Annette Johnson had been homeless for four weeks, but she hadn’t gotten used to the idea.

 

Johnson and her longtime boyfriend, Paul Palmquist, were evicted from their apartment Dec. 31 after they were unable to pay the rent any longer. The duo, both of whom suffer from mental health issues, were unable to find employment.

 

So the couple packed what belongings they could fit into their car and headed west on I-94, bound for Minneapolis, where Johnson had heard of a homeless shelter that was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

 

Johnson didn’t last the first night in her new home away from home. Frightened by her scary, unfamiliar surroundings, Johnson’s anxiety kicked into overdrive, filling her mind with fears of all sorts. She pleaded with Palmquist to leave. She cried. After just a few hours at the shelter, they headed back to Eau Claire in the early morning hours of a frigid New Year’s Day, wondering what place they would call home next.

 

Later that day, at 6:30 p.m., Johnson and Palmquist joined others gathered in front of the one-story building at 618 S. Barstow St., the Sojourner House homeless shelter, in downtown Eau Claire, hoping to find a warm meal and bed for the night. The temperature, already below zero, was dropping fast, made even chillier by a brisk wind blowing off the Chippewa River.

 

Johnson and Palmquist were in luck. They would find a warm place out of the bitter cold on this night and many others in the months to come. But Johnson, more high-strung than her boyfriend, struggled to make peace with her new situation.

 

“I’ve a rough life,” she said one late-January night while sitting in the Sojourner House gathering room shortly after finishing a dinner of sloppy Joe and vegetables made by volunteers. “I’ve had a lot of tough times. But I’ve never been homeless. It’s something I never thought would happen to me.”

 

Ashamed of her homeless status, Johnson lied to her grandmother, telling her she had found a new apartment to call home. Weeks later she related the truth of her homeless status.

 

“I felt a lot of shame about it,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to say ‘Hey, I’m homeless.’ It makes you feel like you’ve failed. But at some point you have to face up to it.”

 

That has proven difficult for Johnson. In early January she was hospitalized for depression, her homeless situation sparking overwhelming feelings of panic and sorrow. She subsequently suffered from the flu and bronchitis, conditions she attributes in part to the unrelenting winter she now faces as she spends part of her days walking Eau Claire’s streets.

 

“I’m just not used to being out in the cold like this,” she said. “And it’s been so cold. It really takes a toll on you.”

 

Palmquist ambled slowly to get a cup of coffee at one side of the room, then plodded back to sit next to Johnson. As she described the shame of her homeless status, he put an arm around her.

 

“It’s going to be OK,” he mumbled. “We’re going to make it OK.”

 

Johnson's struggles to adapt to her homeless life continued. She was hospitalized again, and then, on March 17, she purposefully took too many pills, an overdose intended to land her in the hospital again, away from the shelter life she struggled with.

 

It worked. Johnson spent time in the hospital. But within days she was back with Palmquist, spending her days at various locations in an effort to stay warm. Once in a while the couple spent nights at hotels. But that stretched their limited budget. So, against her wishes, Johnson returned with Palmquist to Sojourner House.

 

Johnson and Palmquist hope to find another apartment. That will mean convincing a landlord to overlook the eviction on their record, to take a chance on them. One snowy mid-March afternoon they looked at an apartment in Altoona.

 

“It’s nothing fancy, but it could work for us,” an optimistic Palmquist said the next day as he and Johnson sat at a table at Positive Avenues, a drop-in center for people with mental illness near Banbury Place on downtown Eau Claire’s northeast side.

 

One month later, the couple hadn’t heard whether they would be allowed to rent the home.

 

When they’re not looking for a place of their own to live, Johnson and Palmquist spend their time at whatever location will have them. One mid-March day consisted of traveling from Positive Avenues, where they chatted with others down on their luck before they packed up and ambled along the snowy sidewalk to L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library. Despite their slow pace, they stopped several times to allow Johnson to catch her breath.

 

“I’m not doing well,” Johnson said between breaths. “My diabetes is acting up again.”

 

As Johnson and Palmquist headed to one corner of the library, in search of a book, they passed one homeless man dressed in winter gear, napping on a blanket. Nearby, a group of homeless residents bickered.

 

“They figure out you’re homeless, and after a bit they come tell you to move along, to get out,” Johnson said of workers in stores and restaurants, her right hand shaking nervously as she spoke. “We’re just looking for a place to get warm, to kill some time.”

 

Later, back at Sojourner, Johnson pondered her uncertain future. She doesn’t know how or where. But she knows she needs a home of her own.

 

“Living without a home, it’s so hard,” she said, looking away. Then, struggling to rise up out of her chair, she headed off to one of the shelter’s beds. “Time to get ready for another day,” she said.