After Sanders left the Motel 6, Naus helped her get a room at a cheap hotel in Centen- nial. She stayed there for around fi ve or six months, and seemed to be feeling a bit hap- pier than usual. She got back in touch with the Centen- nial mayor, too. “I know in the summer of 2021, she emailed me that she was going on vacation. She went to Sedona for a vacation, and she got a new car and was very happy that things were going better, and kind of promised herself she wouldn’t get back into this situation again,” recalls Piko. According to Piko, she tried to connect Sanders with various services. In particular, she wanted to get her into the Julia Greeley Home in Denver, which is a transitional home for single women experiencing home- lessness. “I connected her with the manag- surgery, she found out that she’d have to have another hip replacement, according to her cousin, Terry Pierce, who lives in Oklahoma. While Sanders has long been estranged from most of her family, she’d spoken often with Pierce over the last six or so years. She told Pierce that she’d post- poned the second surgery and was moving up to Evergreen to get out of the heat. She also told her cousin that she’d pur- chased a gun for protection. When Naus met up with Sanders for lunch and a long conversation, Sanders made it clear that she had reached her limit. “She said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m doing the best I can, but I can’t do it anymore,’” Naus says. Naus noticed that Sanders, who normally wore a mask because of her underlying health conditions, wasn’t wearing one that The Poundstone Amendment did not keep homelessness contained in Denver. ers up there, and they had tried to start the application process with her, and again, she didn’t participate in the application process,” Piko says. That’s what Piko had seen when trying to connect Sanders with other services. “She seemed to just kind of hit roadblocks, either in the fact that the application processes were too long or the information she needed she couldn’t provide, or she couldn’t check all the boxes, she didn’t have a child or she wasn’t a drug user or things like that,” Piko says. Over the course of 2022, Sanders’s lifelong health ailments began to creep up on her. By now, she was living in her car again, this time a 2018 Honda Pilot, and the little money she was getting in disability benefi ts each month wasn’t enough to live on. “She would have to pay her car insurance, her car gas, her P.O. box, her phone bill, her rec center so she could shower, her basic hygiene. By the time she had paid for all of that, she barely had any money left, and with that she would try to get food. And it’s so hard to come out of that,” says Neza Bharucha. Sanders also had to have her hip re- placed. While she was recovering from that day. “When we said goodbye, she gave me a really long hug and held on tight,” he recalls. “I knew after the conversation that something was going to happen. I didn’t know when or how or why. But I knew. And Sue knew, too.” On July 31, Sanders texted Naus to invite him to a concert that Piko had organized. Naus was unable to make it, but Sanders still went. The Arapahoe Philharmonic was performing in Centennial Center Park, a park that Sanders loved. “I ran up to her and gave her a big hug,” Piko remembers. “She was excited to be there and really enjoyed it.” But on the morning of August 6, Terry Pierce received an ominous note from her cousin: “I’ve come to the realization that nothing is going to change if I can’t make it happen, and I don’t see any place that I can. I’m growing old waiting for ‘something.’ I’m tired of feeling shame. I didn’t do anything to feel shame except work so hard I got myself hurt and that f***** me for the rest of my life. I can’t make it here in the big city (too many people struggling and fi ghting for the same dollar) and continued on page 18 17 westword.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | WESTWORD NOVEMBER 17-23, 2022 CONOR MCCORMICK-CAVANAGH
