Photography by Brandi Stage Portraiture | Hair & Makeup by Brooke Soto
When Marcus Baker brought his wife, Katherine, to the Coast in March, he was fulfilling a promise.
Since being displaced by the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history, the pair had lived in their Honda Pilot. For five years, they had traversed multiple states with no home and few possessions — sleeping in truck stop parking lots.
A West Coast native, Baker dearly missed the ocean, and her husband was determined to show her the sea for her 40th birthday. Leaving Tennessee during an ice storm, they headed south until they reached the Gulf of Mexico. Arriving on the Coast and being enveloped in its balmy warmth was the first time in a long while that Baker had felt happy.
“I just thought it was beautiful, and there were all these houses on stilts by the ocean,” she recalls, tearing up at the memory. “And I remember just telling (Marcus) that someday, I wanted to live there.”
The couple not only found warm weather on the Coast — but caring people and a supportive community that gave them hope for a brighter future. As the couple celebrate their first holiday season in Mississippi — the first in years where they’ve had a place to live — Baker looks ahead with gratitude and optimism.
“I feel like I have a life, like an actual human being,” she says. “I’m feeling pretty optimistic about things. We’ve tried so hard to get back on our feet.”
UP IN SMOKE
Until 2018, the Bakers were much like any other couple. Katherine ran an estate-sale company for eight years and enjoyed riding horses and appraising antiques.
“I had a pretty normal life; I liked my job,” she recalls. “I was really good at my job.”
Everything changed in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, when a wildfire ignited that would burn over 150,000 acres, forcing at least 52,000 people to flee. The Butte County blaze destroyed over 18,000 structures, including 9,000 homes, and claimed 85 lives.
“We weren’t ‘asleep-asleep,’ but we were just kind of laying around watching a movie, and we just heard chaos,” Baker recalls. “And we didn’t really understand what was happening. We thought it was dark out. You couldn’t really see anything.”
Comparing the scene to the television show “The Walking Dead,” Baker describes cars engulfed in flames on the freeway and burned horses running through downtown. As distressing as those first hours and days were, having barely escaped with the clothes on their backs, the Bakers’ ordeal was only just beginning.
After submitting paperwork for Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, they were denied because they had a small business and were told they needed to apply for a Small Business Administration loan — which they also didn’t receive.
“At some point, you can’t afford a hotel for a month …,” Baker says somberly, adding that even those fortunate enough to receive FEMA help didn’t get it immediately. “Motels don’t wait on IOUs. Grocery stores don’t wait on IOUs.”
To make matters worse, Baker was the victim of a violent crime during the evacuation process, leaving her with even more severe PTSD for which it was hard to get treatment.
“We spent next five-ish years essentially homeless,” she says. “My husband couldn’t work because of COVID. We just couldn’t get back on our feet.”
SEEKING HELP, FINDING HELP
Upon arriving on the Coast, the pair sought aid in several places, including the local job center and office of Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes, whose administrative assistant, Rebecca Kajdan, was moved to intervene.
“In Kathryn’s case, Rebecca recognized their crisis immediately and asked if I thought the (Gulf Coast Community Foundation’s) Better Way to Give (BW2G) would be ideal to provide assistance while working to get the couple in contact with local nonprofits,” Hewes explains. “The goal was to help the Bakers achieve stability … .”
Better Way to Give, he adds, has a dual purpose of discouraging panhandling while urging the public to give to legitimate organizations. Funds are used to help those in immediate crisis meet short-term needs. The mayor’s office also connected the couple with the team at Open Doors Homeless Coalition, who helped them secure a place to live.
“The Bakers were not looking for a handout, just some help to get on their feet and make a new life,” Hewes says. “A little love goes a long way, and our coastal initiative is making measurable, incremental differences with people like Rebecca Kajdan leading the way.”
The couple also found advocates at Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, where Executive Director James Pennington says that sadly, such situations are all too common.
“It is not unusual to have 10 or more individuals (weekly or even more often) who disclose that they are newly unsheltered or new arrivals to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, finding themselves falling on difficult times,” he adds.
Soon after Back Bay became aware of the Bakers’ plight, staff got to work. The case manager and director of client services, in conjunction with Better Way to Give and Open Doors, devised a plan. Within a week, Baker’s husband had secured a job at IPL, a subcontractor of DuPont, and in May, they moved into an apartment in Vancleave.
“Katherine was very self-empowered and made sure to follow up with case management staff,” Pennington says. “She was a strong advocate for herself and her husband to access the services to find a home.”
‘A MILLION LITTLE THINGS’
Once the couple had a home, Back Bay came through again with a hope chest, which contained clothing and household items. Those donations were followed by a bed, a couch, kitchen items and other necessities.
“They actually had real solutions,” Baker says of those on the Coast who have helped her. “Every hurdle we had, there was something they could do.”
Those obstacles can be seemingly trivial matters most people take for granted or rarely think about, but which Baker knows can hold someone back. Those in her position, she adds, often are so overwhelmed that they don’t even know where to start.
“You can’t climb that ladder if you can’t even get your feet on that first step,” Baker says. “There were a whole lot of barriers that stopped us — little things that compound into bigger things. It was, you know, lunches for work and showers and tires and gas money. There are a million little things that keep you from helping yourself that once you get into that hole, you can’t get out.”
Over the summer Baker shared her experience at the Ground Zero Blues Club, where she spoke as an advocate for Better Way to Give.
“I hope in the future that there can be more of private funding or discretionary funding because everybody’s situation is different …,” Baker says. “Food and water and clothes are not the only things that people need. Those are life-sustaining things, but those aren’t necessarily life-building things.”
“This is the place that gave me a life; I got my opportunity to have a life here,” she says. “This is my home, and there’s a lot of people here that actually want to try to help.”
‘THIS IS MY HOME’
While the couple is in a much better position now, Baker still has plenty on her mind; the couple’s vehicle, which Marcus relies on to go to work, isn’t very reliable. Important paperwork was lost in the fire, so they’ve struggled to get the car registered. Similar challenges apply to getting medical treatment and medication.
Marcus works 12-to-15-hour shifts to make ends meet, which is crucial to keeping them off the street and on a good trajectory. Baker dreams of one day owning a home and being able to give back to the community that has given her so much.
“This is the place that gave me a life; I got my opportunity to have a life here,” she says. “This is my home, and there’s a lot of people here that actually want to try to help.”