Rebecca Twigg is homeless
 

What a terribly sad story:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...ss-in-seattle/

I met her a few times up in the Seattle area in the late 80's. She was so focused on cycling. Saw her again in the mid 90's when she rolled up to my truck while I was putting my bike away after a crit in Georgia. Her seat was slipping and they were lining up for her event. I quickly pulled her post, wiped it down and installed it with some gorilla torque in about 30 seconds. Never saw her again after that. Again, so focused on what she was doing and doing it well, I can see how she'd have trouble adapting to multitasking or dealing with people outside sports. I hope it works out for her, we're about the same age with similar age kids.

I read the article lightly but the part that got my attention was that her mom kicked her out home... many super talented people have problems adapting to regular life, if she was like a feral kitten and mom got no other option to get her out to save the situation they had a home... well... that could explain a lot of things, married for little time... the issue is that with time people mature, some later than other ones but some never do. The sad part is that this woman with all success she had in the sport, success many of us just dreamed of before realizing we did not have it... she became statistics.

The question IMO is... do you think helping her to get off the streets will help her? Many homeless people have stuff going on in their head and the little i read looks like she has some problems in that dept. aswell and thats why regular life doesnt work for her.

One thing is clear, she needs help... the question is if she will take the right help to start with, from the article looks like she wont... :(

"She did not want to discuss mental health but feels it should be treated more seriously in Washington."

The most telling sentence in the story. The state of mental health care in this country is abysmal. So many people slipping through the cracks of society every day. Incredibly sad to see Ms. Twigg going through this.

Greg

Sad story.

Thanks for posting this. Its a hard fall from being on the front of the Wheaties box to living on the street. I wish her well.

it's a pretty troubling and confusing story. it's hard not to read between the lines and make assumptions, but the reality is this is a complex story and a complex problem both for her in particular, and the homeless situation at large.

she sounds very troubled and very confused, certainly battling some tough issues. i hope she can find some support and work through these things, because certainly, her problems will only get more complex the older she gets.

being on the streets in your 20's is one thing, approaching 60 is another.

wishing her the best.

The state of healthcare in this country is abysmal.


Good on this person for not thinking of only themselves, according to this article she has turned down individual help, preferring to advocate for all homeless people. Impressive.

Alexi Grewal seems to have gone through something similar.

https://www.ocregister.com/2009/08/1...eak-the-cycle/

Although never homeless, Grewal admits he was “lost,” for several years after retiring from racing in 1992. He declines to give detail. But the divorced father of Elijah, 11, and a daughter Jordyn, 15, who live with their mother in nearby Berthoud, says he has frequently faced financial hardship. He’s gone months without work as a carpenter.

He lost his two upper front teeth to gum disease and says he can’t afford to replace them.

“I’ve been poor a lot,” said Grewal, who remains rail thin at 6-feet-1, 156 pounds, his racing weight.

Even today he often can’t afford a cup of coffee at the Loveland coffee shops he likes to frequent to discuss politics and religion.

Tim

This is a shock to me. I remember reading in Bicycling Magazine in the '90's that she had a good job as a computer programmer.

The stereotype that homeless people all have some addiction or mental illness is completely false.

I am the Executive Director of a homeless services Non-Profit. We've been ending homelessness for both individuals and families in our community for 44 years. We help hundreds of people with homelessness and thousands of people with hunger every year.

What you've said here, is what probably occupies 15-20% of my waking, working life: dispelling myths and stereotypes about homelessness. Chief among them is that substance abuse of mental illness are CAUSES of homelessness, when truthfully, addiction or someone's mental health issues, when not treated properly, are typically exacerbated by the trauma of homelessness significantly.

Rebecca's story is her own. It's important to remember that no two people have identical stories about how they started experiencing homelessness, but it is important to remember just how much economics, in particular the confluence between wages and the cost/availability of housing, is the root of both the cause and the solution to homelessness.

I can read a whole lot between the lines of that interview, but it would be speculative on my part, albeit fairly educated/informed by experience, but speculative nonetheless. Her story is her story.

Speaking from my professional experience, I'd offer a couple of things:

It is extremely expensive for us to have a homeless population. More expensive than it is to house them. If we subsidized Rebecca's rent indefinitely, it would cost less than the resource mechanisms shes participating in now, particularly around health care interactions.

Economic-driven homelessness is only going to get worse in the next economic downturn. If we dont satisfy the point above by finding a way to either jam more affordable housing down every neighborhood's throat, or ideally, bring back public housing...then you haven't seen **** yet in terms of what this problem is going to look like when another recession comes.

Not to turn this into a political debate - homelessness should be a non-partisan issue, but to solve it we need to completely rethink how/where/why we allocate resources.

If you don't want to fix your own personal problem, how is Washington going to fix it for you?

How is the local hospital going to fix it?

How is anyone outside your own skull going to fix anything?

Sounds like its the same as addiction: you need to hit rock bottom before you change your mind and change things. Doesn't sound like Ms Twigg has hit that point yet.

Before you jump my stuff, I've* been* a CH away from being homeless. I've had a few really great buddies that let me live with them for free/cheap after my ex- kicked me out of the house. I was unemployed at the time... I don't have the mental issues that seem to plague the subject of this thread and I've pretty well fixed that living situation

M

Maybe the inability to let the sports career go is a mental illness. Probably the same thing as any career option only open to youth or beauty.

You could be wildly successful in the NFL/NBA/MLB and be completely delusional about sports but you'll make enough money to coast the rest of your life and you can maintain that illusion the rest of your life and your ego will never pop. That won't work in cycling unless you were a TdF level winner cause most of them don't make any money.

I feel like I was stuck in that bubble till I was about 15 when it popped when I quit the HS soccer team and all of a sudden realized sports was just a fun thing and wasn't nearly as important as I thought it was. The fact that bubble had popped for me shaped how I viewed bicycle racing.. I could never muster up the level of obsession/delusion required to excel. Which was probably a good thing. I bet most people have the bubble pop pretty early in life.

Having that bubble never pop and yet not having enough money to live inside the bubble the rest of your life seems like it could be some kind of illness.

I could see it going the other way too and you're successful and then pick up cycling as an adult and you're stuck in the bubble so you buy some EPO to win master's races.

This pretty much negates the rest of your bootstrappy sermon.

This is a good post, thank you.

(Unfortunately, the logic of resource allocation, whether it be in regard to homelessness, healthcare, education, etc, seems to pale in the face of people's perceptions of the world...)