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What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: WKTV VOICES visits the Heartside District

(First published October 7, 2019, on wktvjournal.org)

Heartside Neighborhood in downtown Grand Rapids has a rich, colorful history. In the 1850s, it was a shanty town, home to immigrants who were new to America. The area grew quickly—at first small houses dotted the landscape, then commercial and industrial businesses, hotels, a railroad depot, stores and apartment buildings. Today, it’s a historic district containing many original buildings, 55 of which are historically significant.

The area’s renaissance is mirrored in modern apartment buildings with both market-rate and income-based units; high-end condos; parking structures; offices; a feast of food establishments; a cat café; art studios; and recently built Studio Park, which adds movie theaters, more restaurants, more offices, more apartments, and a music venue to the mix. Heartside is becoming denser by the day.

There’s a palpable tension in the air as newcomers and longtime residents alike struggle to co-exist with a younger, more affluent crowd and the age-old problem of gentrification. The place is dynamic and vibrant but also plagued by criminal activity—vandalism, drug activity, trespassing, prostitution and the like—and an ever-growing transient population.

As services and resources increase in number, organizations like Dwelling Place, Heartside Ministries, Mel Trotter Ministries, Guiding Light, Dégagé, and others have been inundated. Grand Rapids is known as a “destination city” for homelessness as West Michigan police departments and judges send parolees here, and Mel Trotter routinely receives folks who have been given a one-way bus ticket to downtown Grand Rapids by missions, churches, and families in other cities across the Midwest.

VOICES has hosted several people who live and work in ever-evolving Heartside. Lisa Blackburn, Victoria Kool, Tommie Wallace, Larry Dean White, and Dr. Mark Vander Meer are just a few of the folks who shared their stories recently.

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Dwelling Place connects people to programs and resources that can help folks become self-sufficient and find affordable housing. The nonprofit advocates for the neighborhood to make it safer—like street lights so people feel comfortable when they’re out at night and accessible sidewalks so children can easily walk to school. The nonprofit also unites neighbors and strives to bring in businesses that enrich the community.

Lisa Blackburn, Resident Services Coordinator at Dwelling Place, has fond memories of the Heartside District; it was her old stomping grounds when she was a kid growing up in the 1970s.

“Back then, it wasn’t called Heartside,” said Blackburn. “There were a lot of old, abandoned buildings. I remember playing around the train tracks—I may or may not have thrown a rock through a window. It feels good now as an employee in this area to see how it has grown.”

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Artist Victoria Kool lives in Heartside. Her story, while unique, shares commonalities with others who live in the neighborhood: She was abused as a child, and she struggles with mental illness and addiction. She first attempted suicide at the tender age of 8.

“My parents had threatened to kill me if I told anyone about the abuse,” Kool said. “I had given up on life. My mom was an alcoholic. From a very young age, I took care of my siblings. I’ve had adult responsibilities since I was 5.”

Kool began having flashbacks in her 40s and 50s. She remembers standing in a closet, counting the stripes on the carpet to pass the time. 

“It was either the closet or the attic or the basement; I spent a lot of my childhood in my own little world,” she said. “Until the age of 18, I felt invisible because of the trauma.”

No one believed her, not even the police. As a kindergartener, Kool knew that ‘Policeman Ralph’ wouldn’t help. 

“I was a cynical kid,” Kool said.

A high-school acquaintance thought Kool had an ideal, well-adjusted family. But it was all a facade.

Kool had planned to attend college and then start a career in social work. Those hopes were dashed when family members told her she was expected to marry. She had children and for many years played the role of little homemaker. She struggled to cope with the flashbacks.

“I had no memory of the abuse and ended up with multiple personalities to compartmentalize the trauma,” said Kool. “My family didn’t want me to talk about it and threatened to silence me. I fled my marriage.”

She sought refuge with a friend, but Kool’s ex-husband threatened the woman, and Kool was asked to leave.

At one point, Kool drove to Florida, where her 4-year-old car’s engine blew. She lived in a homeless shelter for a week, until a church bought her a plane ticket to fly back to Grand Rapids.

“I ended up in a recovery house with women who had just gotten out of prison,” Kool explained. “I had a mental breakdown and got kicked out after a month. Then I called Mel Trotter and started in their emergency shelter—up at 6am, out at 8am, can’t get back in until 6pm. I dragged my suitcase around all day. It really opened my eyes to the reality of homelessness—a lot of mental illness, addiction, lack of a support network.”

Mel Trotter Ministries has served the greater Grand Rapids area since 1900. Founded by Melvin Ernest Trotter, a former alcoholic, the organization was first located at 955 Canal Street. Offering substance abuse counseling and other services, the mission moved to its present location at 225 Commerce Ave. SW in 1968.

“Homelessness is exhausting,” Kool said. “Living in a neighborhood with so many homeless people around me—I had to be prepared. I had grown up judgmental, with an air of superiority, and I had to deal with that so I could adjust and coexist with folks who were different from me. The diversity was new to me.”

Kool sees many people going through the same struggles as they try to somehow make a better life for themselves.

“Living in Heartside, I am attuned to those who have suffered abuse,” she said. “I have a sense of who has been through a bad situation; I have compassion and empathy now versus being judgmental. Most people who have addictions have been abused. A lot of the people here in Heartside are mentally ill, too.”

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Muralist Tommie Wallace (aka Town Hall Auk Med) lives in an income-based apartment made possible by Dwelling Place. Originally from Kalamazoo, he came to Grand Rapids after seeing a commercial for ITT Technical Institute (now defunct).

“I stayed with a cousin until his wife felt I needed to move on, and that’s how I ended up in Heartside,” Wallace said. “I liked the area, had a lot of fun. I stayed here because it’s near a bus line, the library, the store.”

Wallace created his first mural at the site of Goodrich and Commerce. 

“People would stop and talk to me as I worked,” he said. “I met such interesting people; some bought me lunch; one lady came by and brought me an umbrella as I worked in the rain.”

Wallace lived in Washington DC for a time.

“DC is different from the Midwest,” he said. “The difference is friendliness—you don’t see it much in DC, people keep to themselves, don’t want to get into conversations; I had to adapt because I was used to saying, ‘Good morning.’ People shun you there for that.”

After graduating from ITT Tech, Wallace got a job working for an airline company. As his income increased, he moved from an income-based apartment at The Weston to a market-rate residence at Goodrich Apartments. He lived there until being laid off after 9/11. 

“I came back to The Weston and I have been there over 20 years now. Heartside is my home. I know people here, they know me. I get a good feeling when people recognize me as an artist.”

A recovering addict, Wallace attends meetings at Heartside Ministry every Friday. Heartside Ministry serves people who live in the margins of Grand Rapids. It strives to provide basic needs; in addition, it offers a GED program, art gallery, yoga class and chapel for people to practice their faith. 

Wallace meets a lot of people who are older, ill or injured.

“They’re newcomers to these issues and don’t know what to do,” Wallace said.

Wallace has served on the board of directors for Dwelling Place since 2005. He likes seeing the various development projects in downtown Grand Rapids.

“So many different people are coming down, young people, rich people. Residents were afraid that they would be pushed out.”

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“I got the ministry in prison,” said Arkansas native Larry Dean White. The self-described ‘redneck Christian minister’, shares his love of God with the folks who people Heartside.

“I studied for six years; my textbooks are the old and new testaments,” he said.

White sat down to share his story with Dr. Mark Vander Meer, a pastor and founder of Community Recovery International, a nonprofit organization that helps address family, individual, addictive, marital, and mental health issues of all types locally and overseas.

White thinks there is too much judgment on the outside.

“Instead of putting people down, help them up, like Jesus did,” he said. “People should be treated with respect.”

Vander Meer agreed.

“There needs to be more ‘heart’ in ‘Heartside’,” he said.

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Do Good: Trillium Institute is Here to Help People Live Well, Die Well, and Grieve Well

(First published December 18, 2014, on rapidgrowthmedia.com)

The fear of death in America is increasing. The American approach to death, dying, and grieving has changed in the past 200 years—and dramatically so in just the past 50 years. The topic is rarely discussed at home. Most of us live longer but may not be present when a loved one dies. We have no idea what to expect or how to grieve.

As a rule, the dying are left to the specialists to handle in hospitals, nursing homes, and adult homes. These people often die alone, hooked up to tubes that they may or may not have wanted, without friends or loved ones there for comfort. Source.

A new, local organization, Trillium Institute, backed by a major local donor and organized by a leading senior living community, is taking a different approach to the end-of-life journey by emphasizing honest communication between patient and physician. The folks at Trillium Institute believe that American culture “needs a new social contract to deal with advancing illness, weakness, and even death.”

The nonprofit organization addresses a growing need to not only help patients and their families navigate the complex end-of-life medical and emotional decisions when faced with a terminal illness, but also assist medical professionals who facilitate the process.

The mission is thoughtfully crafted, and even the name has meaning: “The trillium is an exquisite, three-leaved wildflower that is native to Michigan. It blooms for a brief season in the spring, reflecting both the beauty and the fragility of life. The three leaves also reflect our mission to help people live well, die well, and grieve well,” says Dr. John Mulder, medical director of Holland Home’s Faith Hospice, and leader and medical director of Trillium Institute.

Issues in how end-of-life care is approached include a lack of willingness on the part of the patients who are anxious, confused, and frightened, and a medical profession that is not equipped to help them through the process.

“As a country, we spend enormous resources to extend life, but with little regard for the quality of life,” says Mulder.

Mulder is a nationally recognized authority on end-of-life issues and pain management and has become a sought-after speaker on the topics. A board-certified palliative medicine specialist, he has been involved in the fields of hospice and palliative medicine since 1984.

Trillium Institute’s executive director, Ken Hekman, has over 40 years of healthcare leadership experience in health planning, nursing home administration, and medical group management. He is also is the author of six books on healthcare management and a regular speaker on leadership development training.

“The institute was challenged to find fresh ways to help those with life-defining illnesses as they navigate the complex medical options and equally complex emotional burdens that await them,” says Hekman. “We’re living longer, but are we living well? Chronic diseases and frailty pose challenges, but they don’t need to diminish the quality of life.”

Trillium Institute is here to help the general public and medical community prepare for serious illness, navigate the health care delivery system, and improve communication between physician and patient. It is developing innovative approaches to palliative care and providing educational opportunities for both medical and patient communities. It partially focuses on emphasizing honesty between physicians and patients so individuals and their families can plan accordingly, says Mulder.

The American medical care system is focused very heavily on fixing things. “When you go to the doctor, your physician is trained to fix things,” Mulder adds. “The reality is that 90 percent of us are going to be told at some point in our lives that we have something that is not fixable.”

The question then becomes: “How do we want to prepare to deal with that reality?”

“Facing death is one of life’s most poignant and painful seasons, yet there is no escape,” says Mulder. “Human mortality is unavoidable, but it is possible to die well—to manage pain, conclude relationships, and transition with courage.”

This approach isn’t anything new: It was widespread in America in the 1800s but has long been forgotten, thrust aside by humankind’s search for the fountain of youth as well as the rapid technology of medicine that focuses on prolonging life without consideration to its quality.

In his 1886 novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy wrote:

“When children were born and parents died in the actual marriage bed, where first and last cries were heard in the very same room, where the first things looked at were often the last things seen, where the corpse is where the lover’s body moved, when the entire intimacy of life from start to finish was confined to the family house and not to the maternity wings, terminal wards and funeral parlors, death itself possessed dimensions and connotations that are now either forgotten or stifled. Everyone until recently knew the actual smell of death. In a big family during the nineteenth century, it was not unusual for it to be an annual smell and to take its position in the odorous year along with springtime beeswaxings, summer jams, and winter fires. When death came, it was the family who dealt with it, not the specialists. Death’s mysteries and its chores became inseparable.”

The public need for funeral homes is relatively new. Until the Civil War, death was largely a home matter and home funerals were the norm. Back in the 1800s, the parlor was the main room in the house. It was commonly used for displaying the dead body of a family member, whose body was prepared by family members. It was common at the time for unembalmed bodies to be put in simple caskets and buried in cemeteries that weren’t treated with pesticides. Historians say that our culture’s approach to death in the pre-Civil War years had much to be praised. Source.

In 1910, Edward Bok, the editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, declared death to be unimportant for 20th-century America. Because of the swift advancement of science, death would soon be conquered, he believed. He therefore declared the word “parlor” was to fall into disuse and replaced by the word, “living room.” Source. He couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“As a country, we spend enormous resources to extend life, but with little thought for the quality of life,” Mulder says. “Can we do a better job of aligning medical resources with personal values, preferences, and desires to achieve a balance between the quantity and quality of life? We think so.”

The nonprofit organization launched publicly in October and is currently seeking 501(c)(3) status. Trillium Institute is affiliated with Holland Home and will be led by an executive director and medical director, and governed by an independent board of directors. Trillium Institute has been in development since January 2014 and is operating with funds from a three-year grant given by a local philanthropist personally touched by an experience with palliative and hospice care.

Trillium Institute has already partnered with Making Choices Michigan, Grand Valley State University, Calvin College, and Aquinas College to provide outreach events and programs.

In addition to educational events and outreach, Trillium Institute is also developing a clinical resource to deliver navigation services directly to patients and families. This service will provide “patient navigators” to guide patients and their families through the complex medical decisions and emotional challenges associated with life-defining illnesses. Navigators are professional nurses or social workers with specialized training in managing complex diseases.

A Patient Navigator Director is on the horizon.

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