Clark graduation part of positive outlook for homeless woman

Tammy Chalcroft is always careful to park in the shade during summer. Sometimes she even drives out of her way to an isolated spot, opening the door of the recreational vehicle she calls home so her five cats, Skitty, Roxy, Panda Bear, Shogun and Joker, can march outside and cool off.

Tonight, Chalcroft will march across the stage at Sunlight Supply Amphitheater to receive her associate degree from Clark College, where for the past four years she’s attended classes while living in her RV, often parked just off campus.

Chalcroft, 59, used to live a more comfortable life.

“We had our place at the table,” she said. But she has struggled with homelessness since before she started at Clark in 2014, she said.

She is not alone. This winter, Clark officials surveyed students and found that 26 percent said they had experienced housing insecurity in the past 12 months, meaning they had trouble paying their rents or mortgages or had to move in with other people because of financial problems. Seven percent said they experienced homelessness in the past 12 months.

In response, Clark College has teamed with community groups to help students who are at risk of losing their homes. With funding from the city of Vancouver, the Homelessness Prevention and Housing Consortium aims to help keep people housed. It’s available to all Vancouver residents, including Clark students.

Chalcroft, who wants to work as a paralegal after graduation, used to live a middle-class life, she said. That changed after her husband, Barry, lost his tech job in 2005, she said.

For a while, Tammy Chalcroft was able to stay afloat until she was laid off from her job at Walmart in 2010. The couple could no longer pay their rent, so they packed their stuff into two storage units, thinking they would use it again someday, she said.

For a period, the couple slept near a Vancouver park.

“My lawn chair was my house,” Tammy Chalcroft said. “And that was totally surreal, because I grew up middle class. I’ve always been in the middle class. Some nights I’d be sitting there in the park going, ‘How could this even be possible in America?’ ”

In 2014, they bought the RV with loan money.

A recent illness nearly derailed Tammy Chalcroft’s plans to get her degree, she said. Last winter term, she was scheduled to finish her final two required classes in accounting and Excel. But she got pneumonia, spending three weeks in a Camas facility to recover, she said. Because the accounting class wasn’t offered again until fall, she said, she made sure she passed.

Vicki McCay, who tutors students at Clark, said Chalcroft showed determination. “She sat at that table for hours studying and working,” McCay said. “She had goals, and she was excited about graduating, and she just worked for it.”

Back at the RV, daily tasks can be challenging. There is no power to run the water pump, lights or refrigerator. The stove works, but there is no way to wash dishes, so preparing meals is hard. Tammy Chalcroft said she couldn’t think of any easy food to cook without refrigeration or running water, so she’s eaten too many jars of peanut butter. Now, she said, she hates peanut butter.

The toilet functions, but is only used for emergencies because emptying it is expensive and inconvenient. She uses a nearby bathroom at Clark.

When Barry Chalcroft turned 62 in October, it didn’t immediately occur to him that he could retire, he said. He has studied web design and development at Clark and hopes one day to be self-employed. About a month after he applied for Supplemental Security Income, though, he got it, he said.

Now, having had a reliable income for six months, it will be easier to rent a place, Tammy Chalcroft said.

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “And this time it’s not a train.”

Jenifer Banceu is a reporter for The Independent, Clark College’s student newspaper. This story was written as part of a collaboration with The Columbian called Voices From Clark College. It was also published in The Independent.