There are thousands of stories about homelessness in Austin. Some are easy to see — they can be found on street corners and intersections all around town. Others are harder to find — they come from the family that has to stay with friends and family because they can’t afford the rent, or the mother who can’t find enough work to support her children. The stories we found during our series on homelessness come from the seen and the unseen. Read on to find all of the stories in one place, along with some additional information and updates.

He doesn’t hold a sign begging for money. He’s been married for 13 years. His clothes don’t outwardly appear dirty and his breath doesn’t smell of alcohol. This is Clarence Jones, and he doesn’t seem homeless. But he is. Clarence is a hurricane Katrina survivor now in Austin from New Orleans because FEMA placed him here. He and his wife Lisa were two of the first 50 people to arrive in Austin after being shuttled from Louisiana. Four days after arriving he had a heart attack and now his only income is from a monthly disability check.

On cold nights when the temperature doesn’t quite get to freezing, Clarence and Lisa huddle together by themselves, or sometimes with a few others that he says he knows he can trust. Other times, they walk around all night until they can get into the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, or ARCH, in the morning to rest.

On freezing nights, he makes sure that his wife can get into a shelter such as the Salvation Army before he tries to secure a place to sleep. The ARCH only accepts men at night so he’s forced to spend the night alone if they both want a warm place to sleep.

Either way, it’s a hard way to live and he’s positive that he won’t be living on the streets much longer. Recent events almost proved otherwise when Clarence was admitted to the hospital due to chest pains. Clarence made it out of the hospital after a 24-hour observation, and ended up staying in a $30-per-day motel on the north side of Austin with his wife Lisa. Peter found out about Clarence’s life before homelessness when visiting him at the motel.

As Peter put it, “In the time that I’ve spent getting to know Clarence he’s let me in to a world that I’m glad I can share with the readers of Rooted. He’s told me stories of what it was like for him before Hurricane Katrina and what it’s been like since his relocation to Austin.”

“Life down in New Orleans was not really a hard thing.

I grew up in a project but I didn’t grow up in some of the worst projects that was in New Orleans at the time I was growing up. With me, I didn’t care nothing about the ways of the projects, as we call them, as much as I looked at the things that the project offered me. I’m a bad motor scooter, I ain’t afraid of nothing. I guess that gave me my courage. But in time, I started to realize that it was something that was helping me more than I was hurting myself. I used to do some stupid-ass things when I think about it now. But back then that was the decision to make.

Right before Katrina, life for me was just everything sweet. I had a little boy, I had a car, I paid rent on a two-bedroom house. Like I said, car notes, the basic living. I had a good job, I used to make $450 or $500 a week doing my carpentry work. I was content. I had got to that stage right there right before the storm.

Before the storm — way before the storm — in my youth you could say I wasn’t that nice. I growed up in the streets, since I was five years old. I had two jobs when I was five years old. I used to hustle bottles — anything to make a dollar — or cut grass. As the day came, whatever I could do, if anybody needed a helping hand, anybody needed somebody to help them with anything.

I lived with my mama all the way until I was 13, then I left my mama’s house and said I was a man and I wasn’t going back. When I was 17 I went to penitentiary for armed robbery. The first time I got four years and I was locked up like 26 or 27 months. I got out then and I met my oldest little boy’s mama. I was like 19, going on 20. And I raised five kids until they were just about grown. My oldest son is 34 years old now, going on 35.

After meeting his mama, like I said, and raising kids I had jobs, you dig. I provided. I was a provider. That’s what I called myself, a provider, because I’m able. I wasn’t afraid to accept life and put weight on my shoulders of other people. I was responsible enough because I was intelligent enough to know how to survive. I know that I did a lot of things that was wrong even though I know I did a lot of things that are right.

This is a circle, this is a process to get to the next phase. I don’t think nobody in this environment picture themselves being in this environment. Life throws curves at you, but if you don’t have a will and a desire to do better for yourself you’re going to be stuck like Chuck.”

After getting one step closer to finding a home, Clarence told Peter what he wants for the future.

In our next story, Rooted photographer Cassandra Adamson found a situation that was even less visible than Clarence’s and brought it to the light.

The identities of Hope and Jessica in the following story have been changed because of concern for their physical safety.

Hope warned me that her story is not a nice one. January 31 marked the first full year she was free of drugs in the last 30 years. For the past three years she’s been struggling to escape from the shadow of an abusive husband and a family that can’t believe she’s changed her habits. Now, she’s learning to be an independent, single mom after being homeless for more than a year.

Hope lives in a an apartment at Saint Louise House, which is a home for single mothers with children who need a secure place they can call their own. Rachel Akins, director of capacity building at Saint Louise House, said that about half the families she sees have a background of domestic violence.

“Hope decided that recovery was needed for her life and her child and that her family actually would not be good for her recovery,” Akins said.

Her family never gave her encouragement as a child, Hope said. Her mother later told her that Hope’s life was a negative impact on her own. This led to chronic low self-esteem and the use of drugs to escape her emotional turmoil.

“I stopped growing — in my mind — at 12 years old when I started smoking pot every day,” Hope said. After years of steadily increasing drug abuse that evolved into a meth habit 10 years ago, she found she had no living skills. She didn’t have the mental skills to adapt to her feelings. “I lived with a man that didn’t allow any emotions.”

Now secure in an apartment at Saint Louise House in Austin, Hope is able to look forward and grow from her experiences. She recently decided that she wanted to start sharing her experience with others.

When she first walked into the room, she was naturally rather shy about being interviewed, but seemed talkative and eager to get started. However, as I pulled out my recording device and set it up, her eyes grew wide and she began to cry, stating that she didn’t think she could do this after all. A couple of staff members calmed her and we all decided that I would write down her story — a microphone was still too invasive.

Her life as a child was troubled. She described herself as a people pleaser and as a follower. She battled low self-esteem and started smoking pot to cope. She later married an abusive white supremacist. They had a child named Jessica.

“My 2-year-old was saluting Hitler, playing in the gun yard and massacring black baby dolls,” Hope said.

Eventually it became apparent that Hope’s husband had feelings for someone else.

“I set up situations where he and she were alone,” she said. “But when I finally accused him of infidelity, he beat me with a smile on his face. I knew next time I wouldn’t survive.”

He threatened her with a sword in their next argument. Jessica stood watching as Hope tried to escape through a window. When that proved impossible she gave up and asked him to kill her. But at the last moment, she claimed that her survival instincts kicked in. Her leg caught between her body and his and she managed to kick him in the throat.

“Why didn’t you let me kill you?” he asked.

“Guess you’re not good enough,” she replied. This prompted the worst beating she had ever received from him. Until that point, he would hit her in such a way that it wouldn’t leave a mark, but this time she received bruises all up and down her side from her shoulder to her thigh.

Soon after, his new girlfriend moved in with them. She said he still expected Hope to stay and pay the bills. “He said that he wanted me to be friends with his girlfriend,” she said.

And for a while that worked. She decided that as long as his attention wasn’t on her anymore, she would have a chance to get away. Hope had tolerated the beatings throughout their marriage because she knew that she could get high the next day and forget the emotional and physical pain.

But that wasn’t enough any more. She started praying to God to “strike her down.” She didn’t want her daughter to grow up to become a criminal, and she didn’t want to continue taking drugs even though she couldn’t stop.

“And then God answered my prayers,” Hope said.

Her appendix burst and she was rushed to the hospital. It was difficult to tell the staff about her dangerous living situation because she was barely conscious. She took out her drug paraphernalia for them to see and passed out. She later learned that she briefly died on the operating table before the doctors were able to resuscitate her. Her family, which had been estranged for the last 20 years, took her back home after the drug charges were dropped.

It was almost six months before she was able to rescue her daughter from her husband. She knew once and for all that she was done with her previous lifestyle and it was time for a change.

“I knew I had to get away and take my daughter or [my husband] would kill me,” Hope said. She waited until she received a large tax return to implement her plan. “I gave him the money and got him high enough to not notice and took Jessica away and my family drove me out of there.”

“Austin was the first city to open up to me,” Hope said. She and Jessica lived with her family for a time, but it soon became apparent that this was not a good atmosphere.

After being estranged for 20 years and having her family unable to accept her desire to change her life around, Hope became desperate to get out of her old routines. She said her family didn’t promote her drug habits, and they didn’t understand that she was strong enough to stop. They blatantly waited for her to slip as she had many times before.

“I think it’s the mindset you have,” Hope said. “I think the best thing for me was to start out at the bottom. My family had to accept that I was no longer the addict. They still saw me that way.”

That’s when she decided to leave. For months she battled addiction and homelessness while going through several programs and shelters. The first addiction program that she attended was called Austin Recovery. There, she was told to ask for letters from her family about how her addiction affected them.

“My mother’s letter was the only one I got,” she said. “My addiction affected her at age 3, even though I didn’t start drugs until I was 12.”

Her mother’s letter said that Hope’s addictive behavior was apparent at a very young age. Every choice Hope ever made had apparently caused the divide between mother and daughter. Although it was crushing to read what her mother wrote, it was also a revelation.

“My mom will never hug me and look at me and say I’m proud of you,” Hope said.

She realized that she had to do this for herself and Jessica only. She couldn’t and didn’t have to make herself well for anyone else.

“I need to prove them wrong, whether I have their acceptance or not,” she said. “I want to be more than I could expect.”

Her outlook changed in March 2010. She said the strength of the shelter made her grow. She never wants to go back to the life of drugs and loneliness she once had.

“The confidence you get when you set goals –– you don’t set goals when you’re doing drugs,” she said.

Goals were important to keep in sight. Hope went from Austin Recovery to couch surfing with a friend. She realized she still needed help, so the next stops were at the Salvation Army and the Austin Shelter for Women and Children. Finally, her application to Saint Louise House was accepted in September. The organization guarantees her an income-based apartment to rent for as long as she feels she needs to stay.

Now, Hope says her main goals are to look after Jessica and to be a disciplined mother. Jessica started having nightmares after leaving her father’s house. Hope tries to counteract the night terrors by urging Jessica to pray and immerse herself in children’s literature and television programming.

“You have to accept the things that have already happened and put out as much positive things as you can,” Hope said. “I try to fill her with good and praise until the bad stuff goes out the bottom if that’s possible.”

Hope doesn’t know if the “bad stuff” can be left behind, but she’s optimistic. The work she does with her case manager from Saint Louise House makes the chance for a new, better life even more tangible.

“I know my decision to come to Austin was right,” she said. “It was the best in my daughter’s and my situation. I don’t consider myself homeless anymore. I consider the road I traveled to get here as being homeless. I have a home now at Saint Louise House.”

Hope’s story epitomizes the reason why it’s so hard to see the full scope of the issue of homelessness.

In our last story, Cassandra Adamson explored one of the more visible aspects of homelessness in Austin.

Shea Grant has been surviving without a home for the past ten years after leaving foster care at 17. Rooted looks into Shea’s life of singing and playing guitar on Guadelupe Street for money to live.

These stories show just a small part of the issue of homelessness in Austin, but their impact on us was strong. We can’t ignore the homeless any longer, and neither should you.

Rooted photographers Peter Gaunt and Cassandra Adamson shot, wrote and produced these stories with assistance from Logan Braman. Becky Rother created the graphics.