"My first drug dealer was one of my doctors."
He probably didn’t even realize it, she explained, swiveling her chair to face me. She—Ashley Cherniss, late thirties, long blonde hair, totem-like tattoos, and an infectious smile—sat across from me in a conference room of Stephen Center Pettigrew Shelter in South Omaha. In the 40 years since its inception, the shelter has served over 43,000 individuals experiencing homelessness. Cherniss is the community engagement coordinator.
I first met her while staying at the shelter incognito for an immersion assignment. I’m an active volunteer in the kitchen, but because I work behind the scenes, most residents wouldn’t recognize me. Candy,* a guest service representative, led me through the intake process of drug screening, explaining rules, gathering background information, and heat treating the few belongings I brought in a backpack—protection against bed bugs. I didn’t bring money, extra clothes, or toiletries. Sometimes residents are fleeing a situation that doesn’t leave time to gather belongings. Sometimes they’ve lost everything they have.
There isn’t much room for storage anyway, especially around the holidays when the weather turns colder and the shelter is short on beds. I was relegated to a cot in the women’s dorm, and with more than 36 women trying to adjust to the night with blue overhead nightlights meant to illuminate the pathway toward the shared bathroom, sleep was elusive. Someone was snoring. Someone was crunching on a bag of chips. Feet kept shuffling in and out past my cot.
At around 5:30 in the morning, I jolted up in bed as a fire alarm began blaring. My eyes slightly swollen, I followed the line of grumbling, cursing women across the street until the alarm, tripped by someone vaping in the male dorm, was silenced. By then, I was awake and tried to rush to the bathroom before all the stalls were taken.
The bathrooms were the hardest part to endure, the sharing of a space where one's most intimate parts come into contact with surfaces shared by so many others. There was a brown stain on the white wall, a clump of hair at the bottom of the shower, a damp rag left over the edge of a sink where I brushed my teeth. I only had one sister growing up. Imagine 36 all using five showers, five sinks, five toilets. The Stephen Center requires residents to sign up for chores. Cleaning the bathroom is one of them.
After my chores in the dish room, I attended a class on tenant rights and responsibilities, met with my case worker, and tried to read a book in the women’s day room while others talked, sang, and tried to sneak in a rest before another restless night, but more restful than under a bridge or behind a wall where refuse is held until trash day. That is where Cherniss found herself after nearly 30 surgeries to treat hip dysplasia, after pain meds weren’t enough and heroin addiction set in. She lost everything—apartment, job, children. It wasn’t the life she’d planned.
Cherniss didn’t start out abusing drugs. She tried not to take them but began to experience restless legs, arthritic-like pain. “A friend told me, ‘It sounds like you’re going through withdrawal,’ so I went home, took a pain med and all those symptoms went away.” She received a Tremadol prescription for when the Percocet wasn’t enough. Tremadol wasn’t considered a narcotic at the time, but now is. Skip forward past friends dolling out extra pills, friends introducing drug dealers, to a time Cherniss dates a drug dealer. Life began to crash. “I couldn’t put up the façade that I was normal, a good mom. I was using, hoping I wouldn’t wake up.”
For those like Cherniss looking for a place to map a new journey, the Stephen Center is a safe haven with on-site medical care, rehabilitation, counselors, life training, three square meals, and others who have walked the same drudgery; survivors like shelter chef, Robert Wilson, and Community Engagement Director Beth Ellis.
What I learned is that experiencing homelessness is heartbreaking, but those individuals share a unique bond of place, experience, and memory—an understanding of what it means to see a person behind the masks, that the outer image exposed to the world is not the person behind the imperfections: the woman who was a nurse, the man who would be a chef, the girl with untold dreams whose mother dreams to keep her safe for one more night. Can I truly see anyone the way they see each other? Do I hold space for what they might have been, what they still could become?
As I walked by the admin office at the end of another kitchen shift, I heard Teri Corcoran, then-interim CEO, and Ellis erupt in laughter before I noticed Cherniss drop to the floor in tears. “I thought you were sick. I asked Beth what was wrong with you,” Corcoran said. “I didn’t have my teeth in yet,” Cherniss responded through blasts of laughter that emanated the hallway. “What in the world?” I asked. Cherniss pulled up her toothless photo from a morning text she had sent, an inside joke—lmdo (laughing my dentures out). She shows me exhibit A of a former heroin addict, the loss of teeth.
But she is not ashamed to share her imperfection, because she is so proud of her recovery and humanity amongst other humans, seeing the smile of one who so long went without smiling as a perfect image of beauty and soulfulness. I found myself shrinking in my own skin because I find it hard to face my imperfections in the mirror each morning—the cellulite, small wrinkles, bags beneath my eyes, scars that map my life experiences, and I am ashamed that she knows more about how to live as a strong woman rising, perhaps, than I can ever understand.
*Name of shelter resident has been changed to protect their dignity and confidentiality.
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
