Mark Rendon: Making progress despite being frustrated by the systems

Born in Kennewick, Washington 63 years ago, Mark Rendon moved to Lacey when he was five years old.

“I had a good upbringing,” he began.  “My dad was an auto mechanic, and my mother was a homemaker.”

He graduated from North Thurston High School in 1978, and a couple of years later he moved to Renton Highlands to work at a McDonalds where he soon became an assistant manager.

“It was exciting to be 19 years old and managing a store,” he continued.  Over the next 15 years, he opened stores, managed stores, and in time became a facilities manager.

“I oversaw three stores and worked to save whatever money I could for the owner by doing hands-on repairs,” Rendon continued.  “I took classes, studied hard and learned to repair all of the equipment.”

After considering working for Boeing, Rendon took a job at Starbucks in 1994.  “They needed a service technician in the field, so I had a company truck and I serviced multiple stores,” he explained. At the time, there were more than 200 Starbucks stores in Seattle.

He went on to say that he worked as a field technician for five years before being asked to work at the company’s corporate headquarters.  For the next half decade Rendon made sure that everything in the building was taken care of.

“I did everything from take care of the kitchens and water filtration systems to work with vendors and the landlord of the building,” he explained.

“I took care of everyone from executives to cleaning and paint crews, to vendors and the landlord.  It was all about customer service, and I really loved that job.”

When asked why he no longer had the job, Rendon answered, “I should still be there.”  Those five words were the beginning of his decision to become homeless.

The move from housed to unhoused began over questions about his use of a company credit card.  After an investigation by the corporation’s asset protection office, Rendon said he was cleared of any wrong-doing; however, his manager decided to let him go.

“I had done nothing wrong; it was clear that I had acted honestly,” he explained.  “I took what happened very hard and began to suffer from depression.”

Disillusioned with the corporate world and needing a job, Rendon went to work in 2003 as a warehouse worker for Grainger, the industrial supply vendor.

“I was fine with just being a worker bee,” he recalled.  “Of the 13 years I worked there, half of them I were in a job I didn’t like.”

Rendon explained that he didn’t like the unequal treatment of employees that company officials engaged in.  “My experiences at McDonalds and Starbucks were about procedures and setting your employees up for success,” he said, “but this place had none of those values.”

In 2016 he made the decision to leave and live in his motor home.  “I wasn’t scared of being homeless. I wasn’t wanting people to feel sorry for me; to me it was a decision.”

For the next year, he stayed in the driveway of a friend’s house near St. Martins University.  While there he worked at odd jobs to stay busy.  In early 2018 he moved to Huntamer Park in Lacey.  Rendon explained that he kept the area around his mobile home clean and that he did not use drugs or alcohol.

“But the Lacey police were pushy,” he said.  “They would tell me that I should ‘stay out of our city – just go over to Hobby Lobby because that’s in Olympia.’”

With those words in mind Rendon relocated to Ensign Road in 2019, where he soon became a friend to some of the homeless who lived there.

“I had transportation, so I would take some of them to do their laundry, to go shopping or to the hospital,” he continued.   “I also went to counseling; I dealt with my anger issues; and I got back on my anti-depressants.”

But he also grew impatient with how Olympia city staff seemed to view him as being just like all the other homeless they dealt with. “There is no need to treat everyone the same way,” he stated.

Rendon’s sense of frustration was compounded when city officials told the homeless living on Ensign Road to move out.

“One day in 2022 I was told that the city had no plan to house me and that I had to leave,” continued Rendon.  “We were also told that if we parked in Olympia and were cited three times for doing so our homes would be towed.”

To avoid this, he managed to secure housing in the Quince Street Village and remained there for seven months before moving to the Plum Street Village, where he currently resides.  Catholic Community Services manages the former site; the Low Income Housing Initiative manages the latter.

“I left my motor home and got into the Quince Village, where I got some help with HUD and Section 8 funds,” Rendon said, “but I’m not impressed with the case manager at the Plum Street Village.”

When asked to elaborate, Rendon said that while the staff have “good hearts,” there does not seem to be much progress in helping the homeless find housing.

He related how he had met with a case manager about finding an apartment, only to be let down.  “The case manager asked if I wanted to look at an apartment on a recent Wednesday morning,” continued Rendon “and I told him I was ready to go.”

But the manager never showed up, and he did not show up on Thursday.

When Rendon questioned why the manager had stood him up, he was told by the manager that he could only spend one hour a week with the Plum Street Village residents and that Rendon’s hour had been used up.

“I wouldn’t play that game,” Rendon flatly stated.  “Some of the people here to help us wind up just wasting my time, and money.”

Despite what he has faced, Rendon remains optimistic.

“Many of the homeless have suffered traumatic events in their lives, so those who want to help need to take baby steps with them,” he concluded.  “Throwing money at the problem doesn’t help; offering people like myself a job, even a volunteer position, is a good place to start.”