’m grateful for the lady who gave me this jacket.”