'I Used To Volunteer For The Clintons, Now I Go From Shelter To Shelter'

'I Used To Volunteer For The Clintons, Now I Go From Shelter To Shelter'Bonnie, a homeless woman residing in San Francisco, with Hillary Clinton in 2008. (Photos: Andrew Burton/Stories Behind The Fog)
Hoodline
Published on December 05, 2016

[Editor's Note: Hoodline is participating in this week's SF Homeless Project, in which more than 80 area publications are each covering homelessness issues in their own ways.

To highlight the voices of current and former homeless people residing in our neighborhoods, we've partnered with Stories Behind The Fog, which is on a mission to humanize homelessness by telling the stories of 100 people who are or have been homeless in the Bay Area.

Read on to meet Bonnie, a former volunteer for the Clintons who is homeless in San Francisco with her two service dogs. And to learn more about Stories Behind The Fog, including it's current fundraising campaign, and read additional personal accounts of being homeless in the Bay Area, visit storiesbehindthefog.com.]

My name is Bonnie. I used to volunteer for the Clintons in 2008. It’s really easy to get into this whole ‘Why me, why me?’ thing, but I keep thinking about how I can use this experience to make a difference in the world.

I worked in catering for over 12 years. When people ask me what my business plan was, I said ‘Just pick up the phone’, because that was how it happened. I had taught classes at Barnes and Noble, and I had worked with a lot of cool chefs and cookbook authors. When I was volunteering for the Clinton campaign, somebody had found out that I was a caterer. So when they needed people to hand out ice cream to a thousand people, they got me involved. We had somebody find out what Bill’s and Hillary’s favorite ice cream flavors were. If you look at the picture of Bill, me and my sons, you can see he is holding a pint of fresh peach ice cream, that is his favorite. Hillary wanted black raspberry, which is to die for.

Bonnie and her sons with former President Bill Clinton.

I adore Hillary, she is brilliant. I got a sense from the two of them that people don’t often see. The Clintons devoted their life to public service. If they were in a law practice they’d be making millions of dollars. They are so smart, they could be rolling in money.

I meet so many people in the shelters that have no education. They are ignorant and have no intellectual curiosity. These are the people that think Donald Trump is great, because he is positioning himself as ‘I am not an intellectual elitist.’ But you know, we need an intellectual elitist.

I never expected to become homeless. I have a college degree in Journalism, I grew up in a nice suburb, I have three children. I have been married and divorced three times. The first one I refer to as the dead one, because he passed away. The second one is the good one, and the third ex is ‘He Who Should Not Be Named.’ He was an abusive jackass. When I left him, I lost nearly everything I had. I have to make myself stop thinking about that, because it drives me crazy. If I could have done anything differently in my life, I would stay away from straight men forever, and just hang out with gay men. Or I would find a husband that is rich and old and has a bad heart, haha.

After that I had a couple of weird roommates, and I lived in my car for a while. Then I lived with my daughter in San Diego, stayed with a friend in Atlanta for a while, had my own apartment, until my half sister invited me to live with her in Sonoma County. That didn’t go well either, so I left. I stayed with a friend and her husband in Castro Valley. But her husband is not a dog guy, and it was driving him crazy having my two service dogs there. It got to the point where they told me that I had to leave immediately. I knew I couldn’t live with them forever, so I had planned to get on the list for emergency housing. But now I had to do it right away, and they have this waiting list to get a 90-day bed. I have been on it for a month now, and I only moved up from 800 to 467 on the list. So now I go from shelter to shelter.

If you want to see hell, put on some scuzzy clothes, go to the Woman’s Place Drop In Center and spend the night sitting up in a chair. Nobody would ever get away with being homophobic or racist there. But it’s fine to trash the old lady with the service dogs. One time a person peed in a cup and threw it in the elevator, so that the staff would think my dogs peed in the elevator. I know it sounds like I am making it up, but it’s true. If anything, I am downplaying it.

I don’t go anywhere where I can’t have my dogs Beignet and Beans.I will go sleep on the beach before I get rid of them. That might not make a lot of sense, but that is how it is. All three dogs I have had have been rescue dogs. For a long time, my first dog Buddy was just the family dog, until I started having all these health problems. I had to stop catering because of my body. Do you want to know what diseases I have? Here, I can show you a list. I have diabetes, oral cancer, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, and other things, a whole lot of -itises. If you need a good recommendation for a good specialist at UCSF let me know, I know them all.

When my dog Buddy was getting old, they said I should think about a second dog. That was just when hurricane Katrina had hit New Orleans. Beignet, my second dog, was one of the dozens of cats and dogs that were wandering around after the hurricane. They never located her family. She was a scrawny skinny mess when we got her.

The most important thing I have done with my life is raise my sons. I have two sons who graduated from college, are on their way to very bright futures, are nice people. They don’t drink, they don’t use hardcore drugs, they are not abusive to women, they are thoughtful, they are smart. I am really proud of that. They thank me for exposing them to so much music and art and culture even when they were little babies. We did things to broaden their view of the world.

Right now, I would like my experience with homelessness to make a difference in the world, because I would hate to think that I went through all of this for nothing. Many people are so discouraged, so pounded down by things that they can’t speak up. I would like to be the loud mouth that shakes things up a little bit. And I want my president to be smart.

Bonnie’s story was written by Arjanna van der Plas, photographed by Pulitzer-nominee Andrew Burton and originally published on Stories Behind The Fog.