Turbyfill battling addiction, homelessness

The causes for homelessness on a national level are myriad, but Caroline Turbyfill knows exactly why she’s on the streets.

“Basically, I’m out here because I put myself out here with bad decisions and drugs and stuff like that,” she says. Turbyfill, 35, is slight of stature. She keeps her voice low, barely moving her mouth when she speaks. She sits ramrod straight in her chair and is almost unnervingly still while she tells her story. She seems tired, beaten down by life.

“When it first started, I was an alcoholic,” she says, “but I graduated to methamphetamine and slowly to fentanyl.”

Like many others who have used fentanyl, Turbyfill has overdosed. She was revived with a dose of Narcan, seemingly a wonder drug for bringing OD’d patients back from death’s door, provided it’s administered in time.

A Morganton native, Turbyfill has been homeless at various intervals throughout her adult life, with the latest stint lasting nearly a year. She takes suboxone for her opioid addiction and says she’s trying to get into treatment. Turbyfill adds she’s also attempting to patch up a few broken relationships with family members.

And like most of the rest of the city’s unsheltered population, she’s sleeping outside wherever she can find a spot.

“I’m wherever,” she says, “sometimes having to trespass because there’s not any options left.”

And the options are becoming fewer all the time. Morganton’s homeless population has come under a microscope recently for city officials and the Department of Public Safety. Residents and business owners downtown have complained long and loudly about issues like threatening behavior, public nudity, and drug abuse on the streets. Now, no-trespassing signs are popping up all over town, and Public Safety officers will be making more arrests than in the past, according to Director Jason Whisnant.

“I’ve heard rumors of them trying to run us off or whatever, which I’m sure is probably true,” Turbyfill says. “If there was some way that the homeless community who are trying could tell the ones who aren’t trying, hey, look, you’ve got to clean up, because all of us are going to go because of you.”

Turbyfill says there are definitely two types of unsheltered people in Morganton, those who want to get back into housing and those who are content to live on the streets, and added she understands why homeowners are concerned.

“I’m trying to get myself together and trying to help clean up the streets,” says Turbyfill. “Honestly, I think a lot of the homeless sit and cry about it but don’t do nothing about it. I try to look at it from people in houses’ points of view, and ours, too. A lot of people out here don’t know what it’s like to be on their side, and they don’t know what it’s like to be on ours. If we could all just stand together and do the right thing, but it’s easier said than done.”

She says she doesn’t understand the mindset of people who want to remain outside indefinitely.

“Some of them feel comfortable, I guess,” she says. “I don’t get that. I don’t see how it could be easier being homeless. I don’t think it’s fun.”

Foremost among her worries, she says, are fighting the weather and trying to find a place to bed down for the night.

“The weather, worrying about where to sleep, being all by yourself,” she says when asked about the most difficult challenges she faces. “Now, worrying about getting arrested for being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Sit in the middle of the road or the sidewalk?”

Turbyfill maintains her reserved demeanor throughout the interview, but there is the slightest hint of exasperation in her voice as she answers a final question: What do you wish people knew about what it’s like to be homeless?

“I wish people would take a minute to think about what it would feel like if they were out here,” she says. “I know it’s hard because of the way (homeless) people act, but if they could try to understand a little bit more. Not everyone is the problem. People in houses do bad things, and all of them aren’t punished for one household’s choices.”

Marty Queen is the senior reporter at The Paper. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or marty@thepaper.media.