07-02-24 Interview - David John Heitz - The Collision of Sex Work and Homelessness

THE COLLISION OF SEX WORK AND HOMELESSNESS David John Heitz is a longtime reporter who suffered a breakdown that left him homeless for several years. He's working his way back and lives at Fusion Studios, an apartment complex for formerly homeless people. He's been very vocal about the issues he faces living with people with significant mental health and addiction issues, but he continues to write and create content for NewsBreak. His latest piece on the intersection of sex work and homelessness is very good and you should read it here. Every click helps him get his life back!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We have a returning guest. Youmay remember David John Heights. He is
a journalist who, after having sometrauma in his life, ended up homeless.
He is now working his way outof that by writing a lot of
stories for news Break. It isa news aggregator website that you can see.
And today he's got a great columnon homeless in Denver, sex work

(00:22):
and trafficking disrupt lives that we're goingto talk about in just a second.
But David also lives in the FusionStudios run by the Colorado Coalition for the
Homeless. It is, uh,is this what kind of housing? Is
this considered? David? Permanent supportivehealthy? I'm in what they call permanent
supportive housing. Okay. Fusion actuallyhas different rooms for different people. Some

(00:45):
of the building is bridge housing,which means it's temporary housing for people going
from encampments to say a lease.But then some of it is permanent supportive
housing, which is for people thatthey had at one time determined, you
know, we're going to need supportiveservices for the long term. And I'm
in one of those rooms actually.Okay, So it's supposed to be a

(01:07):
safe place, and what happened todaywell, honestly, what happened today just
kind of confirmed my worst fears.You know. I I stepped out of
my room to go downstairs to checkmy mail, and there was a guy
in the hallway with a lead pipebreaking all the lights that are outside,
you know, all the rooms.And boy, he saw me and he

(01:27):
came after me, and I pleaded, I said, please don't. I'm
like, I've never done anything toyou. And he took a swing at
me with that lead pipe and Iput my arm up and he got my
arm. Good, Yeah he did. Now it's starting to look a lot
worse now. What happens. Whathappens when an incidents see what happened with

(01:48):
him, and I'm really I'm I'mreally impressed to have a coalition and handle
this. My case manager was withme from the minute I went downstairs to
when the cops left, standing bymy side the whole time through talk into
the cops and everything. But whatthey're going to do is they're gonna he'll
be evicted supposedly within three days.And the police took him tonight and they
have begged me to press charges.What I just found out was that the

(02:14):
cops were here last night for him. Oh, he wasn't arrested, but
I did hear him carrying on lastnight. That did wake me up.
But you get tired of this,you know. I don't know, Mandy,
what the answer is for these peoplethat are such in the throes of
psychosis that they randomly walk around withthe blood pipe right. Well, and

(02:36):
let me ask you this though,did you are you going to press charges?
Because I think I've got to presscharges because when I look at my
own situation, even though the policebeat me up and it was a terrible
thing when I had my runt inwith police, had that not occurred,
I never probably would have gotten thehelp that I needed. I was in
a state of psychosis that talking tome now, you can't imagine how bad

(03:00):
it was, right, but itwas bad. So you want to the
charges in the hopes he's going toget help. What that You're gonna press
charges in the hopes he's forced toget help. Yeah, exactly. The
last time we had you on,there was no internet at Fusion Studio.
That what you say? They rectifiedthat problem. It's been great all week.
Okay, we're not We're just gonnago with that. We're just gonna

(03:21):
send that out to God. Andit's been great all week, exactly,
David. I know I haven't lookedat my text line, but I know
I probably have a text saying why. And I don't want you to pry
too much, but is there achance that you could move into a more
independent situation? Do you feel likeyou could do that at some point?
Well, yes, I mean thereis and we're working on that. Right

(03:44):
at this point, I'm ready todo that. I actually had got what
they called the Golden Ticket, whichwould have been a housing voucher for anywhere
in the US. I could havegone, and it's like a section a
voucher, right, and I wouldonly pay thirty percent of my income.
And at the time, I didn'twant to leave from here because things were
going well. I walked to thedispensaries, I walked to Walmart, right,

(04:05):
you know, you know, everything'sconvenient. I enjoy the park down
the street, and I just didn'twant to move. But at this point,
I mean, my worst fears wereconfirmed that someone's just going to go
ballistic crazy and have a gun maybenext time. Well, I mean,
this guy with a lead pipe couldkill somebody very easily. He could have
killed you, you know. Ohyeah, but you said the coalition was

(04:29):
the coalition was was right there tohelp the entire time. That's really good
here, very much so okay,And you know, I do like having
the staff here. Sometimes I feela little bit babi, which feels kind
of good sometimes. I mean havingpeople check on you to see how you're
doing and how your mood is,and I mean, it's kind of nice
to be thought about. Okay,David, Let's talk about your column on

(04:51):
homelessness and sex work, because it'svery good. It's very interesting. Is
this happening. You lived on thestreets for what five years? No?
No, I was only on thestreets for about a year. Oh okay,
but in that year you because Iwas in jail in Pueblo. Okay,
okay, David, we got tohave you on to talk about your
whole backstory. When you're ready totalk about the backstory. I'm very interested

(05:15):
in the backstory. Like I lovewhere you are now because you're trying to
write the ship, you're trying todo the right things, you're trying to
get back on your feet. Butwe got to get that backstory in here
at some point. So you're homelessfor a year, and while you were
homeless, did you see instances ofsex trafficking the voluntary sideway? Yes,
yes, absolutely, And I wasyou know, I was asked, did

(05:35):
I want to be pimped out?I was asked, you know, proposition
by other sex workers to you know, to have sex with them. And
I mean it was very But whatyou would find is is that these older
men would just kind of come alongand offer you, you know, a

(05:56):
phone or drugs or whatever it mighthave been, and lure people people in
that way. And that's how peoplegot lured into it. And I think
people need to know that homeless peopleare actually preyed upon and because they're they're
so desperate, you know what Imean, Oh yeah, because they're right
for victimization. A lot of timesno one's looking for them, you know.

(06:18):
Personally makes me very upset. Andand you know, I also saw
this back in the Quad Cities whereI grew up. And you know,
I'm gay and I was out inQuad Cities and very out and whatnot.
But in the gay community in theQuad Cities, there was an oh,
there were young men that that wouldlive at the homeless shelter down the streets

(06:42):
from the gay bar. But thenyou would see them with the older men,
and all this and all go intoall that. But I knew enough
to know that it was not right. David, you have lived in a
world that I cannot even imagine,so many levels. Yet I've lived in
a penthouse, I supervised newsrooms andeverything else. I've been on both ends
of the spectrum. Well go readDavid's article. It's very very good,

(07:03):
and it's very illuminating about a topicthat I don't think we talk enough about.
But David, take care of yourself, keep you posted and keep writing
great articles for Newsbreak. Well.Thanks so much, Mandy, I appreciate
it, all right, thank you. That's David. John Heights