A gender fluid artist has revealed how he escaped homelessness by joining a lawless community populated by murderers, criminals and rapists in an eye-opening episode of New Lives in the Wild.
DNA, 49, moved to a community named Slab City in the Sonoran Desert near San Diego, four years ago, after years of living on the street, which is illegal in California and got him in trouble with the law several times.
In Slab City, where his sister Tomara recommended he moved to, he’s found a space to call his own where he can relax – but he remains angry at the justice system that cost him ‘to lose everything’, over ‘a few seconds of bad judgment’ that got him sent to jail in the 1990s.
Speaking to Ben Fogle in tonight’s show, which airs at 9pm, DNA told Ben that he likes to mimic women and to wear dresses and makeup, and feels more respected in the community of outsiders he calls home than in the outside world.
DNA, 49, moved to a community named Slab City in the Sonoran Desert near San Diego, four years ago, after years of living on the street, which is illegal in California and got him in trouble with the law several times
Ben first met DNA while filming a documentary on Slab City that aired in April last year.
He was struck by the artist’s unusual lifestyle and his resourcefulness, as well as his way of approaching gender fluidity.
DNA lives in a home made of tents, bags and other items he’s collected over the years on the outskirts of Slab City.
Since 1961, Slab City has been renounced by the government of California and has become a refuge for drifters, many struggling with addiction or hiding from the law over various crimes, dubbing itself ‘the last free place in America.’
Ben Fogle hears how DNA made a place for himself in the community in spite of the murderers and criminals who also live in the desert
Slab City does not have running water, a rubbish collection plan or a sewer system, and its inhabitants have used abandoned cars and upcycled rubbish to create their camps and the few businesses you can find there.
DNA, whose birth name is not revealed on the show, grew up in San Diego, never quite fitting in with the modern world.
He held down several jobs, including window cleaner and construction worker, but he always struggled with authority.
In the 1990s, he was jailed for taking his mother’s car without permission, which sent him into a vicious circle of homelessness and lawlessness.
After years of being in and out of jail, losing his home and belongings several times, DNA moved to Slab City after his sister suggested it might be a good place for him, where he could live without having to worry about the police.
While his makeshift home is constantly threatened by sand storms, and even though temperatures can rise up to 50 degrees in the summer, DNA said he loves his lives in the community.
‘You just basically find a place you like, ask people around, if nobody cares, you just start cleaning the place around and making it yours,’ he told Ben.
‘There’s nobody telling you no, you’re good to go,’ he added.
Before moving to the community, DNA would spend his time between the streets and jail.
‘My sister found this place for me when I was down in San Diego,’ he told Ben.
He claimed he was ‘harassed’ by the police for being homeless, adding: ‘Once you’re in the street, it’s hard to get up.
‘She said it was a place you could go and the government wouldn’t harass me here,’ he recounted.
At first, DNA didn’t want to hear about Slab City, but his sister insisted, and he eventually relented, taking his few belongings with him
‘I came with a back pack, a bunch of clothes, a sleeping bag and some sort of mattress and pillows or something. I don’t really remember, but it wasn’t much,’ he said.
‘I camped out there one night and then I went “yeah, I could get used to this”.
‘Cause the people were all nice, they were open, it just worked out, clicked, I got to know people so I told my sister “yeah, I’ll stay”,’ he added.
In spite of the fact the community is populated by criminals and murderers, DNA said he’s never feared for himself here.
The presenter said he believes the community is DNA’s ‘last chance’ and has helped him rehabilitate after years spent in and out of jail
‘I’ve never been afraid here. Actually, when I first got here, maybe, a little bit afraid somebody was going to steal my stuff,’ he admitted.
‘A mindset of a new person coming into town might be “what could potentially be here”?
‘Cause they hear all kinds of rumours and some of the are true, very much so,’ he added.
‘I haven’t been really messed up with that much at all, it seems like a lot of people respect me, and I’m very appreciate of that, but I don’t know how I got that way,’ he said, adding: ‘it makes you feel wanted, makes you feel loved.
One aspect of DNA’s life in Slab City is his taste for female clothing and makeup.
Before moving to the community, DNA would spend his time between the streets and jail. He’s been able to relax within the community
The artist starts his day by doing a full face of makeup and carefully selected the clothes he wants to wear, changing outfits several times a day.
‘Nobody ever taught me, I had this one girlfriend that taught me how to do my eyebrows but I don’t think I listened to her,’ he told Ben while applying foundation.
‘People often gift me makeup, nobody taught me wigs either, I like it but, I don’t know how to handle it or keep it in good shape,’ he said of a blonde wig he put on in front of Ben while filming.
Speaking of the feminine clothes he likes to wear, DNA said: ‘I tried it when I was quite young and then I didn’t do it for some time and then I came out.
‘It was dark in the closet, I couldn’t see what I was wearing.
DNA admitted he is still angry at the ‘messed up’ system that saw him losing everything and ending up on the street
‘So I came out of the closet and I was wearing girls’ clothes.’
While Ben remarked the phrase ‘coming out’ made it sound like DNA could be gay, the artist said he wasn’t.
‘I’m not attracted to men, I like the female, I like them quite much, but I do like to mimic them,’ he said.
He added that to him, Slab City is a place where ‘you can be anything you want to be.’
Ben said in an aside to the camera that he felt the community was ‘the last chance for DNA,’ but added ‘it’s very tenuous, no one owns the land, no taxes are paid, boundaries change. Rules change here if indeed there are rules.
At first, DNA didn’t want to hear about Slab City, but his sister insisted, and he eventually relented, taking his few belongings with him
‘He has found this amazing opportunity but it seems to be there is still great vulnerability to living here,’ the presenter added.
While he is considered a pillar of the Slab City community and is known to help residents around, his life before the community was punctuated by journeys to jail.
He told Ben he’s been arrested over 30 times in his life and still resents the system for putting him on the streets.
‘How can they judge someone in a courtroom if they don’t know you?’ he asked Ben.
‘They sentence them over time that was just a few seconds of bad judgement or maybe even not bad judgement, maybe just an accusation that attaches itself to you because of your record,’ he added.
‘When you lose, for a couple of months, when you lose everything like that, you don’t have any income.
The artist has been living in the desert for four years, and said he feels accepted by the community
‘So you’re renting on your house, you’re renting your storage unit, your apartment, whatever, you lose all that,’ he said.
‘And you got to start with the clothes on your back most of the time. Unless you got somebody out there, family, holding on to your stuff for you and paying our bills, you lose it all.
‘I’ve been put to the streets dozens of time, every time I got arrested. I started over every time.
‘And they would hold you there just long enough to break you too,’ he said.
‘And then they let you go. I didn’t catch all the charges they gave me, but I’d sit there and have to write it out, and I’d lose everything so I would get penalised anyway,’ he told Ben.
‘It’s a messed up system,’ he added.
The artist also revealed how he would feel judged by the wider society for being homeless, even through ‘subconscious judgment.’
‘Think about how often you’ve seen a beggar on the streets and thought, “What’s that guy crawling out of? Look at him, I see him here every day”,’ he told Ben.
‘I understand both sides of the picture but I’ve also become aware… I have compassion for that guy now, because I’ve been there, I haven’t fully got out of there in certain ways,’ he added.
‘I don’t want to be on that other side with all the other people going “look at that guy.” I would never want to be there again. Because you don’t know what that person’s been through,’ he added, tearing up.
Ben said he felt Slab City had been a space of ‘rehabilitation’ for DNA, even though the presenter could still see the artist’s anger’s bulling through the surface.
While the show was filming, DNA went on a visit from his sister Tomara, who suggested to him to move to Slab City four years ago, and whom he hadn’t seen in three years.
‘He’s always been the more emotional, sensitive one,’ she told Ben, with DNA admitting: ‘People read me wrong a lot of times.’
Tomara told Ben that her brother was ‘very, very angry,’ when he first came out of jail.
‘He had to let it out, I guess I was a safe person to talk to, understandably so, they’re not helpful in rehabilitating people,’ she said of the authorities.
‘In my opinion, I’ve really changed what I feel about the prison system, I definitely think it needs to be reformed,’ she added.
During a conversation Ben and Tomara had without DNA present, she told the presenter she thinks her brother is happy in Slab City.
‘It’s nice to think about and see him finally happy, and not struggling for daily survival,’ she said.
‘When he was homeless that was the thing. Every day was about finding food, and you didn’t have time, or barely, to look for a job, or anything else besides just survive,’ she added.
‘And so now he has a set up, a place to sleep every night, he doesn’t have to worry about cops.
‘I think you can relax and really sleep when you’re in your own place,’ she added.
She also told Ben that DNA had struggled with his mental health to the point of feeling suicidal in the past.
‘For a long while he really was not happy with being alive, really struggled with it,’ she said.
‘I tried to talk him out of it so many ways or tried to get help for him, I was really worried about him,’
But she told Ben she has realised: ‘There is nothing I can do besides showing him that I love him and I do care and other family members, that’s what we’ve been focusing on,’ she said.
She added that the family are able to keep in touch with DNA through phone, and that he’s able to reach out to all his family when he wants to.
‘In a crazy way, I brag abut my crazy brother,’ she said, immediately adding: ‘I shouldn’t have said that, I don’t mean it that way.
‘He is an interesting person, he is a very smart person and has a lot to give.’
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 5.
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