Unhoused, out of prison and seeking options
Cody Miller stood outside a friend’s tent Thursday at Humboldt Park in Chico, as he watched city staff cleaning camp sites, and said he doesn’t feel he has any options.
“I’m so used to this lifestyle, this choice,” he said. “It’s hard for me to know anything else.”
Miller is 28, and has been homeless on and off for 12 years. He spent a large part of his life bounding between Butte, Shasta, Tehama and Glenn Counties.
Miller is frank about the list of infractions he has incurred during that time, largely between 2015-2018 according to records in Butte County Superior Court, including several felonies and misdemeanors. He was recently released from prison after two years, and as a result is under post-release community supervision and can’t go live with family residing in other states.
Miller said before he was incarcerated, his time spent couch surfing and moving from place to place without a roof wore on him, which he said led to committing acts of violence and desperation. He has also battled drug addiction for most of his life and said the struggle of survival while unhoused worsened his ability to kick the habit. He described connecting feeling worthless with being homeless, suffering poor self-image and subsequent relapses.
Miller added he thinks the temptation to keep using drugs is too high for him at local rehabilitation programs.
“I’ve tried the rehabs here and there’s just too many drugs in them,” he said. “I’m the kind of person (where) if it’s in front of me, and I’m trying to do good, it feeds the devil on my shoulder that’s like, yes do it. I tend to break down and give in eventually.
“There’s been times when I’ve done good, like I’ve been clean a year before. It just seems like situations happen where I take it and blow it out of proportion in my mind, and I fall back into my addiction.”
Counseling opened eyes
When he went to prison convicted of illegally possessing ammunition, Miller said he was placed in a program where students working on achieving a degree in licensed therapy would provide confidential counseling to inmates.
After about a year, Miller said the experience opened his eyes to available mental health help. He said his therapist was “a wonderful person, like he helped me through a lot of realizing where my addictions were and my thoughts were … and it helped me really mature.
“I used to be aggressive, violent — and that was because I quit caring, because I didn’t feel the community cared about me as a person, so I quit caring about everyone around me. Which was the wrong way to go about that,” he said.
He said he regrets his acts of violence and choices that landed him in prison, although, “Those only made me where I am now today and made me understand where I don’t want to be, where I don’t want to go.”
Finding a new passion
After prison, he said he connected with friends he can communicate with, and found his passion of mountain biking. He will ride long trails and then sit and think, alone — “Whether I’m riding in the street, or riding trails, I know I have that comfort.” He said in therapy he learned he needed an outlet like biking to rationally process strong emotions of anger or sadness.
“Because when I’m heartbroken, when I’m sad, upset, mad, I can hop on my bike and escape the world. You don’t tend to run into issues on a back trail you can’t think through and solve. And that’s really what helps, is getting my mind off the subject that’s upsetting me for the moment. until I can use rational thought processes and work my way through it.”
As a car drove by the park, with a driver shouting profanities at the campers as they packed their belongings, Miller said he’s also worked on his feelings about contempt expressed toward people without a home.
“It angers some people, it used to anger me. But you know what, I hope that person has a nice day. Maybe they’re going through something. That’s the way I had to start looking at it.”
He said people must realize how easy it is to be in his situation.
“It only takes one mishap — in the blink of an eye you can lose everything you have and loved,” he said.
“But once you get homeless, I mean it depends on your motivation. If you’re 110% motivated, you can and will find something that will help you get out of it eventually. But it is at the same time very hard to get out this rut, because once you’re in the category of being homeless, a lot of businesses look at you like, eh what made you homeless?”
Seeking solutions
Miller said he knows he struggles to find a job due to his criminal record and status as being homeless, and that wears on him.
“I’m embarrassed that I’m not able to find shower every day or I’m not able to get the things that I need to look presentable,” he said. “I can’t come in in a nice suit and tie. I have to wear what I have and sometimes it’s stained from being out here.
“The second they see that it’s just, instant stereotype,” he said, snapping his fingers.
“It’s almost like they treat us like we’re a parasite or a disease. And it hurts. If you’ve been to prison, they’re like nope, we can’t accept you. You’re a felon, you’re obviously scum, you know what I mean? But we understand what tears a person apart, because we live it every day.”
Miller sad he has never stayed in one place to camp alone, “Because there’s college kids that are twisted, they think it’s OK to jump homeless people. And I have anger issues and I don’t know what would happen if I was going to be getting jumped by them.”
Likes ‘middle ground’ solution
He also won’t stay in a congregate shelter as he is terrified of bed bugs and claimed to have head to toe bites all over at one point from staying in one.
Instead, Miller wants to suggest to Chico City Council his idea of a safe sanctioned space for either camping or managed tiny homes, with accountability, as a “middle ground” solution.
“They’re trying to figure out a way to have us out of sight, they don’t want us in the city limits,” he said. “Why can’t we set something up (on a property) where everybody gets their own little plot?”
He described his proposal as each person having a safe place with a door and key to lock away their belongings, since people are afraid to leave their property, due to fear of it being stolen or confiscated by Chico police officers. This fear often stands in the way of getting help, food or a job, he said.
“I don’t think they realize how many people would actually go,” he said.
“Everybody wants a place where they can feel safe. Whether it’s in a tent or a motel or a tiny home, we just want somewhere that we can feel safe and secure and know that’s our little spot. Know maybe we have security, now maybe we can start trying to have a further step in the world … no longer have to worry about our stuff.”
The accountability part would be key, he said.
“And people are going to have to understand, yeah there’s going to be rules. If the people managing the plot think you’re doing something you’re not supposed to, yeah, you’re going to have open your door and be subject to a poke around. That would weed the people out that are just trying to use it .. and not change, not do nothing.”
For now he isn’t sure where he will go, or how to find employment.
“There’s people out here, we would break our backs if we could find a job,” he said. “If I could find somewhere that would give me a chance … and look over my past look over the fact that yeah I had an addiction or yeah I was homeless, I’d be willing to bend over backwards and do everything I could to keep that job. Because that’s my way out.”
Miller said he thinks many without a roof would work with the community “as long as they are willing to work with us.”
“If the community was more involved on helping us find a solution instead of being part of the problem, I feel like we might be able to get somewhere.”