ºìÐÓ¶ÌÊÓƵ

After years of homelessness and addiction, Tia Renner found sobriety, purpose and an unexpected path to law school, pursuing her dream to become a voice for others By Rachel Brumfield

It was a dark night on the Willamette River, just days after her 30th birthday. Tia Renner lay awake on the small sailboat that was her home and sobbed. She was a long way from believing in anything, but in that moment, she cried out to God, the universe or whatever higher power might be listening.

“I need a way out. Please help me find a way out. I cannot do this on my own.”

She had seen other people get sober and leave the streets, but her every attempt fell short. She was not enough of a priority demographic to land housing, and she could not piece together the stability to even think about long-term sobriety.

There was no answer to her desperate prayer that night, just the gentle lapping of water against the boat. But two months later when she learned she was pregnant, Renner knew she had her answer. This would be her way out.

‘I couldn’t name what was missing’

Renner’s college career had a promising start. A lifelong dancer specializing in contemporary ballet, she was accepted to CalArts, one of the top art schools in the nation, as a choreography and dance major. But in her very first semester she sustained a series of injuries. She pushed through for months until the toll proved more than her body could take.

And just like that, her future in dance was over.

“I spent my whole life preparing for this, and no matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t going to work out,” she says. “It just felt like this piece of me was gone. I couldn’t even move the same way I used to.”

“I had no desire to continue living, so everything I did was reckless. It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. That’s how drugs work. They make you think that you are isolated and alone.”

An underlying sense of depression took hold, and she could not shake it. She quit school and started working full time, juggling three jobs to keep her apartment.

“I couldn’t name what was missing, but there was a void in my life,” Renner says. “It was definitely the start of a downward spiral.”

What started as a temporary alleviation of depression through drugs and alcohol turned into over a decade of addiction. In the spring of 2012, she was arrested for the first time on a felony narcotics charge – an offense that would today be considered a misdemeanor for negligent possession, but at the time came at a steep cost.

“That is what really solidified my journey into drugs,” she says. “I lost my apartment. I lost everything.”

For nearly the next decade, Renner struggled with homelessness and drug addiction.

“I was so depressed, so lost and aimless. I had no desire to continue living, so everything I did was reckless,” she says. “It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. That’s how drugs work. They make you think that you are isolated and alone and that’s what you deserve.”

Renner alternated between living on her sailboat and under the I-5 Bridge in Portland, deeply involved in the lifestyle of drugs and utterly without hope.

“I thought I had hit the point of no return, that there was no coming back from the life I was living,” she says.

‘Here’s a life that depends on you’

And then she found out she was pregnant.

Looking back, Renner can see clearly it was God’s answer to her prayer on the boat that night.

To her ears, he was saying, “Here’s a way out. You wanted something that’s more than you? Here’s a life that depends on you. Everything you do will affect it.”

Change didn’t come overnight, but she began to make choices to benefit the life she carried: attending doctor’s appointments, taking prenatals, stringing together days of sobriety. Her parents took her in, and with a roof over her head, sobriety finally stuck.

“My daughter, Isadora, was born, and it was the most life-changing experience I’ve ever had,” she says. “I’ve never looked back.”

Having a newborn and being in the early days of sobriety was challenging, but Renner knew she was on the right path. After living for herself alone for 31 years, it felt good to live her life for someone else. “She is the driving force in everything that I do,” she says. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her existence.”

‘The person I used to be is not me any longer’

Just before her daughter turned 2, Renner decided to try going to church. She was living the life of recovery, but she felt unfulfilled and isolated.

“I didn’t really have a lot of goals,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. All I could talk about were traumatic experiences and I was afraid people would judge me.”

She told herself that her daughter needed socialization, so they visited Evergreen Christian Center in Hillsboro, Oregon, where Renner had gone to middle school youth group. The first Sunday she attended, the church was promoting Alpha courses, which are discussion-based sessions that help people explore the basics of Christian faith.

“I went to Alpha with the intention to give people a run for their money,” she says. “I was not ready to be a believer. I still had some anger about what had happened in my life.”

She asked hard questions and the people there shared honest answers about their faith and experiences. They were open about their moments of truth and how they came to God. And for the first time, Renner connected her dark night, crying for a way out, with God’s answer of pregnancy and a path to a new life.

“I cried hard in front of these people I barely knew,” she recalls. “I knew right then that as much as I thought I was walking alone, God had always been there. I made it through these experiences and times I should have died because God was there. The divine timing and protection was always there.”

She was asked to help facilitate the next round of Alpha, and began to build connections and feel at home at the church. A few months later, she chose to be baptized, a physical reminder that the shame and guilt she carried were forgiven and that, in Christ, she had been released of that weight.

“The person I used to be is not me any longer,” she says. “Not that those things haven’t made me who I am, but I don’t have to live there anymore.

“I have this complete sense of peace that God is going to use every aspect of my life for his will, and I’m totally OK with that. If there’s anything I know about my life, it’s that I’m not good at making the decisions. I try to leave them up to God and let him open the doors that he wants me to walk through.”

‘You should think about going to law school’

Renner started taking community college courses. She didn’t have much confidence starting school, but she found she liked learning and earned good grades. Instructors in both her political science and paralegal courses took notice of her work and encouraged her to consider law school.

She knew she wanted to make an impact on public policy and help bridge the gaps she experienced living on the streets. The more she researched, the more it became clear that she needed to become a lawyer to affect broader systems.

Renner visits campus with her daughter Isadora.

“I want to make an impact and inform policy,” she says. “I want people to ask me about my experience and for that to play a part in how we look at things. But I need the credentials to back that up.”

That’s when she heard about ºìÐÓ¶ÌÊÓƵ Fox’s Accelerated Online Degree program. She needed a bachelor’s degree to apply for law school, so she enrolled in the online psychology and mental health studies program.

“I could have chosen a different degree for law, but I’m really glad I chose psychology,” she says. “It built me in a way that I wasn’t prepared for, but I absolutely needed. It helped me understand my trauma and the roots of my shame and to create a coherent narrative of my life events.”

In December, Renner received two important pieces of paper: a diploma from ºìÐÓ¶ÌÊÓƵ Fox University and an acceptance letter to Willamette University School of Law.

‘We do recover, and that’s something I live by’

A few weeks after graduation, Renner went back to visit her old camp under the I-5 Bridge. She walked through the places that were once familiar and marveled at how much has changed for her. She lives inside with running water and a refrigerator. She has a healthy, thriving 4-year-old and a college degree. And yet, the reality for so many remains the same.

“It’s sad to see people that you know and care about still out there,” she says. “I can see there are two times as many tents as there were when I lived there five years ago, and that’s scary.”

Renner hopes that, with a law degree, she can serve people directly as a public defense attorney, while using her education and experience to advocate for broader changes that will help others find their way out.

For the past couple of years, Renner has volunteered with Washington County’s Project Homeless Connect. She helped develop its peer support program and works at the access center, where she helps people fill out job applications, find primary care physicians and sign up for medical assistance.

“A huge part of what I do is just building connections with people so that they’re more consistent in coming back to check in with us,” she says. “If they know a face and that someone is going to be there who is interested and cares about their existence, it makes their behavior repeatable, which helps us serve them better.”

Renner knows that housing is key to recovery. She saw firsthand how a lack of housing and rehabilitation support contribute to cycles of addiction and recidivism.

“When you combine lived experience with education, it puts you in a unique position of empowerment,” she says. “We need to rehumanize people who make mistakes.”

Renner hopes that, with a law degree, she can serve people directly as a public defense attorney, while using her education and experience to advocate for broader changes – like better rehabilitation support within the justice system – that will help others find their way out.

“We do recover, and that’s something I live by,” she says. “If people are given the right support systems, they can recover. It takes people who care about the outcome, and that’s my goal.”