Colorado Springs homeless woman in rehab after 18 months of life in old truck
Hope had faded for Sandra "Sandy" Stoller, its edges blurring like a dream her mind wanted to hold onto but could not.
Until a few weeks ago Stoller, 69, had spent the past year and a half living in a broken-down pickup truck in the driveway of a friend's house in southeast Colorado Springs.
Homeless and unwell, Stoller sat in the passenger's seat of the vehicle, which had become her bedroom, dining room, living room and bathroom.
In the cocoon she had spun, Stoller slept, ate food brought to her by her friend who lives in the house, played video games on her cell phone, used a bedpan that her friend regularly emptied, took sponge baths and watched the seasons pass through the windshield.
Stoller's circumstance was included in a Gazette that published May 19 about the impacts of homelessness on the lives of ordinary residents and the livelihoods of local businesses.
Stoller doesn't think her story is all that interesting. "There's a lot of homeless people out there," she said last week, speaking from a bed in a therapeutic rehabilitation center in Colorado Springs.
But Stoller's situation was well beyond the norm.
"We've had a lot of people that have lived in cars and out of their vehicles, but they've been ambulatory and able to move," said Steve Wayant, a licensed clinical social worker and street outreach program manager for Homeward Pikes Peak, which provides programs to help homeless people get rehoused.
"Being physically bound to that car and still wanting to stay there has been unusual," he said.
While Stoller was walking when she began living in the truck in 2022, she had not been able to walk for months and could not get out of the truck until last month, when a non-emergency ambulance extricated her and took her to a local hospital.
She spent two nights being physically examined before she was sent to rehab.
Sitting inert in the truck for so long caused Stoller's legs to develop what is known as contractures. She can no longer straighten her legs at the knees.
When she was mobile, her friend would maneuver her into a borrowed wheelchair and take her to the hospital at times for emergency medical attention for her severe diabetes and pain. But the hospital always released her back into the indigent lifestyle, said Peter Tetley Sr., who owned the truck Stoller was living in.
It's not like he and his son, Peter Tetley Jr., who knew Stoller before she became homeless, didn't try to get Stoller help, Tetley said.
Members of his church provided assistance with her care and trying to obtain housing for her in the beginning, but as time went on, a couple of human service agencies and law enforcement told Tetley they could not do much for her.
Tetley could have had Stoller arrested for trespassing, but he didn't want to resort to that.
"The hospital took care of her until they could get her well enough to put her out on the sidewalk," Tetley said. "I was afraid she would die in that damned truck, and nobody would give a damn."
After the Gazette story in May, Wayant of Homeward Pikes Peak tried for more than three months to get Stoller to exit the truck and work on moving toward a better life.
"She didn't want to leave," Wayant said. "We'd check on her once in a while to see if there was anything we could do. We developed a rapport with Sandy over that time, and I think she realized we were not a threat."
The unusual lifestyle had become familiar.
"I felt stuck," Stoller said. "I couldn't get out of the truck. My legs didn't work. They still don't."
A turning point came when retired nurse Kathy Evans, a volunteer for Homeward Pikes Peak, joined the case.
"Even though being in that truck wasn't good, it was a comfort level for her," Evans said.
But the owner of the house that the Tetleys rent and where Stoller was parked was irate and said he was going to have the vehicle removed from his property. Neighbors had been complaining for a while, Tetley said, and Stoller's refusal to leave wasn't working anymore.
Evans decided to just be herself: a matter-of-fact, compassionate nurse who has experience working with the homeless population and doesn't shy away from being assertive.
"Everybody was afraid to push the issue. I said, 'Sandra, I can be just as stubborn as you,'" Evans said.
"I was very up front with her; I said, 'You can't stay in this truck forever. Period. If the vehicle is gone, you'll be put out on the street. And I'm working and everybody else is working to get you out of here and in a safe place and get you the help you need."
At one point, in her reluctance to leave the truck, Stoller was not following through on Evans' requests for information needed to apply for long-term insurance.
"I stepped back and told Steve (Wayant) I'm going to let her have her space," Evans said.
Finally, in mid-September a team that included members of the Colorado Springs Fire Department's Homeless Outreach Program, The Resource Exchange and Homeward Pikes Peak helped move Stoller to the hospital for evaluation and to handle paperwork and finances.
"We continued to work with Sandy to make sure that was what she wanted," Wayant said. "Especially in older clients there always seems to be a lot of medical issues; there's a lot of severity in hers."
In addition to physical maladies, Stoller, a Colorado Springs native, has had depression.
Stoller's biggest fear was that she'd die in rehab or be confined in a facility forever, Evans said.
"I'm working on getting her to be more independent and getting her into safe housing — for however long it takes," Evans said. "I'm concentrating on moving forward and how do we keep her from being homeless again."
In a short time, Evans had established trust and built a relationship with Stoller.
"I promised her over and over that I'd not abandon her, and she gets that," Evans said. "It wasn't me, it was God working through me."
Stoller, who had worked at King Soopers in her career, said she has never been homeless before, but a series of mishaps led to a housing crisis; she had been renting a room that she lived in until she didn't.
"I just lost it, is all," she said.
Evans has become more than a medical advocate, she's now in the friend zone.
"She's real helpful and nice," Stoller said.
Evans has kept her word, staying by Stoller's side for seven hours at the hospital during her evaluation and in recent weeks consulting with therapists and doctors. She brought in a television for Stoller to watch, sought out thrift store clothes and left some books.
Evans also is searching for an orthopedic surgeon who would be willing to operate on Stoller's legs to help straighten them so she can walk or be wheelchair-ready.
"With this population it's hard because you can spend a lot of time with them, and they'll change for a while and go right back." Evans said. "But some of them do better, so I'm optimistic. We're taking it one day at a time."
People often ask Evans, who's known to carry a supply of water, food, clothes and other essentials in her car to hand out to homeless people, why she does it. Even Stoller asked her that.
Evans always has the same answer: "I say, 'Because God wants me to. He wants me to have a servant heart and be there for people in need.'"
Tetley said he's glad Stoller is receiving care.
"It's a big relief; it's just no way to live," Tetley said, adding that he worries about what will happen to Stoller after rehab.
Wayant said there will be options, depending on her finances and whether she can take care of herself again.
Rehab is hard, Stoller said from her bed, and more painful than living in a truck. And she's bummed she can't smoke at the facility.
What lies ahead remains fuzzy. Stoller said she tries not to think about her future because she doesn't know what it will hold.
But she no longer needs to block the glaring summer sun with the blankets and towels she used in the winter to stay warm in the truck. And she has a bathroom, and a bed to sleep in and contemplate life's mysteries.
"It's like a hospital I guess," she said looking at her rehab space, "and there's lots of people around." Something the soft-spoken Stoller just isn't used to yet.
