SHIRRELLE: Mom of the Block

Shirrelle is your unorthodox unhoused woman.

She has a job: She works as a family caregiver for her mother and gets paid by the state of California. She has a place to live: She has her own room in her mother’s apartment.

But she chooses to live on the streets.

There’s no rules. There’s no one to answer to. There’s nothing you owe to anyone.

Shirrelle doesn’t see the streets as a place of suffering. It’s the place where she found herself.

Shirrelle has tried to kill herself multiple times.

“I have been suicidal since I was 15. I swallowed every pill you can imagine,” she said. “But I had my son’s father’s gun one day… And I was about to put it to my head, but he came and snatched it out of my hand… I hated him. I wouldn’t even speak to him because I felt like he made me stay here.”

She’s been diagnosed as bipolar and depressed, and she is a self-proclaimed drug addict.

For her, staying home with her mom isn’t a safe option — it’s a restricting prison.