Carly Rice: Food, Friendship, and Life Transformation (Pt 2)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Carly Rice, right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors, How'd you get away from the sky?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So one day I was cleaning the apartment and there
was a flip phone in the couch cushion, and I
called the only number I can think of, and it
was an ex boyfriend who was like a film student nerd,
And I said, Neil, come to this address. Do not
call the police. I'm going to jump out the window

(00:48):
and third story. Yeah, yeah, I said, I'll probably break
my legs. Just drag me to the car and i'll.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Be on hero when i'll feel it. Don't worry. I'll
make sure I shoot a really good thing in borrow
before i'm jumped. You're onto, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
No, that's exactly what I thought, Like, oh my gosh,
what I thought. I said, just don't call the cops,
because the cops were in bed with the cartel guys,
right and no, not right really? Oh yeah, absolutely not
all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
But but they had protection there.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, so that's why I never you know, that's why
my plan was to get citizens because there was another
time when I tried at a grocery store and do
you know every single person duck and dove from me
at that grocery store. I yelled rape. That was the
second time I tried to get away. I yelled rape.
It is like ten eleven twelve, and we're at a

(01:42):
twenty four hour grocery store. Everybody ran from me. Nobody
came to help me.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Would you look like I'm trying to understand why people
was it that you were out of your mind high
and probably looked like hell when people just thought you
were crazy?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
My face and I had scabs all over my face.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
That's why I don't think.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Teys were falling out yet, but I definitely had like
cavities and stuff. Yeah, yeah, very much. Why I'm so
protective of my people these days. So I got out.
The guy actually Neil, my ex boyfriend. He actually ended
up calling the police, which I was so mad at
him for, but we got good police officers. So I'm
packing my bag and Sessa is sitting on the couch

(02:24):
and the cop is facing Cessa and they're treating it
like a domestic violent situation, and I'm like fine, whatever,
as long as I get out of here, I don't
care what they think is going on here. And I
packed this big, giant ball of black tar heroin into
my suitcase.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Got yeah, and I put the suit The cop carries
my cuecake to a cop bar puts it in the
truck and I'm like, okay, this is what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
And he drives me to a domestic violent shelter in
Los Angeles with my giant It wasn't this big, but
it was pretty big. It was about the size of
softball to a domestic violent shelter where I felt happy
and free, and I was so grateful to be at
this domestic valance shelter. However, eventually the heroine ran out.
I got kind of nervous, and I flushed some of

(03:11):
it because the people were at the domestic valat shelter
were so nice and I didn't want them to get
in any trouble. So I ran into drugs way faster
than I should have. And I knew that I could
find drugs if I just find the homeless people. So
that's how I ended up in skid row.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
But again, the drugs were numbing the reality of the
first eighteen nineteen years of your life, and so without them,
you were forced to face the reality of your life
and you couldn't do it. So you leave the shelter
and you end up literally on skid Row. And when

(03:50):
we say skid Row, we don't mean that as a
metaphor for places where homeless people. We're talking about the
skid Row skid Row and I was, and from what
I understand, there's on skid Row. There's at any one
time between ten and twenty thousand homeless people there.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
When I was there, there was twenty thousand and ninety.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Nine percent of them are all using drugs.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
As well, right out in the open, right in one of.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
The wealthiest cities in the world. Yeah, la right, I
mean and that where.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Skid Row is my dreg dealer in the Diamond District.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Unbelievad ironic?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Is that? Yeah? So I'm living in either a tent
or a cardboard box and skid Row.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And you have a tattoo of a tint in a
cardboard box in your form? Yeah, is that to remind
you where you came from? It is absolutely you lived
in a cardboard box if I was lucky.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Sometimes not even that, Sometimes just literally curled up on
the sidewalk, and the sidewalk was so dirty that it
if you poured a bottle of water on it, it
would clean, It would be like a clean spot. It
was just filthy, filthy. It was so filthy, it was black.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
The sidewalk was people overdose and die. I mean there
had to been bodies.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean there were you're at your correct. There were
time that people would die and we would literally step
over their body. There were times when ambulances would show
up to skid row and they would lay a patient
out on the sidewalk in a hospital gown and get

(05:39):
back in their ambulance and drive away.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
What do you mean you mean drop them off? You're
telling me an American hospital in Los Angeles would transport
a discharge patient and literally just throw them out on
skid row.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Saw it with my own eyes, and not just once.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
How does that happen?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Beyond me? All I know is that's what I saw.
I believe I read something about there being in lawsuits
regarding that, and I believe it was La County Hospital
that did it, which would make sense because that was
the closest hospital. But that is a real thing that happened,
and these people dying in skid row, Yes, lots of
them died of overdoses. I want to know what's really sad.

(06:25):
A lot of them died of very treatable things like
pneumonia infection. Those are the two things I saw. Most
people die of. Pneumonia and infection or some sort of
like can't remember what it's called. It's like a heart
infection you get when your blood gets infected from dirty
needles and stuff. Those were the kind of thing that

(06:46):
people died of on skid row, Totally treatable things.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
So here you are on skid row at nineteen years old,
living in filth.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
And prostituting, and who man prostituting on skid row is
very id prostituted everywhere ever been since I was sixteen.
I don't know how old I am, eighteen nineteen somewhere
around there. I've been prostituting since I was sixteen, and
it was like new ballgame and skid row. One of
the first few weeks that I was prostituting, I had

(07:16):
a police officer put a gun to my head and
make me give him oral sex with the gun to
my head the whole time. So certainly didn't feel.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
I am a police car right.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Next to his police car, right outside of it. He
had the door open, and I was being sheltered by
the police car on my knees, and he had a
gun to my head.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
I just don't want to. I just I think we
just don't want to really believe this stuff happens in
our country. We want to think it's made up stuff
for movies.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
You determine to normalize the conversation because my story is
not abnormal or unusual. Well, it is just like the
women that we serve. They have just as many stories.
They have very similar, if not worse stories.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
There's nothing normal about it.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But the conversation has to be normalized so that women
feel free to speak up, so that people can understand
that women are victimized by people in positions of power
right in front of our eyes and we don't know it.
Women need safe places to run to. Why did nobody

(08:33):
in that grocery store help me.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
It reminds me of the story that from the seventies
in New York City, when a woman was getting raped
in the street in New York City and was screaming rape,
and there were fifty neighbors who heard it. Yeah, and
she ended up dead, and not one of them called
the police. And the psychological event was if there were

(08:57):
only one person that heard it, they would have called
the Because there was fifty, every one of them thought,
I don't want to be involved, and somebody else is
going to do it. And the interesting part of that is,
as a weird metaphor for an army of normal folks,
if we all think somebody else is going to do that,
who's somebody? We need to make this personal and singular,

(09:21):
so we're the ones to step.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Up, exactly. And that's what I believe us as individuals
have the power to change people's lives.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
So you're prostituting on skid row, stepping over dead bodies, yeah,
giving oral sex, giving oral sex to cops who've got
a gun to your head.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah. And I have this really nice trick
who I actually believe it or not. I have an
apartment it's like nineteen twenty blocks away from skid Row,
but I can't be bothered to get there because the
drugs are here. See you in downtown you're kidding me?
Oh no, I'm dead serious. In downtown skid Row, you
can go to like at that time when I was there,

(10:03):
You go to the Diamond District and you can get
a pack or a few packs. A pack is like
it's a corner of a plastic bag and it's filled
up with little water balloons filled with heroin, right. Or
you can get a pack of crack and you hold
it in your mouth like right here, and every time
you sell it to someone, you spit it out, and
then you have to get you have to go back
and you have to give the cartel member, the drug dealers,

(10:25):
the gang members. You have to give them a certain
amount of money. I think it was like seventy dollars.
You were a dollar short man.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
You just weren't.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
You just didn't, So I get.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Supposed when you kept the difference, or they just gave
you drugs.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
They gave me drugs and I would sell them because
I hated prostituting. Prostituting on the skid row was really
really dangerous. Bad bad things happen. Bad things happen. My
friend was found in a dumpster with the broom sticking
out of her, and like really really bad things happened.
I still did prostitute a lot down there, But if
I could, I'd get up early enough or if I

(11:02):
could make it, not that I ever really went to sleep,
if I could make it and in time, because they
only passed out so many packs, you had to be
there like four point thirty in the morning, and they
would pass out all these packs for homeless people to sell,
and then we would and then they would come and
collect the money at the end of the day. This
was all happening like right out in the open too,
like in the Diamond district of downtown La Is where

(11:22):
we would go get the drugs and then they would
come pick up the money from us at a different spot.
But so I'm selling these drugs, right and there's this
dude that always picks me up. And his name's Ernie,
and and he takes me to his house and he's
in the twelve step world and he's sober, and he's
this really nice guy. And he lets me take showers
at his house and we have pizza, and he doesn't

(11:47):
even usually make me have sex with them. So I'm like, gosh,
this is amazing. I get to take a shower and
eat and whatnot. And one night I was at his
house and he came out like a different person from
the bathroom. He had relapse while I was there, like
doctor Jackall and mister Hyde, and he's like strangling me
and raping me, and at this time of my life,
and I'm not saying that this is what women should do,

(12:09):
but just to give you an ixea idea of how
I coped with things, I would lay still and I
would say to myself, I don't know where this came from,
It's just something my brain made up. Lay like a fish,
Lay like a fish, and lay like a fish, Lay
like a fish. And I just used to chant that
to myself while they were doing whatever they were doing
to me. And I tried to like be accessible, but

(12:30):
then also not make it pleasurable to them, because I
found that if I thought back, it was worse. It's
almost like what they wanted me to and it made
them matter and they hurt me worse. So I just
kind of laid there and let stuff happen. He then
put me in his car and he brought me back
to my tent and skin row, and fast forward some

(12:51):
period of time I don't know, two days, two weeks,
I'm not sure, and he's now buying drugs from me.
I'm going to get these little pets of drugs, and
I have a couple packs in my tent, and he
has a prostitute go to the front of my tent
and he asked me to sell her a couple balloons.
So I spin out the balloons and I give them

(13:13):
to her. But you can only hold so much in
your mouth. So I had these other packs sitting on
my little car. I had my coffee table was a
cardboard box with duct tape on it. And he cut
the tent and he took the drugs. And I was terrified.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Because now you don't have the money to pay the
cartael guy.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and like yeah, I didn't have the time to
make it. Prostituting. It's very treacherous prostituting, and a lot
of the people would rip the girls off and just
not even give you money at all. So I had
to tell the cartel guys like listen, I didn't do it.
Ernie took it. He also raped me. Blah blah blah
blah blah. And the next day I was standing there

(13:55):
and they told me, hey, watch out. You know, we're
going to talk to Ernie about what happened. Because Ernie
was walking down the street and coming up to the spot,
the spot, and I thought they were going to rough
them off a bit, you know, and you know, tell them, hey,
you need to go get our money and we want
it now. That's not what happened.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Two guys grabbed him by the arm and two guys
started stabbing them, and I heard it happening behind my back,
and by the time I turned around, I saw the
last couple jabs of the knife, and then Ernie running
across the street and my eyes connected with his eyes
right when he went down, and the light went out

(14:54):
of his eyes. And this was broad daylight. The court
doc say it was evening, but it must have been
summer evening. I don't remember what time of year it
was because it was broad daylight. There was like thirty witnesses.
There's at least thirty people there. I don't know how
many official witnesses there were. But so one of my friends, Tomas,

(15:16):
who was involved in the stabbing, who stabbed him, he
got hurt. He had a big cut on his forehead.
He was a bald gangster guy with tattoos and stuff,
and he got kind of scalped a little bit in
the knife fight. So I took him and a couple
other people to my apartment to get them cleaned up,
because that's I'm like a nurturer. I'm a caretaker, you know.

(15:39):
And we didn't report the crime, you know, like there
was all someone else else already called the police. So
I took these guys to my apartment, and I'll never
forget we stopped on the way, so like we got
to Agnormal. We got to Agnormal, and we got we're
in a stolen car by by the way. We stop
at that liquor store and we get popsicles. So I
have these guys who and I'm like telling them what

(16:01):
to do because they're in some sort of state of shock.
I would have thought they would have been like so
tough and bad, bad that they wouldn't have been phased
by this, But these two guys I was with were
like traumatized. I said, we got to Agnormal, guys, we
gotta Agnormal. I'm gonna go buy some popsicles so that
way someone could say, well, she came in and she
bought popsicles. Everything seemed fine. And I gave these two
gangster guys who had bloody hands and stuff popsicles, and

(16:24):
they just stood there and the popsicles were just melting
down their hands, and they didn't eat them. I just
forever remember that moment. Anyways, I got them to my apartment,
cleaned them up, and I don't remember what happened after that.
But fast forward a couple of days and I am
arrested at the scene of the crime. Basically, then I'm
taken to an interrogation room. They want me to be
a witness. They put me in witness assistance, which is

(16:46):
different than witness protection. I'm in witness assistance, meaning these
detectives take me to all my interviews, and they escort
me to court and to any court things. And they
gave me envelopes of money to pay my rent and
my incidental expenses. What do you think I did with
that money? Drugs and on drugs. Yeah. So I was

(17:07):
re arrested yet again at the seat of the crime
by bike cops with a literal needle sticking out of
hit right the spot I have like a nerve spy.
That's exactly where it was, with a needle sticking out
of my neck. I'll never forget it went bringing.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Why were you having a needle? Sticking out of your
neck in the middle of the diamond industry.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
No, we're over in the skid row area. Picked up
the drugs?

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Are you saying? You just shot it out and left
it sitting there.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
I had someone else shooting me up because I used
to shoot up in my arms. Those were spent. Then
I shot up in my legs. Those were spent when
I when I had the opportunity, I would have other
people shoot me up at my neck. I have a
little scar from it, loss of scars on my legs though,
and my arms, but mostly my legs because it was

(17:55):
a sure for you. The big artery right there, and
it's really easy to shoot up right there. Bike cops
arrested me. I had two syringes. I was about to
do one of heroin, one of coke, and they arrested
me right after the coke one, which anybody out there
who uses drugs and has done speedballs and two separate
syringes knows that being arrested for murder right after shooting

(18:16):
a bunch of cocaine in your veins without being able
to do your heroin is like the worst thing that
could ever happen. It was a nightmare, so I was
interrogated for hours and hours after that, and I was
put in solitary confinement for somewhere around a year, the
duration of the murder trial. And I forgot to tell

(18:37):
you a whole, big, important part of my story. Right
before that, my mom and I were home with some
skin rowed together. My mom lived in the porta potty,
a handicapped porta potty. She was like the archetypal bag
lady if you could picture that. She literally had like
a sea of grocery bags that were all tied up,
a grocery bag, grocery bag, grocery bag, and she would

(18:59):
carry move them around with her and it would take
several trips for her to move her bags. But she
lived in this porta potty and that was my mom,
and she, you know, was not a mom, and I
was like the mom and I took care of her.
And one time when I was sitting in jail, I
was watching TV and it said, man has women held
hostage in public restroom? Because after oj Simpson, stuff just

(19:21):
goes all over the news in California, and we're all
watching this It's a Thanksgiving Day and it's the only
thing on TV and it's really annoying. And then like
a couple days later, this Catholic priest comes and gets
me out of my cell with the CEO and they're like,
your mom's been killed. And later I found out that
that was my mom in the bathroom that whole time

(19:41):
when I was watching that scene unfold. So at the
time when my mom was killed, I just lost all
respect for myself and I started morphing into my mom.
I started losing my teeth, my hair started to get dreadlocked,
and I basically started to look and act like my mom.
And that's when I got all entangled in this murder thing.

(20:02):
So now fast forward, I've been arrested for contempt of court.
I'm sitting in jail waiting for the trial, and for
some reason I called this district attorney. She was the
attorney who prosecuted the man who murdered my mom, and
her name was Katie Albright, and I reached out to
her for some stupid reason, I don't remember what it was,

(20:24):
and she yelled at me. She was like, why are
you throwing away your life? She was mad that I
was in contempt of court and testify. She said, you're
throwing away your life. You could your story could have
saved someone's life someday, and look at you, you're just
throwing your life away. Because personally, for me, sitting in
that jail cell, I was completely planning on refusing to testify.

(20:49):
I was excited to go to prison for the rest
of my life because to.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Me, that was safer than what you'd lived in.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
I could and wait. I was excited.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
I had my prison wife waiting for me. Her name
was Mousie. She was like six two or six three,
and she had these big old ears that stuck out,
and she was so sweet, but she was also scary.
And I was going to be protected because when you
when you don't testify, when I when a gang is
being come after by the district attorney and you protect

(21:25):
the gang, You're set up in prison like you don't
got to worry about nothing. You're going to have drugs,
you're going to have your canteen, You're going to have
a protector. Like I was.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
I was.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
I figured like I had my life figured out, you know,
I felt like I had my life figured out.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
What does it say that figuring out wife looks like
living in prison the rest of your life, getting your drugs,
having a little bit of canteen, and being protected, because
that is far better than the first nineteen years of
your existence on earth. And again, we are going deep
into the story for our listeners to understand the redemptions coming.

(22:06):
But you have to understand why Carly does what she does,
and it's because she knows that her story, while maybe
unique to your ears as listeners, it's not unique to
the plight of many people in our country. Today.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm sitting in this jail cell and my sisters are
starting to write me letters, and the district attorney hung
up on me and was like, you're throwing your life away.
And she's last thing she said was your story could
have help someone someday. So it's laying in the cell
and I'm thinking, and I'm thinking, and I decided to
do the right thing. I decided to get on the
stand and tell the truth that The other part that

(22:51):
made it harder was was the detectives wanted me to
say more than the truth. They wanted me to lie
on the stand, and it really just, you know, like
everywhere it turned was corruption and lies, and I just
I didn't like being forced to lie. You know under
oath on a witness stand. So I was just so

(23:12):
content and happy to go to prison because it seemed
like such a great solution. But my sisters, man, my
sisters were writing me the letters, and this district attorney
said that, and I decided, in like the very last
minute to get on the stand. Another part of that
is I met so many women there, and I loved
them and I wanted to stay with them. We bonded.

(23:35):
You know, when you're in solitary confinement, you get to
talk to them. When you have your hour out of
the cell to shower. I would go up to their
doors and talk to them. And I really cared about
those women a lot. So that was one of the
reasons I wanted to stay. But anyways, I talked myself
into trying another time at normal life. So I got

(23:58):
on the stand and I was released. Yeah, I told
the truth, which I didn't know what was going to happen.
I didn't know, you know, if telling the truth was
going to be enough, because they wanted me to lie essentially,
But I told the truth. They got their a little
bit of revenge on me. They actually rearrested me when
I was leaving the courthouse. They re arrested me for

(24:21):
some focus crime that I didn't commit, and they put
me back in jail for a while, just because they
were mad at me for not lying for them, which
is whatever. I was so used to jail at that
point I didn't even care, and I just kept hearing
that when you're in solitary confinement. So I get out
of jail. I'm allowed to move to Illinois. Everything's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'm on fire. Why do you choose Illinois?

Speaker 2 (24:41):
My sisters live in Illinois, so that's safe. Ish. Yeah,
you had to have a relative and a job, which
is like crazy, who's going to hire you? But I did.
I got a relative and a job someone was willing
to take you in and prospect, I guess a prospect

(25:01):
for work. But I had both of those things, so
I was allowed to move to Illinois. Slipped and fell
on the ice behind the restaurant. Told the doctor room
was an addict. I didn't want drugs, and he gave
me a big bottle of vic it in and I
was off and running. Both of my kids were born
addicted to drugs.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Now were you you really were sober? It was you'd
fought it.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Off basically for the first time in my life.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
You'd gotten to Rockford, Illinois with your sister, got a job,
and you literally were sober, which means also, now you're
facing the demons of everything that's in here feel but
you're getting through it. And then you slip and fall
on the ice and the doctor gives you pain pills,

(25:48):
which is I.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Tell him an addict and I don't want them. He said, well,
you don't have to feel the prescription, then it's my job.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
But it was. It was the grip. It pulled you
right back, immediate. Okay.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
So then I had two kids born addicted to heroin.
Because now I'm a prostitute in Rockford, had two kids
born addicted to heroin, and I hated my life. My
whole house was dirty clothes, cat being dog poop, and
I wanted to die. My family did an intervention on me.
They gave me three days at this hotel in Rockford

(26:23):
to figure out my life. Little did they know I'd
been trying for six months to get into treatment. So
my plan was to kill myself in that room because
if I couldn't get into treatment in six months with it,
I had a car, I had insurance I had a phone,
and I had people who would have helped me if
I asked for help. Right, If I couldn't get in
with all those things, how am I going to get

(26:45):
in in three days? So I was going to kill myself,
but I wanted to get high before I killed myself.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Were you really going to kill yourself? Really?

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Without shadow of a doubt? I was going to kill
myself because it was pointless. How was I going to
get a help in three days if I've been trying
for six months? So I wanted to get high first,
and I was calling people and I was like, bring
me I need this, I need that. I'm going to treatment,
bring me this. And this one girl brought me a
plate of food and a journal. Other people had brought

(27:15):
me like DVDs. I told them that I wanted DVDs.
There's no DVD player in a hotel room. So I
was walking around like State Street, trying to sell DVDs
so I could get high one more time at the
car dealerships and stuff. But this one friend of her
friend came and I can't remember. She brought me a
plate of food and I think a journal or something.
It wasn't once she brought me though. It's what she said.
She said, what do we have to do? How do?

Speaker 1 (27:38):
How do?

Speaker 2 (27:38):
How do? How can I help you? What do we
have to do to get you into treatment? You know?
And the fact that she wanted to help me, knowing
that I was a bad mom, that I had put
my kids in danger, that my house was a disgusting mess,
that everything that I that I you know, put drugs
in my body when I was pregnant, she still wanted
to help me. And I thought to myself, God, maybe

(28:02):
I need to try one more time. So I was
going to put off killing myself until just before checkout.
So in the morning, at like nine am the next morning,
I called the treatment center. Well called many treatment centers,
but I called a treatment center, and the woman on
the other end of the phone said, for the love
of God, if you would just stop calling. This is

(28:24):
a verbatim what she said, For the love of God,
if you would just stop calling, someone just left, and
if you get here within two hours, you can have
their bed. For Christ's sake. Since she hung up on me,
called in my naw, she had no authority to do that.
She was just like the night dusk woman. And I
got there, I got that bed, and that was ten

(28:45):
years ago, April seventeen, and I haven't had to put
a needle in my body since that day. And I
haven't got high since that day because I realized some
things about myself, and I did a lot of self
work in therapy. But for me, I had a realization

(29:06):
when I was living in the projects in this little
city where I went to treatment, it was called Freeport,
and there's all these little kids just running around the projects.
I didn't have no shoes on, and it seemed like
nobody was really watching them. Some of the little girls
didn't even have shirts on, you know. And I started
taking care of them. So I had like this unofficial

(29:28):
daycare basically. So I would put a little sign up
outside of my apartment that said miss Carly's houses open today,
and like the parents would just let their kids hang
out with me all day. And I didn't have no money,
but I had a link card, so I would go
when I would get stuff for us to do crafts
and activities and make lemonade and I just had a
good old time. And let me tell you, at the

(29:49):
end of those days, I could just lay my head
down and go to sleep. I didn't have to relive
all the shit that I'd done. I didn't have to
relive all the stuff that was done to me. I
could just go to sleep. On the nights that I
hung out with those kids, I was fulfilled and I
was tired, and I felt like I had done something

(30:13):
good and I could just go to sleep. So I
realized that if I could get outside of myself and
do something for others, that I could get through that day.
So I spent a lot of time with those kids,
needless to say, and I dove into service work in
the recovery world, and I learned that being of service

(30:38):
was saving my life.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
We'll be right back, Okay, three questions before we go

(31:03):
to what you did that has now developed into Ms
Carls and who you're serving, And how something you just
said struck me, which is you talked about all the
things that you did and the things that were done
to you. I think that's real close to what you

(31:24):
just said to me. Yeah, where is forgiveness and grace
working all this for you? You know, for both yourself
and for the neighbor who raped an eight year old,

(31:44):
the grandmothers and mothers who not only didn't protect you,
but candidly were complicit in those acc against you. For
the Persian guy who traded you a disgusting cubicle for sex,
for the Mexican guy who had you gang right, for

(32:07):
the temerity of wanting your freedom. How is you not
just filled with hate?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
I'm not at all.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
I know that about you because I can see it
in your smile and what you do. Where did you find.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
That? It's a really good question, and I don't know
that I know the answer to it, but I know
that these people. Let's take a pimp for instance, he
doesn't wake up and decide how going to be a pimp.
When I grew up, you know, there is a series

(32:51):
of circumstances and traumatic events that happened to get a
person to the stage in their life. I was selling people.
I was a human trafficker. I was selling people to Mexico,
to these guys in Mexico, like, who does that? You
know someone who's experienced a lot of trauma. And I

(33:13):
think because of what I had been through, I was
able to understand that these people that were perpetrating even
acts against me and others, they were sick themselves, and
they had been abused and had traumatic experience happened to
them themselves.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Have you been able to have that same forgiveness and
grace for yourself?

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yes? How through you know, working the twelve steps. And
I will admit I was an atheist for all of
my life until very recently, and what is very recently
about the last year or so, I've seen so many

(33:57):
miracles happen in the work that we do that I
can no longer believe that there's nothing out there. This
isn't possible that you cannot tell me that that many
coincidences have happened within the walls of the building that
I'm in. It just can't be. So I know that

(34:17):
there is a higher power watching out for me and
guiding me, and I feel a sense of peace in
that that I never had before. Am I a person
of great, strong faith that's gonna get up on an
in front of a church and inspire a room full
of people with my knowledge of the Bible and whatnot? No,

(34:43):
but I used to be an atheist and I'm not anymore.
And I'm learning to explore where my faith is because
I shouldn't be alive today and I am. And I
witnessed miracle after miracle after miracle. So I feel like
a baby in my faith and I'm just starting to

(35:06):
learn more about it. But I pray all the time.
I pray that I will understand what I need to understand.
And it's a very new and fresh thing for me.
So I'm not real comfortable talking about it because.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Oh, now that's weird. You'll talk about gang rapes and
cops holed and guns to your head, but you're uncomfortable
talking about I think that is really ironic. But you're
uncomfortable talking about people.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Who identified as Christians and went to church and hurt me.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
You know, there's a difference in religion and faith, Garlic
a huge one, big big Religion can often be can
often be mishandled in a way that hurts others, and

(36:05):
that is not faith. That is a human construct that
can oftentimes destroy faith. Actually, And so I get what
you're saying.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
When I was in solitary confinement, there's no books, and
I just had one little like ripped part of a
Bible and and I would read it and and I
just really identified with, you know, a lot of the

(36:40):
scriptures and this the idea of unconditional love because that
was the only way I was going to be loved
because I had done so many bad things. You know,
the only way that anybody was going to love me
is if they could have the capacity for unconditional love.
So there were any things that led up to me

(37:01):
deciding not to be an atheist anymore. That happened somewhere
around a year ago. And I just pray a lot now,
and I pray. I pray a lot in gratitude for
the miracles that I see happening around me, and I
pray for healing for the people that are hurting around me.

(37:23):
And it happens. It happens all the time. My prayers
get answer, So I just keep praying.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
So let's talk about how those miracles started. I think
it was you decided homeless people that live near you
needed a sandwich. I think that's basically the way it began.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Crying. I'm sorry, It's.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Okay, cry your heart out. Are you one? But we
deal with a lot of light stuff, you know. Some
episodes are about Seneca, Indiana, and it's happy and warm
and fun to talk about. And some are with a
guy named big Al who has a magnanimous personality that

(38:10):
could fill this whole building. Some are deep troubling stories. Obviously,
we try to always get to their dimption, which we're
getting to here. But it's a it's a it's a
it's a it's a very diverse storytelling that we do.

(38:31):
And I got to tell you, I've sat here for
the last fifteen minutes fighting tears. I've got tears in
my eyes right now and a little bit of a
lump in my throat, and that is rare in these
things that we do. And I'm really affected by your story.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
I'm glad because that means there's hope for the women
out there who are still living in this backstory.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
And I think that's what's affecting me. Is not your story,
just your story. But I can't quit thinking that, oh
my gosh, right now, within twenty miles of here, this
is probably happening to ten different women, and it makes
me want to throw up and it hurts me. And

(39:20):
we just got to do better.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
People worry so much about the homeless people, the homeless people,
the homeless people. What about these people living in subdivided buildings,
you know, with opportunistic landlords, and you know, there's so
many people being taken advantage of and subjugated and poor areas,
and they don't have anywhere to run to for help,

(39:43):
and they don't have people that they can trust. And
I think that we should open ourselves if we are
capable to be one of those safe people and identify
ourselves as an advocate, which is.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
What you did with some sandwiches. So go to it
in my garden.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
I want to. I have a family, I'm sober.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Now, and you're in Rockford, Illinois. You got it straight,
you got a job, You're you you you you are,
You have done the work that most can't, and honestly
that should be enough. You know, you're you. You pulled
yourself literally off skid row. Yeah, I get it that

(40:27):
I do identify with. But you, you have, you've you've
quote made it literally off skid row, and that is
not a proverbial statement, literally off skid row. You're in Rockford, Illinois,
You've got a life, you're clean, you're sober, you face
so many of your demons, and you're digging in your garden.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Only you know, I only know one person that was
on skid row at the same time as me that
made it off.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
So what I'm saying it's your You're rare, You're in
very thin air.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
So I'm digging in my garden and this homeless person
just gets down in the garden beside me and starts digging,
and you serious.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, he's like, you picked the right person to do
it next to you. I mean, you get him. He's
probably high as hell, isn't he.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah he was. At the time, I was running this
very successful, well, very successful, especially for how new it
was photography business. But I felt like a fraud because
I'm around all these people who were dressed all fancy,
and they're like showing all their opulence and wealth off,
you know.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
And you're taking their pictures and making money, good money.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, And I made a lot of money. I had
a great My partner, mister Jacob, is abitious businessman, and
he's like, yeah, I was charging fifty dollars a session.
He said, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (41:50):
That's five one hundred.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, that's exactly what he said.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Right, And he have a kid getting married. I know what, photographer,
it's a racket as well, photographer.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
I was, And yeah, and then I couldn't do it.
I couldn't charge people that much. I did, but then
I hated it, and then people were just so ugly
displaying all of their opulence and you know, their gucci,
Like what why do you have to have an eight
thousand dollars purse just to hold it for fifteen minutes,
you know, like it's crazy. I was very uncomfortable. It

(42:22):
wasn't my scene and I and I was going through
that in my head, like how do I get out
of this business that it just worked so hard to
get into. And here comes this homeless person and I'm like,
you are my people.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
This high homeless dude starts digging next.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
H yeah, yeah. I'm like, come inside, let's go get
something to eat. He's like, but I'm filthy. I'm like,
I don't care. I'm dirty too, Go wash up and
I'll make you something to eat. And his name was Shane,
and I love Shane so much. Shane and I would
hang out a lot in the garden. He just kept
meeting me early in the morning because I would get
up before my kids got up because it was cool,

(42:59):
you know, and then it were hotter and I don't
want to be digging in the heat, so he just
started timing it. I also smoked cigarettes at the time,
and that was his way to get his morning cigarette too,
So he'd come and help me dig in the garden
and he'd get his couple of cigarettes and then I
would feed them and then we would part our ways. Well,
he got to the point where I invarted him over
for dinner and he came and he ate with my
family for dinner, and to him, it was like such

(43:21):
a big thing. He was like, I'm gonna go to
Carpentage place and I'm gonna take a shower. I promise
I'll be cleaning, Miss Carley. He called me miss Carly.
He's the first person to call me that. He's so worried.
He didn't want to be dirty, like around my children,
because I had two children at the time. And he's like,
I promise I'll be clean and I'll wipe my seat
after I get up, but my pants will be clean,

(43:42):
so don't worry, you know. He's like all excited about
coming to dinner, and I'm like, I'm not tripping, dude,
Like germs are germs, you know. And he comes to dinner,
and he comes to dinner again and he's like our
friend now, and then his friends start knocking on the
door and they're like, we're hungry, and we were wondering
if maybe you had anything left over. So now I'm

(44:04):
calling my friends who owned restaurants and I'm getting bags
with these and bags.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
And flowers like that is hilarious.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
And I'm making rolling out homemade hot pockets and stuff,
and I'm just trying to figure out how to feed
these people. And I'm getting a little bit behind on
my personal chores. So Shane started like sweeping the mopping
for me because I'm making a big mess with these
fifty pound bags of flower and stuff. So he's helping
me clean, which is notable. Just remember that later. And

(44:34):
we're just doing it. We're feeding all our friends, right
And one day, Shane.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
I gotta ask something, Yeah, what are your neighbors thinking, Oh, they're.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
They're slipping there, Tamali's over the fence.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Your neighbors are helping.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
They're a Hispanic family, and they're like, who's Tomali's for
your friends? And then the other neighbors on the other
side was the building that we know. Oh, and so
they didn't care either. They're ours neighbors across the street
that aren't super happy about it, but everybody else around
right around us loves us. It's in the immediate area.

(45:09):
So so so the friends are coming and the friends
are coming, and I'm like, I'm having a little bit
of trouble keeping up right. And then this one homeless
young woman who, bless her heart, she ended up dying
of infection cancer. She had cancer, but she actually died
of infection was totally treatable. Once again, she brought me.

(45:32):
She's this little old lady named Miss Rhonda, who I
believe is actually from somewhere around here, like yeah, she's
somewhere from Tennessee or something like that. But anyway, she's
a sweet little old lady from the South named Miss Rhonda.
And Miss Ronda was walking down Seventh Street, which is

(45:52):
a notorious street for homeless people in drug sales and
human trafficking and Rockford, and Miss Ronda says, I I
swear swear by god, it was the only day I
couldn't find a single homeless person in all the Salmon Street.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Because they were all at your house.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
I don't know where they were quite possibly. So this
one homeless person brought Miss Rhonda to me, and Miss
Ronda had all this food left over from a funeral,
and she said, what are you doing here? Because I
was feeding these homeless people. I said, I'm feeding some people.
She said, I want to feed people, and so I

(46:32):
would cook half at my house and she would cook
half at her house, and we would feed like fifty
homeless people. And it was just this totally organic thing,
completely word of mouth, home cooked food. And it was
fifty people, and it was seventy five people, and it
was one hundred people, and it was two hundred people,
and it was three hundred people. And right about the
time we were feeding three hundred and fifty people a

(46:55):
hot meal three times a week, I caught two escame
prison inmates. These two prison inmates showed up at my
house and escaped prison inmates, and I recognized their picture
only by chance because I do not watch the news.
I've been through enough in my life. I just can't
deal with the news. I don't watch the news, but

(47:17):
I just happen to see it because my friend's cabin
was in the area where they were escaped from, and
their pictures in printed in my mind because they were
in prison for the same kinds of charges that my
mother's rapist was in prison. Wow, rape, kidnapping, et cetera.
These So, these kidnap rape, kidnap guys are at my

(47:40):
door and it's I don't know, early in the morning,
six seven, eight in the morning.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Or something for yourself for you.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
I've been through so much these guys, I'm like whatever.
But I'm thinking, how do I get inside to call
nine one one without tipping them off? And how do
I keep them here long enough for nine one one
a cup for the police to come. So another volunteer
showed up at the same time, and I said, I'm
going to go out to sign and get coffee for

(48:09):
these two guys because they were freezing, And he stayed
and talked to them while I went and signed and
called nine one one and made them coffee. So I
came back out and I stalled them. Then the other
volunteer went inside, and I stalled the two guys until
the police got there. And I think they took a
long time because I don't think they believed me, And

(48:29):
then when they finally realized that I was telling the truth,
they had to get more cops. I guess. So this
is like ten, twelve, fifteen minutes. I'm stalling these escaped inmates,
just small talking with them. I'm like, let me go
get you a pair of sweats, let me go get
you this, let me and I'm like trying to figure
out all these reasons to stall them and eventually show

(48:49):
while the cops come in and they arrest them, and
I got this award and stuff. So I'm really really popular.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
That is so ironic. Yeah, if you think about it,
it is that you're getting award from the police.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
I felt like Hunter S. Thompson sitting in that pillow
police and detectives and stuff. I mean, mind you, I'm
sober at the time, so it wasn't exactly like Hunter S. Thompson,
but I felt to myself like if these guys only knew,
you know, Like but yeah, I went up on the
stage and it was all like just cops and stuff,

(49:28):
and they gave me an award and that helped the donations.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Roll in and then yeah, the point is that was
the media event. The people are like, this chick is
feeding all these homeless people and doing good. Yeah, and
so now you have an organization.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, we had to start an organization. The city tried
to shut us down and they failed because the community
rose up and was like, oh, hell no, you're not
shutting this lady down. And there there so many people
at city Hall when the city tried to shut us
down that they had to put TVs in the lobbies.
People made t shirts, bumper stickers and they were like,
save miss Carle's. The newspaper did it up ed And

(50:12):
everybody was just in our corner, you know. We had
tremendous support and we got a unanimous vote from city
council to stay open and we've been feeding people ever since.
When COVID hit, we had to change the hot meals,
which really broke our heart because a big part of
what we did was we had volunteers who would just

(50:34):
walk around and sit down with people and get to
know them, and then we would find out what was
going on in their lives and we would try to
help them figure it out. We would show up at
their doctor's appointments with them. We would you know, just
like fit the pieces together. So it broke our heart
that we weren't going to have the hot meals. So
then we went to sack lunches when COVID hit, and

(50:58):
the sack lunches turned to one thousand, two hundred sack
lunches a day.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
At time that's insane. Twelve hundred, how many people are
making these things? I mean, you're no longer doing this
in your kitchen, eight.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
To ten people. We started renting the kitchen next door
to us, and we'd just pump out the sandwiches, like
three days a week. We'd make a few thousand sandwiches,
and we were able to feed as many as twelve
hundred people in a day during COVID. But the hard

(51:31):
thing during COVID was seeing people cut off from resources.
So the fact that you know, people couldn't get into
treatment really resonated with me. I forgot to tell you
that one night Shane didn't show it for family dinner,
and me and mister Jacob went to his tent and
we saw footprints all over the ground and his hat

(51:54):
was trampled on the ground. I should have taken a
picture of it, because his hat is on the wall
at my house, right next to his sure. And we
knew that our friend was gone and he had overdosed.
Another homeless person found him in the prayer position, passed away,
and it just broke my heart that I didn't help him.

(52:16):
I know, I who had a car, a computer, a house,
connections in the community. Why didn't I get him help?
And this was before we started doing that, So he
was the first person that passed away that we knew
that was homeless, and it just destroyed us. Me and
Jacob sat there and cried. And ever since that day

(52:36):
we started helping getting people to treatment. We started driving
people in our own car pre COVID to Chicago and
we would sit with them and we would not give
up until they got a bed in treatment post COVID,
same thing, but larger scale, and we used Uber instead.
We now have gotten over a thousand people into treatment and.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Just stop a thousand people over. Okay, I'm looking through
my notes and I can't find their names, and I'd
love to give them credit for this, but do you
know how we found out about two army or normal
folks listeners? Danica? I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name, Danica.

(53:24):
Hey skat them and pat Ran that said they donate
to your work, but they're just people who know about you.
Do you know who these people are?

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I Reconi their names for sure, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yep, they're the one. They They're how we even know
your story? I knew you didn't know that, and I
wanted to give it to you as a point of encouragement.
You're not only affecting homeless people, You're illustrating to people

(54:01):
who have not been what you've been through. And you're
inspiring them enough that they take their time to different
people to email us about the work that you're doing
in Rockford. You're helping a whole community. You're inspiring a whole.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Community, because these people are screwed, if not already, there's
this ads are stacked against them.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
So tell me today what it is. I know you
do meal service three days a week and you serve
as many as God, I don't even know how many meals.
It's an insane amount. What's the number?

Speaker 2 (54:41):
So don't we no longer do the meal service three
days a week. We do what we call community day
three days a week, so we have people come in.
We do the sack lunches twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
You do that no matter what. So if a homeless
person in Rockford wants food, it's there seven days a week.
Allahah water we're talking Christmas, Thanksgiving clothes. Okay, So you
do that and then you have that is.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Five feet from the front door. So when people knock,
I just get out of bed, and I have a
refrigerator right next to the front door, and I get
the cold part of the lunch out of the refrigerator.
I get a bar of soap, I get whatever they need.
It's all set up right around the front door.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
That's what I was getting to is. It's not now
just food, it's clothing items, it's hygiene. It's literally meals
at the door for the homeless, along with the things
that you remember you wish you had when you were
on sched row.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
They used to charge like twenty dollars for a blanket.
It'd be like a dirty life infected blanket, Like you'd
have to buy it from another homeless person.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Well where are you going to get the twenty bucks?
Go deal drugs or prostitute yourself.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, So it's so important to me to give people
blankets and those things that I.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Right, you got twenty four to seven lunch in a sack.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
You get very basic necessities.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Right, Narcan. Now that's interesting. Now you do that confidentially
and without prejudice, because you also understand what that feels like.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
But Narcan, I won't know how many people I've given
narkan and CPR too.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
I do oh oh darkhan and what CPR? Yeah, I
do want to know twenty.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Seven people, twenty seven people. Most of those were trafficked
women who were dumped on our doorstep during COVID not
breathing and blue. Twenty seven people one of them.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
That literally means you probably saved twenty seven pous on
your front doorstep.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Save twenty seven lives on my front doorstep. One woman.
I gave her CPR five times, and her name is Mary, Mary.
I am so proud of you. Her name is Mary Bouchers.
And she told me, miss Carly, I'm gonna get sober
and I'm gonna get all my kids back, and she's
done it. We helped her get, you know, off the

(57:15):
streets and off drugs, but she didn't ask us for much.
A lot of people are like, Okay, I need this,
I need to bust pass, I need some groceries. I
need oh, miss Carly, I got to pay my phone bill.
She didn't ask us for life. They're nothing hardly. She
did everything she said she was gonna do. She got
all of her kids back. She even got her pimp

(57:37):
sober and he has a year clean now, I mean
we helped him, but like they did this, like she
she got her pimp sober, so he's no longer out
there hurting other women. It's just amazing. She's such a
great success story. We have another traffic woman that we
helped get sober, and she's her name is Danielle and

(57:59):
she's now. She told me, Miss Carly, I'm going to
be an inspirational speaker if she isn't. Now she's a
freaking inspiration speaker. And I have dropped with this doctor
and she goes to the University of Illinois and she
teaches graduating doctors on how to recognize the signs of
human trafficking in the er or wherever they might find

(58:20):
themselves in their profession. Because this is the thing. The
women don't identify with the language. They don't know they're
being I didn't know I was being traffic I didn't
know that I was trafficking almost people when I took
them down to San Diego. The language is a barrier,
and we got to get past those barriers and educate
people and have them understand that it's not acceptable treated

(58:45):
this way. I'm sorry, I got off on a tangent.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Drug and alcohol treatment and which I have I got
to be completely candid here. Over the last year of
doing an or me normal folks, what I have learned
is a massive importance.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
An army of normal folks. What is that?

Speaker 1 (59:08):
That's what you're on?

Speaker 2 (59:10):
That is my dream?

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Okay, well that's the name of this podcast.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
I didn't even know that that's your dream. That's to create.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Okay, well that's what that's the name of the podcast
you're on right now. That's hilarious. Listen to me for
a second. The what I've learned over the last year
of doing this is you can get people in drug

(59:41):
and alcohol treatment and they can get sober, but if
you don't have a way to get them a place
to assimilate back into the world. If you just take
them from drugging out of retart and say okay, here's
the world, they're going to relapse. And so so you
also handle that right transition. Well not, okay, I did

(01:00:08):
not know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
That it was the name of your podcast. I researched you,
you know, just a little bit, but I did not
know that was the name of this podcast. That is
my dream is to create an army of advocates to
help pull people out of these depths of despair and
help them just get to appointments.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
And Okay, so what our army of normal folks is.
It is people like you who nobody know about, who
are just normal folks who've been through whatever they've been
in the world, that see areas of need in their
community and fill it. And if we have an army
of normal folks across the world seeing areas and need

(01:00:48):
in the world and fill in it, we can change
our society.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Absolutely, that's exactly what I believe.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Well, that's what you are joining by being a member
of the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
My dream is to have an army of advocates to
change Rockford, and then I want that to spread with
So wow, I'm sorry. I didn't need to get so
side checked. Let me answer your question.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Okay, so absolutely say a nice job, Alex on your
prop nice shot, buddy. Yeah good, We'll be right back.

(01:01:40):
We do twenty four to seven bags, We do narcand
we do clothing and hygiene items, meals at the door.
You sleep next to the door so everybody gets food.
You do drug alcohol treatment. You can get off the street,
go to drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Everything's honky, dory. But
then then what exactly to be transitioned? There has to

(01:02:02):
be an assimilation.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
So many people say, oh, they should just go to
the homeless shelter. Okay, homeless shelters grateful for it for them.
Are they a place to be in early recovery?

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Absolutely, there's drugs everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Are filled with drugs, right. I don't care what anybody
says about how wonderful they are homeless shelter is antics
are sneaky and it's not their thought that the drugs
are in there, and Annik is going to figure it out.
So we have to give them a safe, sane and
supportive living environment to learn how to live without drugs

(01:02:37):
in and especially if there's someone who's been doing it
for decades. So we pay for them to go to
any sober living they want to. And the reason that
we let them make the choice and don't say, hey,
we like this one, go to this one is this
is their first experience of autonomy, of being able to choose.

(01:02:58):
They have the ability to to make a decision for themselves,
and autonomy is something homeost people believe they have, but
when they truly get to experience it in a sober state,
it's a whole different ball game.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Yeah, they know that they were everything but autonomous because
they were controlled by drugs and the life that goes
along with it. It is the antithesis of autonomy truly.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
So we're very big on them being able to you know,
we will suggest some places, but we pay for them
to go to sober living and we get them a
cell phone, just a cheap thirty dollars cell phone, a
little bit of groceries, laundry basket sheets, some cigarettes, everything
that they need to succeed in their early days of

(01:03:46):
sober living. But more importantly, we become their family, so
to speak, because so many of the people we serve
they don't have anybody. They burn to the bridges, they
squandered all the resources. Nobody is willing to help them,
at least not in our community because we have this
like big little city problem wherein there is resources. But

(01:04:07):
once you've burnt your bridge, like, they're not going to
help you again. You know they've had enough.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Yeah, well people have had enough. Yeah, yeah, I listen
before we throw rocks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Yeah, I can understand that me too, especially if they
have anger problems.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
Well, and you know, you help, you help, you help.
You know, it's exhausting sometimes and so I get that
it is, but you're the one that's just never gonna
have enough.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
There has to be somebody because the disease of addiction
just doesn't make sense, Like, why would somebody who desperately
wants to get sober keep relapsing over and over and
over and they're not happy using, They're clearly not happy using, you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Know, yeah, the life you described us, who would be
happy there and choose that and answers? Nobody would choose them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
That is the insanity of the season addiction. Nobody would
choose the life that these people are living, the people
that we're serving.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
So you not only provide them the clothing and the
food without prejudice while they're using. When they want to
get sober, you get them drug and alcohol treatment, and
when they get out of that, you give them a
wider transition.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Yes, and we also act as their support system until
they can either reconnect with their family if that's healthy
for them, and earn their trust back, or they can
grow one of their own. And that is what's most
special about us. And that's why I've flipped out when
you told me the name of was because my whole

(01:05:48):
dream is to grow this huge army of advocates that
will just walk people through these challenges and love them
unconditionally in the meantime, because I believe that you don't
need a degree to change someone's life. I believe that
if you just have the desire to affect someone's life

(01:06:09):
and the empathy and compassion that it takes to understand
their circumstances, even better, if you have some personal experience
that you share. My dream is to create this big database, basically,
this network of advocates, and I can I'll know about
each of the advocates, and I can link them up
to the people who need service and make sure they

(01:06:32):
get through. Because there's lots of great services that exist,
right But here's the thing that people don't believe they
deserve the help. I lived in skid Row, the mecca
of missions. I lay my head up against the very
place that could have helped me. Why didn't I walk
on the door Because it felt like a cathedral of

(01:06:52):
cleanness and perfection, and I felt infected and dirty you
and disgusted, disgusting and repulsive. I would walk through there,
and I would sit across the desk from this lady
who had a house and a bank and a big
account and a car, and you know, her little water

(01:07:15):
bottle with things hanging off of it, and I didn't
have none of those things. And my teeth were falling out,
and I just had sex with some guy, and you know,
I had fluids dripping down my legs and stuff, and
I just walked right back out because I felt so
separate from the shining, gleaming building and this neat little

(01:07:37):
woman who has her whole life figured out. I could
not didn't feel worthy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
And you're saying that people you serve.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
Feel the same. They do not feel worthy. They may
go and begin the process, but then their disease tells
them you don't deserve this, you don't fit in. That
lady's judging you, she's not going to help you. You know,
all these things go to your head and you self
sabotage the situation and the service that could be helping you,
and it's just so nonsensical. And then people look down

(01:08:09):
on them. Oh, there's all these places that could help them,
and they are not taking the help. They don't want
the help. It's not that they don't want the help,
they don't feel they deserve the help. So our big
thing is loving them unconditionally until they can love themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
For everyone listening to this, if you're not fully inspired
by the need for just compassion and the social impact,
if that isn't enough, there is a pragmatic side to

(01:08:45):
the work that Carly and people like her do, which
is this, these people who are living in this world,
each one of them that gets sober, minds a home,
gets a job, and become productive members of society. Think

(01:09:09):
about think about the the financial, pas, social, corporate, and
municipal impact for every single one of the people that
we get off the street and flip them to becoming
tax paying, productive members of society. So even even if

(01:09:31):
you're not affected, is deeply by the just the social
impact of this, there's a pragmatic impact of the work
you do that makes our world better.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Absolutely, as I'm trying to sell aways to like the
local government, because they are absolutely a drain on society,
you know, and if we can get.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Which is not don't take that, but you were absolutely I.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Was on social security my whole life. All I ever
bought was it was a drugs or the act room
at the hotel cecil in downtown Los Angeles, you know,
which was just a big den of drugs and gang stuff.
And yeah, that's all I did was spend my money
on drugs. So security disability.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
So look what sobriety. That's done right. And so for
every single person you can serve, think of the pragmatic
impact on society if you don't even care about the
social impact, it is a two prong thing. Speaking of
pragmatic and social impact. There's one more thing you haven't

(01:10:35):
mentioned that you earlier said we'll get back to about.
I think it was the guy sweeping your porch. Tell
us about that, because that is one I've never heard,
which I think is awesome. So what you will have
organized with the homeless.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
The cool thing about our organization is it is run
by the homeless people. So you know, obviously we have
a board and we do all that stuff, but they.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Actually, yeah, that legal stuff that you have to do
if you're going to take people's money.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
And we didn't do enough of it, and we're trying
to catch.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Up and learning.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Oh my goodness, that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
It's the way it is.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Oh it's a mess, but we're getting through it. The
people that run the building that run the day to
day operations are by and large the people that we serve,
and we call them our volunteers, and they clean, they sweep,
they hang clothes, they they serve their peers, they collect

(01:11:35):
the donations, and they they come to us kind of
slunched over, you know, and half hearted about things. And
by the end of the day of volunteering, they're standing
up straight, they're looking you in the eye, and they're
talking about plans for the future.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
You mean they've been given dignity.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Yes, yeah, And the fact that we treat them as
equals really hits home for them because they do not
get treated that way at other places when and I'm
not saying other places are doing it wrong, we're just
doing it different. When you go to another place as
a person receiving services, you're hit automatically with the whole
packet of rules. When you come to us, we're like,

(01:12:17):
what are you good at? Okay, we're going to stick
you here, and it's just we just throw you in,
like get to work, you know. And if they don't
want to be there, they don't have to. And we
have cigarettes that they can roll, and they get food
they can heat up. We have people who bring in
food for them, and they're just such a big family
and they're so happy to be of service and grateful,

(01:12:39):
just like I was. I want to provide that opportunity
people because there's this idea that homeless people are lazy,
and I don't find that to be true at all.
Of Course, there's exceptions to everything, and there are people
who just want to feed off the system, and those
people exist, but they are few and far between. I
think in five years I've met two or three people

(01:13:01):
like that. These are some of the most hardest working
people I've ever met in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
They're just addicts and they're traumatized. Often mostly the addiction
and the trauma go hand in hand.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
They're not allowed to be anywhere, there are any stuff
of everywhere they.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Go well, and most of that trauma and addiction started
way before they even were adults, right, I mean that
is universally nothing's universally true, but that is by and
large the same story over your story, over and over
and over again. So honestly, by helping the homeless, we're

(01:13:39):
actually helping people who, for the most part, started down
the road of this trauma long before they were able
to make decisions even for themselves, and we have to
put that human face on these speaks.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
I can't think of an exception to that of anyone
that I serve. There's one guy that I sent a
treatment recently that comes from a good family and does
and have trauma, but he's we help anybody you know
who comes. I wouldn't, I wouldn't can, I wouldn't put
him in the category of most of the people we serve.
Will never turn anyone down. Anyone that asks for help,

(01:14:12):
We're going to give it to him, no matter their
station in life, no matter their situation. It's one hundred
percent unconditional. And I think, by and large, like the
common thread of the people that we serve is trauma,
and not just like a little bit of trauma, like
major trauma. That and mental illness of course would be next,

(01:14:33):
and the drug addiction. That's what they all have in common.
And we do not just serve.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
So you're talking about literally the most disadvantaged disenfranchised among us.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
Yes, And I think and if.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
We could change the old saying, we're only as strong
as our weakest link. So if if the football team
or our business or society is only as strong as
our weakest link, and these are the most disenfranchised people

(01:15:10):
among us, and we can serve and make them stronger
than doesn't our societal chain become stronger as a whole exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
And the flip side of that is if we don't
do something and we don't intervene, then aren't we just
as guilty of creating the monster? Is what I feel like.
I feel like we have a duty to open doors
and enable people to make positive changes. There is nothing

(01:15:40):
worse than wanting to get better and do better and
not being able to because then you get the efforts.
And that is when people do things.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
I say the hell with it, I'm done. Why don't
I just then throw.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
In the towel and do what That is a dangerous person,
and we as a society create those people. I believe
when we shut the door on their face, you know,
we have to make sure that we are providing a
way out.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
I get a lot of flak for being willing to
send pimps to treatment and get them off the streets, right,
But what I say to those people are I could
get a woman off the It's very difficult to get
women out of human trafficking because there's always a means
to an end. There are so many people who wish
for them to stay in the position they are. Plus,

(01:16:51):
she always knows she can go get her drug, right,
she goes stand on the street for ten minutes and
make forty dollars and get her drug. But if I
can get rid of a pimp, I'm getting rid of
the source. So if I'm not going to help him,
if he comes to my door and ask for help,
first of all, he's a human being and Jesus.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Would have.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
And second of all, if I can get rid of
a pimp, then those six girls have a much better
chance of getting out of the situation that they're in.
You know, like don't don't. So people get upset that
I'm willing to help both the victim and the quote
unquote abuser. But what happened to the abuser to get
him to that point to begin with?

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
I was going to say, more than likely abuser was
once a victim.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
I've heard no exceptions to that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
The other thing you just said that I really want
our audience to year is that we can't equate in
your personal story the people, the people that abuse you,
that were adults are in a class of their own, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
But.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
People that weren't engaged in the abuse but knew it
and didn't act that an action in and of itself,
is evil, and I think we all need to remember
that as we see needs surrounding us and have the
ability to act and don't.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Yes, I believe we as individuals absolutely have the power
to change people's lives, and we are afraid or just
too numb or caught up in our own stuff or
in our phone or whatever to realize that. You know,

(01:18:44):
the smallest gesture could change somebody's entire trajectory.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
You mean, like letting a homeless god dig in your
garden and giving him a sandwich one day.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
Yes, but I'm not saying you have to change your
whole life to change someone else's life. As a homeless person,
there was this concept that I called the turning away.
When you would walk around, people would turn away from you.
I would ask people to not turn away, to smile
and humanize that situation.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Okay, what do you say to the guy sitting out
the convenience store that's asking me for change? Now, I'm
not a turn away person.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
I will I wouldn't imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
No, I'm just not a fear guy. Yeah, yeah, I'm
a lot of people turn away because they're just afraid.
I mean, let's give people credit for that. A woman
walking out of a convenience store driving a decent car
and an I set of clothes and a big, young,
kind of burly dude that's filthy walks up and says, hey,
give me a dollar. You run your car because you don't,

(01:19:47):
you're afraid, you don't want your I mean, so I
get that. Okay, that's understandable, Yeah it is so. But
the question is the moral dilemma. Do I give the
guy a dollar, knowing each probably not going to go
get a sandwich and he's going to go get drugs
or alcohol. Or do I say I'm sorry, man, I
can't give you the dollar when I could certainly afford

(01:20:09):
to give the guy the dollar. The moral dilemma for
me is it's not about the dollar. It's about what
he's going to do with the dollar. And then am
I enabling him to further the misery he's in? Yeah,
what do you do? What do you say to that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
I I so I'm kind of hypocrite because I give
them the dollar. So that I can have a conversation
with them. I'm going to hold their attention long enough
so I could tell them what I can offer them
about treatment and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
You're different, so I will not everybody's.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Got I don't think that everybody should. Because some of
these panhandlers make three, four or five hundred dollars a
day and it's supplying their habit. I would say instead,
look that person in the eye and say, I'm not
going to give you any money, but I care about you,
and I hope that your situation gets better. And you know,

(01:21:01):
here's my pastor's number, or here's my therapist's number, or
here is somebody that can help you. I pray you
get you know, the help.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Here's miss Carly's if you're in Rockford.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
Or whatever. You say that it is something kind and
that you make eye contact and you don't just turn away,
because that turning away hurts just as bad, if not worse,
than some of the things you're It's dismissive, it dismens it,
and you become alienated and you start getting the efforts.

(01:21:36):
And that's when crime doesn't seem like such a bad
idea and.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
And and like it's just further disenfranchisement caring. Tell us
how many people you're serving annually right now? And you
after how many years?

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
I don't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Wait, when did he first kneel down in your garden?

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
It was five years ago?

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Five years later?

Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
Right now? Or if you need three to five hundred
people a day and we're closer to the five hundred,
does the weather gets nicer? But I would say right now,
four to five hundred people to day, every single day
is seven days a week, and you've.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
Saved twenty seven ovs on your front board. How many
people have been sent to the whole program of getting
off drugs in the transition and are now clean, sober
and working in the last five years that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
You've worked hard to say that number, because a lot
of people reintegrate with their family, you know, and we
lose all them. I would say few hundred. Probably somewhere
around two three hundred. I would say, you know, that's
that is on the generous end, because the statistics are

(01:22:49):
just daunting, you know, I would say probably around two hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
It's phenomenal. Yeah, that's forty a year.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
We have will check in with us every day every day,
and like at least once a week someone out of
the blue that I haven't talked to forever.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
I really need to what you get your degree in
social work?

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
I don't have a degree at all.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Oh you don't really. Where'd you get your training? Where'd
you get your what'd you get your Wou'd you get
your certificate to do this work? Carly?

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
I have no certificate. I have life experience.

Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
No what you did? She saw an air need and
filled it. And he didn't wait for somebody to give
you a degree or certificate or permission to go help.
You saw need and filled me.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
You need to agree to change someone's life. You don't
need agree to be a decent person and just treat
somebody with loving, dignity and respect.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
Carly Rice, an abused, traumatized former resident of the skid Row.
The Schidrow dho's best prospected life was literally going to
prison only ten twelve years ago, who got herself together

(01:24:13):
moved to Rockford, Illinois, ninety miles or so north of Chicago,
and five years ago because a homeless gutten knelt down
to her in her garden and she had the temerity
and the kindness to just feed them, is now serving
hundreds thousands, and has started an organization that has already

(01:24:41):
served two hundred ish people from that life all the
way to productive citizens. And what a story.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
Do you pinch yourself every time someone comes back and
checks in and says, I'm still doing good, Misscareliu. I'm
still doing good every single time. Yeah, because I thought
I was going to be dead. It's a miracle that
I'm even alive. And I feel so blessed. We have
faced so many challenges in this work, so many challenges,

(01:25:12):
and we continue to face more. And people always ask
me curly, like it's so hard and you never get
to sleep, and all these people are always coming for you,
like why do you keep doing it? Because it's worth it,
because these are human beings and the success stories they

(01:25:34):
keep me going, and furthermore, it keeps me sober. This
is not an entirely selfless endeavor. Here every night, when
I'm handing lunches to these people, some of them looking
like walking skeletons, I'm reminded of where I come from
and where I never want to be again. And it
gives me great joy and some semblance of serenity to

(01:26:00):
to be an instrument of God's will or whoever's in
charge here to give them hope, because they certainly don't
have any. And if I can give them a sack
lunch and a little bit of love and a little
bit of hope, we can build on that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:21):
I have often said, and every guest echoes, which is
what you just said. The payoff pitch to all of
this is you always get fifty times more out of
it than you put into it, Carly. If somebody wants
to support you, somebody wants to contact you, somebody wants
to hear more about your story, somebody wants to financially
give to the organization, or somebody is inspired and thinks,

(01:26:44):
you know, maybe I could do that in that community.
How do they find you?

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
Miss Carly's dot org is our website, spell that ms
c r l ys dot org and there's no apostrophe.
I went. Eat is always food. I mean we are
feeding three to five hundred people a day. We have
an Amazon wish list on our website, but you can

(01:27:09):
order from anywhere, Walmart or whatever and have it sent
directly to our address which is on the website. And
then our second most biggest need would be money to
pay for people to go to sober living because we
actually we uber people to treatment, uber people to sober living,
pay their sober living rent, buy all of their incidental needs,

(01:27:29):
and it really adds up, adds up to about three
thousand dollars per person to get them through their first
thirty to ninety days of recovery. And we're working on
a model to sponsor individuals through that, which I'm excited about.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
And if somebody's inspired to do this in their own neighborhood,
they can reach you through that and you'll respond to
them absolutely. Imagine with that big smile, you would love
to tell anybody the story. Anyone wants to listen. Yeah,
carl Rice, you are an inspiration. Thank you for joining
me in Memphis, Thank you for telling me this incredible story,
and most of all, thanks for the incredible inspiring work

(01:28:04):
you do for people who.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
Need it, blessed to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
Thank you for having me, and thank you for joining
us this week. If Carly Rice or another guest has
inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action
by donating to Miss Carly's, by volunteering there or somewhere else,

(01:28:28):
launching a Miss Carly's in your own community, or something
else entirely. Please let me know I'd love to hear
about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at
normalfolks dot us, and I promise I will respond. And
if you enjoyed the episode, please share it with friends
and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it,

(01:28:52):
even become a Premium member at normalfolks dot us. All
these things that will help us grow an army of
normal folks. The more listeners, the more impact. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'll see it extull

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
H

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Bill Courtney

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Carly Rice: Food, Friendship, and Life Transformation (Pt 2)