Denise and Joseph Part Ways

Denise and I are splitting up. She's staying in Pueblo, Colorado while I continue on to Yellowstone National Park. Don't worry, we'll reunite in late August to continue our journey to Washington state. After that, we'll come back to Pueblo to run an arts and gardening program at a community space called Pueblo House.

Pueblo House and La Familia Community Garden sit side by side on Pueblo's East Side.

Kimbo and Denise join Occupy The Roads in early 2013.

We don't know how long we'll be in Pueblo and we'll definitely keep traveling. We do know we'll be able to do the things we love -- being creative, solving problems, and collaborating.

Those who know us well will remember we almost sold everything to join Pueblo House about 4 years ago. I had even turned in my resignation at Texas WIC where I was a web admin. Then our plans fell through, partly because there wasn't any money to fund the project and partly because we weren't ready to let go of our life in Austin. I was lucky to be able to keep my job.

It was an early stepping stone to our current plans to travel, give to causes we love, and collect experiences, not stuff.

May 2 was our one-month anniversary of traveling full time in an RV. We spent the first two weeks visiting state parks and spending time with family. We bonded with loved ones and saw some beautiful sights, but something was missing.

***

In the mid 1800s the plaza at what was then called El Pueblo was a center for trading furs, livestock, and other goods. Soon agriculture boomed and steel became the city's key industry in the late 1800s, quickly becoming the largest employer in Colorado. The steel mill attracted so many immigrants, at its height about 40 languages were spoken in the mill, which led to the publishing of more than 20 foreign language newspapers in Pueblo, according to the Denver Post.

Pueblo was known as the melting pot of the west for nearly a century.

Kimbo enjoys Pueblo's river walk in early 2013.

While the rest of the country's economy was roaring, the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s led to a widespread economic downturn in Pueblo. The decades since have magnified many social problems including drug abuse, crime, and homelessness. Nowhere else in Colorado is the wealth gap more apparent than in Pueblo.

A movement to redevelop downtown has led to a San Antonio-style river walk, bicycle infrastructure, and renewed business districts. As with so many other city's across the nation, Pueblo's east side has languished in disrepair. So much so that many properties are sold for pennies on the dollar or even given away.

That's how Pueblo House got its start.

***

A burned out house about a block away from Pueblo House.

East Pueblo makes me think of what the Rundberg area of Austin, my old neighborhood, might have been like 15 or 20 years ago. Prostitutes work the streets. Domestic disturbances happen with alarming regularity. People carry backpacks and rolling suitcases or push shopping carts overflowing with their possessions. Houses sit vacant or burned out. Businesses shuttered. Safeway -- the only east side grocery store for miles around -- abruptly closed its doors last year. Many residents now get their food from convenience stores or the nearby dollar store. Thankfully, there's a meat market on the east side, but it doesn't carry fresh produce. Pueblo has one of the worst crimes rates in the country, according to real estate database NeighborhoodScout.

Why would we want to live in a place like Pueblo?

In a word -- opportunity.

***

Janet Wilson, founder of Pueblo House, met Denise in Washington DC during the Occupy Movement of 2011. Denise spent about 9 months in DC, first camping at Freedom Plaza for 4 months, then becoming the house manager at the Peace House, known for the longest running vigil in U.S. history. Janet spent months traveling to Occupy encampments across the country in an RV she called "The V." She chronicled that experience in the book "MoVement: The Uncensored Truth about Occupy."

Janet Wilson of Occupy The Roads arrives in Austin in late 2012.

When Janet visited Austin, she parked The V in front of our house. We talked about activism, watched a few documentaries, and helped Janet plan her next move. Denise joined her on the road to several activist actions before arriving in Pueblo, where Janet had recently been offered a free house. It was in shambles, but Janet saw in it the promise of renewal and a lifeline she could offer to youth in East Pueblo to help them make the most of their dreams.

After visiting Pueblo to consider moving there, we decided against it. There was simply no money to make the much needed house repairs, much less to pay for programming. We stayed in Austin, gardening, composting, and making art.

Meanwhile, Janet relentlessly perused her dream in Pueblo.

*** 

Janet now has 3 houses and one vacant lot in East Pueblo.

Each of these houses were shuttered, abandoned, and in such disrepair they were all literally gifted to a nonprofit organization called OTR Foundation (officially, Occupy the Roads, but for those who are adverse to protesting troublemakers, it's stands for Over the Rainbow).  

Janet Wilson shows off KOYC 98.5-FM (Occupy Your Community)
radio station and green room at the Pueblo Music House.

The original house, known as Pueblo House, is mostly complete and is intended to be an art studio and community meeting place. The ground floor has a meeting space, a computer area, a kitchen, and a half bathroom. Upstairs, a small art studio will host sewing classes and space for making art. There's also a bedroom and a full bathroom. The basement would be ideal as a workshop, but it's in use as a storage area. The backyard includes a small stage, a fire pit, a garden area, and a partially complete chicken coop that was later converted into a dog house. The yard needs a lot of work to bring it back into a usable space because the 3 dogs that lived there until earlier this month tore it up. Next door, NeighborWorks, formed by Congress in 1978 to help facilitate and strengthen neighborhood reinvestment efforts, operates La Familia Community Garden.

The Pueblo Music House is nearing completion with building inspectors scheduled to make final inspections in the coming week. It's still very much a construction zone inside with tools and building materials throughout, but Janet and her partner Jimi moved in a couple of weeks ago. The corner house is larger than Pueblo House and is on a double lot, which gives guests access to a community garden, an outdoor pizza oven, fire pit, lawn, stage, and parking area where Loretta is resting until I head to Yellowstone. Downstairs is a small music studio, a full bathroom, a waiting area that currently holds most of the construction material, a kitchen, and a covered and screened back patio. Upstairs includes a bedroom and a radio station, 98.5-FM KOYC (which stands for Occupy Your Community). A 69-foot radio tower, which will be a combination ham radio/FM antenna, is under construction and is scheduled to be erected in the coming weeks.

The Pueblo Media House is shuttered and in use for storage.

The third house is being called the Media House, but it's still unclear what it will eventually be. It's still shuttered and is being used as a storage area. The latest idea is to make the space into a virtual or augmented reality space where guests can learn about and use technology. Time, money, and volunteer hours will tell.

Each of these spaces are an attempt to provide East Pueblo residents with creative outlets and skills to help them imagine a future outside of a rundown neighborhood. Each of them have talents to nourish and dreams to realize. We will simply shine a light so they can see the path.

***

Denise and I are both at our happiest when we're being productive. In the past three weeks, we've done more than we have in months. Downsizing and getting our North Austin house ready for sale was just a primer for Pueblo. We've built garden beds, painted, swept, made art, decluttered, thrown out countless loads of trash, and helped lead an AmeriCorps workday.

Being a one-person organization has spread Janet thin. It's hard to find good help, but it's even more difficult to find good volunteer help. Most of the projects and renovations were done with donated materials and volunteers. So not everything fits quite right and few things match. When you rely on surplus materials or things you can scrounge, you learn how to make do with what you have.

That's part of what appeals to us. We're both from modest backgrounds and lived in similar neighborhoods throughout our lives. I much rather live among the working class because I'm from the working class. These are my people.

Earning a paycheck doesn't make me happy. Being of service does.

The Pueblo House properties will provide us with ample opportunity to keep our hands and hearts full while contributing to a cause we believe in. It's a trio of houses dedicated to uplifting a part of town many people care nothing about.

This is what opportunity looks like. 

***

Correction: a previous version of this post labeled NeighborWorks as a different type of organization.