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Following is an interview with Noah Henderson, Noah as a musician and for 20 years he drove a county transit Busse on October nine, he lost his apartment on Hopper Ave and the trauma is being compounded now by the difficulty in finding a place to live. It's

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been difficult, I have had suicidal thoughts, I um I know what to do to avoid them, which is go be with people, so I'm attending support groups, I'm being honest about my feelings and some I found that some people can't handle that kind of um honesty

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and that kind of emotional predicament. I've lived with it most of my life and even though it feels really deep and sad and heavy sometimes I know that I'm gonna come back from it, I was asleep, it was about 1 45 in the morning and I

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heard yelling outside and I thought it was just some crazy lady doing her thing went back to sleep moments later I heard crashing and banging and I didn't know what that was. So I got up and went out to investigate as I crossed my living room

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um the long window sill was bright orange and I thought there must be some guy in a jacked up truck with orange headlights out there, I'm gonna go get him out of here and uh I opened my door and on my left there was a wall

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of flames about 10 ft away right there right across the parking lot from me. Um two cars were on fire that were in the carport and the building was fully engulfed and I remember thinking it was just unreal. Uh You know I I felt like this

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isn't right, you know this isn't happening. Um I didn't know if I would have time to get dressed or to collect anything because the fire was right there, it was, I could almost reach out and touch it, you know from my front door. So I put

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on my pants and a shirt, my shoes, I grabbed my wallet, my keys and luckily I made it out without having to run through the fire, but it was it was happening really fast and there was like a tornado in the parking lot and the crashing

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and banging had been large pieces of debris. It was literally and I mean that word carefully, it was literally a tornado with stuff spinning um with fire in the middle of it and things flying all over the place. Uh It was scary, I got in my

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car which thankfully was okay and drove out. Um I should have stopped and knocked on doors, I didn't think to do that, it wasn't that I was afraid to or was unwilling, I just didn't think to do it. I regret that on the A. M. Radio,

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I heard that there was a shelter being set up at the Finley center of West College Avenue. Uh So I headed over there, I was already going in that direction and I ended up at Finley and this was an interesting reaction to right after the fire.

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Uh I felt happy. I felt relieved. I felt a sense of freedom. All of the things that were visual reminders of my depression were gone. The dark and closed house, all the stuff piled up in the way the stacks of laundry, not done all of those

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things which I used to feel bad. They were gone. And I felt pretty good at the Finley center where I was for a couple of weeks. I trained with the Red Cross to vote to be a volunteer. And I went around and I talked with people

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and many of them and some of my friends said I can't believe you're so okay with everything that's happened after the fire. It was remarkable. Uh And I thought awesome my depression is gone, Life is gonna be great. Uh A few weeks after that I found

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out different. I started feeling triggered. I started feeling P. T. S. D. Responses. And there are reminders that I still have the depression to deal with. But there's some recognition that something interceded and changed and if that could happen then maybe I could reach that again.

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There wasn't and isn't any alternative housing in Sonoma County housing for poor people which included me because I didn't make a lot of money. You can't live on 30,000 or even 40,000 a year in Sonoma County apartments like this one. This is $1445 a month. and

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it is exactly the same size and standard of quality Style. Um that my previous burned out apartment was only its $435 more by virtue of the fire. Now I've been told that there's some law or policy or statute um in which gouging is not permitted and

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gouging is defined. I have not seen anybody who's doing these kinds of things brought up on charges or dealt with in any official capacity by any of our law enforcement or our civic leaders, including the city council and the board of supervisors. So um there's no

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place for us to go. And in fact, in a few months when I run out of my 401K. That I had from 20 years of bus driving, that'll be gone pretty soon and I won't be able to afford food, medicine. Anything else? Something needs to be

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done.