Nettie, originally from Seattle’s Central District, moved to Portland in 1997 to escape her drug addiction and a cycle of criminal activity. She had a difficult upbringing and a history of theft, forgery, and robbery. Her addiction to drugs began in her early teens when she was exposed to marijuana at a predominantly white school. Her addiction escalated to heroin and crack cocaine, leading to multiple incarcerations.

Nettie’s journey with addiction was influenced by her family’s struggles—her father’s alcoholism and her mother’s gambling—along with her own diagnosis of manic depression at age 14. She never received the necessary counseling or support, which contributed to her reliance on drugs to escape her pain.

In 1999, at the age of 39, Nettie learned about the history of slavery while in jail in Redding, California. A white guard named Queenie told her about the history of slavery, which Nettie had not known until then. This moment of awareness, combined with her later exposure to the Black Lives Matter movement, began to shift her perspective on her own identity and the broader issues facing the Black community.

In 1997, she moved to Portland to escape her addiction but found it easy to access drugs there. She was arrested for theft and briefly jailed, but the charges were dropped due to overcrowding. In 2004, she was arrested for possession of a small amount of crack cocaine, her first drug-related charge.

In 2020, during the pandemic, Nettie started attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings on Zoom, connecting with recovering addicts from around the world. This has helped her gain a deeper understanding of her addiction as a disease.

Nettie’s mother’s gambling addiction was well-known in the family, as they struggled to make ends meet. Despite her past, Nettie has been clean for nearly 19 years and is now actively involved in Narcotics Anonymous, finding support and a sense of community.

She is now housed and stable, thanks to subsidized rent provided by the Joint Office of Homeless Services, and works as a vendor for Street Roots, a program that helps people experiencing homelessness and poverty.