After being homeless for two years, she returned to reporting, covering those experiencing economic hardships.
She later returned to the media, calling on her experiences to cover the continuing homelessness crisis.
Lori Teresa Yearwood, a journalist who returned to reporting after an excruciating spiral into two years of homelessness, died on Sept. 17 at her home in Salt Lake City. Her death, which was in hospice care, was caused by ovarian cancer, said Sherry Long, a close friend. She referred to herself as a 'trauma-informed journalist'. In a phone interview, Wallis said, ''I know there's going to be a fight,'' and that he is not going to be removed from the job.
Before she covered others' stories, Ms. Yearwood wrote about herself. In fact, it was a slow-motion fall, one she couldn't see coming. It took 14 years, and it started with her decision to leave The Miami Herald in 2000, where she had been a reporter for seven years.
She started a nonprofit to assist low-income children, but it did not make enough money to pay its staff. She moved to Oregon, where she raised horses. While there, she created a company that made sugar-free treats for horses. After living in a small carpentry shed on her mother's property for five years, she moved to a cottage that burned down two weeks after she moved in. Her mother died. She was evicted from her next residence. She moved to Salt Lake City, but her stay ended when she was unable to pay for her room.
She stayed in and out of shelters from late 2014 to early 2017 and slept on the street. She was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a man who worked for a homeless outreach center, where Ms. Yearwood collected her daily hygiene kit. 28 March 2018, she was convicted of public lewdness after bathing naked in a river, she said she couldn't tolerate cleaning herself in a shelter's shower stalls, which were littered with tampons and used toilet paper. She was placed in a psychiatric ward of a hospital for 'bizarre behavior,' which led to diagnoses of bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, and she was forcibly medicated. She had a largely mute life until then, and the multiple traumas made her largely mute. She recovered with help from a pastor at Salt Lake City Mission and from Journey of Hope, a nonprofit organization that helps harmed women start new lives.
A lot of our women are getting assaulted, Ms. Miller-Cox said, then Ms. Yearwood told her, Honey, you're going to write again. And you're going to be powerful. Lori Teresa Yearwood was born in Denver on Sept. 22, 1965, and raised in the suburbs of Palo Alto, California. Her father, Vernon Yearwood-Drayton, was a Panamanian immigrant who worked at NASA's Ames Research Center as a microbiologist. Marlene Yearwood, her mother, was an administrative assistant at Stanford University. She was a reporter for The Herald, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Syracuse Post-Standard and The Fresno Bee. She also wrote some articles for Tropic, The Herald's Sunday magazine.
Tropic's former editor, Tom Shroder, said in a phone interview. After her homelessness stopped and she found a job, her talent re-emerged. She was a cashier at Salt Lake City's Whole Foods Market, earning $11 an hour, as a grant writer for Journey of Hope and as an assistant program director at a refugee center. He contacted Mr. Shroder, who had been following her on Facebook. You have an amazing story, Mr. Shroder said.