Tane is originally from Pennsylvania, where she grew up on a farm. When she was 16, she left home and moved to Arkansas. "Basically, I'm a loner. I've lived by myself most of my life, even in relationships. I've got three kids, all grown now. I had a difficult childhood. I was one of those... kids you see on Ritalin nowadays, just real active, getting in trouble, and hyperactive. My mother put that to good use... she used to keep me home from school to do the housework so she could sleep all day She worked my little heinie off. I was molested and I'm missing fingers, don't know how it happened. I was four years old when that happened. They could have been either bitten off by a horse or deliberately cut off; [the latter] was my first possible encounter with the person who was hurting me as a child. As soon as I graduated high school, I was out on my own. I left, I'd had enough of a nasty divorce between parents. I've moved around ever since I graduated high school; just always moved from place to place to place. I've gotten to the age – I'll be 48 in August – where I'm ready to settle down, I'm tired. I've always struggled, and it seems I've always worked hard, but I think people learn to take advantage of that."
Tane's children are grown, but scattered across the United States. "My oldest son, he's 26. He lives in Owasso, Oklahoma, but he's also having trouble [finding a job] right now... my middle child, my daughter Tanya, she's in Florida. I have a grandchild, she'll be four in August. My youngest, she'll be 21, she lives in Arkansas. I put her through school, so she's just getting back on her feet. She's got her own place."
Tane's been without work for a little over a year, and she's been homeless for the past nine months. While this current time isn't the first time she's been homeless, she says she's always managed to "pick herself back up within a few days. I had myself a job, had a place to stay, but I'm finding that, as I've gotten older, I think I'm being bypassed on a lot of jobs that I have years of experience for – anything from cleaning out stalls to running heavy equipment to doing office work – for younger college-educated kids nowadays. I think that's a lot of what... I see here in the homeless shelters."
She continues: "The reason I become homeless [this current time] is because my last job was working as a receiving clerk at a company called 'Street and Performance' in Mena, Arkansas. I'd been there almost five years. I was starting to miss a few days. I was struggling. The job was high-stress... it was paying me seven dollars an hour for almost five years. They're hiring new people on to stand around and train, to grind on parts at [eight-fifty an hour]. I started hearing a lot of little... comments that I don't tolerate from anybody, supervisor or anybody. If I'm working hard and doing my job well, you don't come up with a smart-ass remark to me about this or that. Anyway, I had gotten a two-day suspension with no pay for something a customer said we messed up his parts. I had the owner's son back up my [end] of the story, but it didn't matter, I still got a two-day suspension with no pay. [Besides that], they had cut my hours back. I was making a hundred dollars less a week than when I had started there, they were cutting me back so bad. Plus, putting my daughter through school. I thought, 'That's it. Piss on them.' That's when I started looking for another job. Mena's a town of about six thousand so, you know, work was limited there, but once again, everywhere I applied, they were hiring... I was losing my home before I ever quit my job because I couldn't pay the rent. I moved in with my adopted father and stepmother. There was a lot of negativity in [that home] and I just couldn't take it anymore. Eventually, we started not getting along and they kicked me out. I haven't talked to them since, and that was about nine, ten months ago. I won't ever go back."
While she's dealt with periods of homelessness in the past – "usually just a night or two" - Tane declares that "this is the first time in my life that I've ever been in a shelter. Times before I've either slept on a park bench or gone camping. I went camping for two weeks before I came here.... I was scared to death to come here... never seen the inside of [a homeless shelter]. You just think of the movies and TV shows and soup kitchens and stuff like this; little old men, bag ladies, that's what I was thinking of. I'm kinda missing that camp site out by the lake."
Tane has been at the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless for over a month now and has had to learn quickly how to deal with the other residents. "I think a lot of the attitude [of the homeless] that we see here is just... hateful. It goes both ways: people who are drugged out or drunk, coming in here fighting; drug deals gone bad. There's a lot of thieving... lot of stealing.... I try to pay attention as much as I can, but try to keep myself distant from [everything]. I keep to myself. I do safeguard my stuff. I've learned to stash it, to hide it, disguise it, and just... you learn all kinds of little tricks. You learn real quick. If you don't, there's something wrong with ya.... I think having to deal with that will harden you to a point where you're coming back with an attitude."
Tane sums up her time at the Tulsa Day Center by saying, "This place is frustrating, it's depressing." She's received several diseases in the month that she's been staying there. "Anything from athletes foot to head lice to bronchial infections. I've had to deal with every bit of it. You just have to survive here, you know?" She feels that there is an oppressiveness that hangs over the entire center. "I believe it has a lot to do with the administration; just a lot of little rules. They'll treat you sometimes like you're in jail... if we get caught buying a cigarette for a quarter, we can be barred... for tax reasons. We can't lay down during the day. Some of us are sick, but we have to have a fever to be able to lay down. That's one thing I dealt with when I first [arrived]. I was sick for three weeks, exhausted, wasn't sleeping, wasn't used to the noise and activity. Late at night, people are waking you up, arguing and fighting and drama. You're running a low-grade fever off and on, but when [the nurses] check you, you don't have a fever so you can't lay down. You can't go into a room to get away just to rest, it's not allowed."
At the Tulsa Day Center, Tane says, it's up to you to get back on your feet. "You have to have voicemail, you have to go through a case worker to have voicemail. If you have voicemail, then you can get on the computers. All these little things that you try to do will get you a little further, but you're still required to get out there and do the legwork. I've had so many setbacks here myself. I've tried to file for unemployment and I can't because, half the year was in Arkansas, half the year was [in Tulsa], so I'd either have to go back to Arkansas or go through the unemployment department here.... To go down to the unemployment office to claim benefits, you have to have [applied] for five [jobs] a week, you have to see this caseworker over here for bus tokens, but [that caseworker] won't give them to you, so they'll recommend you see a different caseworker. It makes it really hard. It's setback after setback. So I gave up on filing for unemployment... I get no money in."
Much like Will, Tane has been applying for jobs in the Tulsa area with little to no results. "All the jobs, I've put a lot of [applications] out there, every single one I've applied for was hiring. And I've gotten no chances at interviews, none whatsoever.... I was promised a job by another homeless guy here. He claims to be getting his job back in Cheyenne, Wyoming." She had overheard this man discuss the potential job all the time and she approached him saying, "'You need a housekeeper and cook.' He said, 'No, I might possibly need somebody in the office.' I've been waiting on this for awhile now..." Tane's not sure whether he's leading her on or if he's sincere, but she says, "If it falls through, this job, I'm very seriously considering hitchhiking out of here. I can no longer take this place."
Despite her time in the Day Center for the Homeless, Tane still doesn't view herself as a "homeless person." "I still see myself as one of the innocents, you know? As far as this place is concerned, people that live on the street, they lie and steal, cheat and rob ya. Not all of them do that, I guess. There are some good people here who care and have faith in God and try to walk a straight path; do the right thing and look out for ya, watch each other's backs." Her willingness to trust others has led to struggles at the Day Center, but she still hasn't succumbed to defeat. "I've always been one to trust and work together with who I work with. I can be a little bossy, I can be a little opinionated, a little controlling. I like to be in charge. I've always been an independent woman. When I'm competing with somebody else here, I can be a little testy, but I've always tried to give everybody the benefit of the doubt.... I see myself as looking like a fool [for trusting], but I'm still hangin' in there, still hoping, still having faith."
Some of Tane's hobbies include drawing, reading, woodcarving, beadwork, writing poetry, and photography. This is a copy of an eagle that Tane drew:
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