Four years ago, Bend resident Katelyn Barlow and her boyfriend, Josh Bennett, were preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the U.K. Bennett loved football and dreamed of touring the English countryside by motorbike. The couple even planned to get a sidecar for their dog.

Then on his 26th birthday, a few months before the start of their overseas adventure, Bennett overdosed on heroin. His death sent Barlow into a spiral of depression. She abused drugs, couldn’t hold a steady job, and then lost the apartment she was living in on Bend’s west side.

Barlow’s living situation has been in a state of flux ever since.

She has been on the streets, in vehicles and spent time trying to detox with her mom in Salem. She was in and out of drug rehab programs. Last year, she moved into a van on China Hat Road. There, the drugs consumed her again.

“I was stuck in my addiction, and there is nothing to do out there (on China Hat Road); it’s so miserable and depressing,” said Barlow, 25. “People just stay out there and get high; I don’t think I have ever gotten so high in my life.”

Barlow recently told her story to The Bulletin as part of this newspaper’s yearlong series spotlighting houseless people in Central Oregon. She is homeless now, living at Bend’s Second Street Shelter, and has experienced on-and-off homelessness since she was 13.

Out on China Hat Road last year, life was repeating itself, taking her back to her homeless teen years, even after she had worked hard to establish a settled life.

Then one day last September, she thought she’d try sobriety again. She took a break on the Oregon Coast, stayed sober the entire trip, then kept it going upon her return to Bend. The Second Street Shelter became home.

By day, Barlow keeps busy with therapy and AA and NA meetings. She has appointments to take suboxone, an opioid blocker. When there is time to relax she swings fire poi (a traditional Polynesian dance) and enjoys watching ‘90s mobster movies.

A 6-month-old puppy named Magnolia has helped her stay on course. She takes Magnolia to parks for morning exercise, then leaves the pup with friends in the afternoon so she can go to courses for her GED.

Barlow is back at the shelter by 10 p.m. before the doors are locked. She stays there so her pup can have a warm place to sleep — the shelter offers indoor kennels for dogs.

“It’s better than sleeping under a bridge with my dog,” she said.

Barlow says she wants the GED to elevate her life and get a better job. She has earned money in a variety of ways in the past, from cleaning hotel rooms to collecting cans. She has panhandled, in exchange for “random acts of kindness.” She spent some time working on an all-women construction site clean-up crew. But now she wants a career job.

“I know I am capable of so much, and I have proved it to myself,” said Barlow, holding Magnolia tight to her chest. “I know I am capable of doing something amazing and now that I know this lifestyle, I have grown away from the homeless life, in the sense of loving it so much.”

Once she receives her GED she wants to go to college to study her two passions — automotive repair and baking. She dreams of one day opening her own bakery. She also wants to help people. Opening up a halfway house for troubled youth is on her mind too, as is helping in the fight against sex trafficking.

These are all passions she has acquired through her struggles and experiences in life.

The desire to fix cars stems from the numerous vehicles that died on her, sometimes keeping her stranded out on China Hat Road. Her interest in baking comes from the fond memories she has of cooking with her grandma as a youth in Myrtle Point, a small town near Oregon’s coast. And she wants to help people who have been trafficked because she has seen it happen.

“I have lost a lot of friends to sex trafficking, women going missing, I don’t have any girlfriends now because of it,” she said.

Barlow’s struggles began at a young age. She started running away from home when she was still in junior high to escape the scenes of domestic violence at home. Weed and alcohol helped her cope. She was expelled from Summit High School on the first day of school for assaulting the vice-principal.

“He put his hand on my wrist and I blacked out from past traumas. I tried to assault him, I left and I never went back,” she said.

Drake Park became her second home after she was taken in by a group of homeless people that frequented the park in the early 2010s. Barlow was the youngest among them and the group tried to set her straight, ordering her to go to school. When she misbehaved, they made her pick up trash in the park.

“They took me in. They actually grounded me once, it was the first time I was grounded and it was on the streets,” she said.

When she wasn’t sleeping in the park, Barlow was squatting in an abandoned house on Colorado Ave. with other people in Bend’s homeless community. Still in her early teenage years, she was happy to be away from the violent home where her mother was staying. Sometimes there were just a dozen people in the house, but in the colder months 75 people crammed in there, she said.

“We had game nights,” she said. “It was a nice home for what we could make of it.”

Barlow said the police were aware that homeless people occupied the home, and the minors, but allowed them to stay. They only visited when a runaway was reported, or a warrant was out for an arrest.

She felt safe there, she said. “Adult things” only took place in a shed out back. It all came to an end when someone fell asleep while smoking in bed, burning the place down.

“I loved those days, those were some of the best days in my life,” said Barlow. “We were all in the same boat, our parents wanted us but weren’t capable of taking care of us. That is when we had integrity out on the streets.”

Barlow also spent time living at The Loft, a shelter in Bend for teens. She said the staff helped raise her during her teenage years and the director Pat Gundy was like a father figure to her.

“I still love them, they were there through my addiction, they are like the parents I never had,” she said.

Barlow was just an occasional student at the time, sometimes at Marshal High and other times at an alternative school run by the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council. By 17, she’d had enough and dropped out to work restaurant and cleaning jobs, and collect cans from Bend’s back alleys. She described some “weird” experiences. There were times while sleeping rough on the streets and in parks that she’d wake up to discover strange men in her sleeping bag.

“Out here in the drug world, it’s different,” she said. “They will take advantage of you, not just your body, but they will steal everything you have, they will take everything, they would steal my dog if they think they could profit from it.”

While Barlow now looks forward to putting homelessness behind her, she still wants to advocate for those in need.

“I am like mom out there on the streets,” she said “I always make sure that there is food for people, and deserts.”

She also wants others to see homelessness in a different light — she has seen homeless people sucker punched and told to “get a job” — those random acts of violence must end.

“They may have three jobs or four jobs,” she said “If they are being assaulted and pushed out of the community, that is not going to help them grow and get out of it.”

Barlow believes that she can help find solutions, not just for the homeless but for all its residents.

“I want to do something that benefits the whole community, whether it’s economic or financial, or making it more green, but that does come down to fixing the homeless situation here,” she said. “I just want to help because we are human beings.”

Who are the real people impacted by skyrocketing housing prices, decisions about homeless shelters or plans to sweep informal camps? The Bulletin wants to offer insight by telling their stories through the series Faces of Homelessness. Every two weeks this year, Bulletin reporters will introduce readers to a different homeless person. We are here to tell their stories.

For suggestions on how to help the region’s residents experiencing homelessness, contact the Homeless Leadership Coalition by email at info@cohomeless.org.