Meet Akusua: Artist, Creator, and Life-Long Student

How Denver’s Lack of Affordable Housing Exacerbated a Health Crisis

While waxing philosophically with Akusua about British comedies and the poetry of Sylvia Plath, it’s easy to forget that five years ago, she lived on the streets of Denver. In the throes of a mental health crisis, and without family to rely on or access to housing, she didn’t have another option. 

Today she sits on a Zoom call in her apartment. She has a therapist and access to medication. And she’s got her art.  “My ability to be creative, even in the worst time of my life,” she said. “It’s kept me going.”

She’s grateful for her living situation, despite it not being perfect. Ownership has changed several times during her stay there. Though her building caters to the elderly and disabled, the elevator hasn’t worked in three months. Her apartment is on the 5th floor. She describes her neighbor as sweet elderly gentleman with heart problems. She worries about how he’s able to carry groceries up the stairs. “One thing I’ve learned is that you can be grateful for what you have, and you can be critical.”

 

Living in Denver on $1,000 a month isn’t possible

Akusua moved to Denver for an internship with Americorp in 2016. As a student at the University of New Mexico, she studied English, Africana, and gender studies, with an emphasis on psychology. After successfully completing an internship in Albuquerque, she was excited about moving to a new city. 

“I completely underestimated just how impossible finding housing would be,” she said. “I just kept thinking, something will happen for me. For some stupid reason. And boy, did it hurt when it didn’t.” 

Akusua wasn’t able to finish her internship. She was making less than $1,000 a month and spent time surfing couches. But she couldn’t find anything permanent. The last home she lived in was near the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. When that arrangement ended, she stayed nearby because of the close proximity to a King Soopers with a 24-hour restroom.  “I was really in trouble, and I didn’t have the resources.”

 

Navigating life with a resurging mental illness 

Her mental health was slipping, and she knew it.  “When you’re not from here, and you don’t know the resources you can tap into, you just feel like you’re out in the wilderness.” She got kicked out of many places. Restaurants, even the library. “You’ve been here too long” became a message she heard, again and again. 

Akusua describes the feeling of being alone. “When you’re on the streets, there’s this weird sense of detachment. Even when you are surrounded–constantly surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of people just going about their day–it really just feels like you’re alone.”

 

Alone and in crisis

Akusua tried navigating the shelters on her own. Each time she visited one, she’d repeat her story. Which isn’t an easy thing to do, especially in the midst of a mental health crisis.  “You have to talk to people, and they expect you to be calm. They expect you to be articulate. It’s not impossible, most of the time, with medication. But if you don’t have medication … and you’re checked out and not where you need to be mentally. Well, you’re trying to explain your situation, and you’re also trying not to scream and run down the halls.”

On her own and on the streets, she found the wherewithal to apply for Social Security, because she knew it might be a while before she was able to work again. Doing so is a source of pride for Akusua. When asked how she was able to find the motivation to complete the process, she had one word: “Childhood.”

 

Caregiving at a young age

Growing up, Akusua had to figure things out on her own. Her mother, a veteran, had a serious mental illness. “No adolescent should need to figure out what I had to figure out.” Yet she pulled on her childhood experience when she needed to find the motivation to ask for help.  “So I’m telling myself, Okay, you’re not doing good,” she said. “I remember one particular moment. It was nighttime. And I knew that I had to walk myself to Denver Health to get into the psychiatric facility. And I knew that was going to be scary for me.” 

She’d been a caretaker to her mother and watched her experience in the psychiatric wards. Now here she was, in her 30s, scared and alone and facing similar circumstances. “It was hard. But I did it.” 

 

Overcoming fear to get help

Akusua had gotten herself to the hospital, but her journey was far from over. In many ways, it had only just begun. She needed many layers of support beyond her initial hospitalization. She received emergent treatment for her mental illness. But long-term treatment was still a concern. 

So was housing. 

Denver’s limited availability of affordable rentals became Akusua’s biggest hurdle. Though she had been given a case manager with the Mental Health Center of Denver (now WellPower), she hadn’t been placed yet. 

 

Waiting for connections to come through

Without housing, she found herself navigating Denver’s less-than-ideal shelter options. Again. Unsurprisingly, she found herself needing urgent medical treatment for her mental illness. Denver Health admitted her for nine days before releasing her after dark.  “It was snowing. It was cold. They don’t tell you when they’re going to release you until the day. But it’s not like I had anywhere to go.” Her caseworker met her upon release to let her know she hadn’t been able to connect her to housing.  So on a snowy February night, she faced a choice: Use the little money she had to catch a bus to the shelters, knowing they’d most likely be full and she’d be turned away, or spend the night sleeping on Broadway.

Akusua chose Broadway. “It was one of those things where your last option is kind of your only option and it’s sometimes the worst option, you know?”

 

Finding people she could trust

“When you’ve been dealing with this for most of your life alone, it’s hard to trust. But this process required me to trust. At some point I realized I needed to let people help me, and I needed to trust that not everyone had an ulterior motive.” Learning to trust has become part of her healing process.  “That’s something I’m still learning. I think a lot of me telling my story to others, and allowing my story to be in other people’s hands … even this takes a significant amount of trust.”

 

Creating is what’s kept her alive

Akusua loves stories. She remembers her grandmother telling her how, at a very young age, Akusua taught herself to read and write. Journaling became an outlet. Then in middle school, she discovered poetry and began modeling her work after Sylvia Plath.  “It was awful,” she said. But later in college, she started working on her first manuscript of poems. She’s particularly proud of a poem she wrote about her grandmother. 

“I remember it was New Year’s Eve, and I was sitting in this hideous studio apartment that had that 70s shag carpet. My grandmother had passed a decade before, and I always wanted to write something, not just for her, but to her.”

Her grandmother had spent her life cleaning houses. Akusua mused that what if, even in heaven, things are no different.  What she wrote surprised her. The piece reimagined her grandmother in heaven, but it wasn’t the paradise she’d hoped for.  “My grandmother was in this place that’s heavenly, but very sterile. She’s still the cleaning lady. There’s a line in the poem where I said, even in heaven, you can still find your reflection in God’s toilet.”

Akusua continues to write about her mother and grandmother, and their relationship with God. She’s got three manuscripts in progress. And she creates music. “I was always creating. I didn’t always have an audience. I didn’t always want an audience. But I was always creating. Creating has kept me alive.” Her ultimate hope in sharing her story is that it gets in the hands of people facing similar circumstances to her own.  “I hope they can see themselves in my story. That they can see themselves in my survival. And they can see themselves in my ability to be resilient.” 

Carie Behounek is a freelance writer based in Denver, Colorado. 

Akusua is an artist and spoken word poet. Follow, connect with or hire Akusua:

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