Myra Sue's Biography

Hi, my name is Myra Sue St. Clair Baldwin. I’m 45 and have been living here in Spokane, Washington for most of my life. I became homeless in early 2016 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia shortly after becoming homeless. I’m in housing now and currently stable, and have started a blog to write about my religious and political views, as well as to share my personal story about going through what I thought was a real spy operation. I thought I was at high risk for a real spy operation for a number of reasons, which are partially addressed in my first essay on the “Privacy Invasion Stunt” and will be further addressed in my upcoming essays about the “spy operation” or schizophrenic episode.  I used to own a short-lived bookstore on Monroe Street called “Myra Sue’s New and Used Books & Things” which some people called an “anarchist bookstore”. I also wrote some articles for the SFCC Communicator when I was a student there, and later for the underground Spokane zine named “The Finger” which had a small circulation of 2500 per issue. I helped out with Spokane Food Not Bombs for a while. I completed my Bachelor’s degree at E.W.U. where I performed in the Vagina Monologues and organized a peace rally. I also was a Spokane Radical Cheerleader for a while. After college, I spent a few months of doing call center work & filing before working in Service-Learning at SCC as an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer living on a small stipend, and I also started volunteering at One World Café in Spokane. Later I assisted with event coordination for sustainability-related events at the SCC Hagan Foundation Center for Humanities. I left my job due to severe pain and fatigue in 2010, and was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and underlying depression. In the summer of 2015, I was living rent free in the apartment complex above the local shop Boo Radleys when I started hearing voices and thought others were spying on me. I also had a hoarding problem and lost my home in early 2016. After losing my home, I sometimes stayed with my parents out in the country and sometimes stayed at the downtown women’s shelter. Although I had been terrified at the idea of losing my home, I turned it into an opportunity to play pretend at being an anthropologist and investigative journalist – someone with the inside scoop on homelessness.